-----Original Message----- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Kevin M. Randall Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 11:17 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] FRBR
James Weinheimer wrote: > I don't think I am missing the point of RDA, and the abbreviations are > a great example. Do we really believe that a simple rule change will "solve" > whatever "problems" the public supposedly has with abbreviations in > the catalog? Sorry, but I find that very naive. Did you read the rest of my post? This response shows that you still do not understand at all. The "simple rule changes" are *NOT* the changes that are significant in RDA. What is significant and has great potential is the entire concept behind RDA, creating a framework that brings metadata into the current age of information technology. When work was first begun on AACR3, the problem was that it was essentially just another revision of AACR2. If you look at the Dec. 2004 draft today, it hardly looks any different from AACR2! That draft got a *huge* negative response, and it soon became apparent that the entire thing needed to be completely re-thought. If we had ended up getting AACR3, it would have been just a rewrite of AACR2, incorporating the kinds of little changes that Jim has been citing. It would have taken us nowhere. I think what the Committee of Principals and the Joint Steering Committee ended up doing was very brave (they have received a lot of criticism through the years, including from yours truly). AACR3 was totally thrown out, and replaced with a whole new concept. While I still see large problems with the Toolkit functionality, language of the guidelines, and distribution model for RDA, I have to admit that the JSC really got it right with the foundation, the idea of uniquely identifying each part of the description, each of the relationships. The things like abbreviations, or having "other title information" be required or not, can be changed back and forth by the JSC at any time and not have any significant impact on what RDA is and is all about. Having a list of elements and relationships, and guidelines for determining the values of those elements and relationships, is the essence of RDA and is what will enable us to have much more powerful metadata. It's only one part of what we need; we also need carriers to store the metadata and systems to manipulate it, but now we at least have the important first step, which is identifying all of the pieces of metadata. -------- I respond: I think the frustration many of us feel is seeing the great potential of RDA, seeing how poorly it fits with our present bibliographic data management systems, and not seeing how we can bridge the gap and create that better fit. What we urgently need are people who speak both the language of programmers and the language of librarians. I've been trying to fill some of the gaps in my own knowledge, but so far I have only succeeded in convincing myself that I'm utterly ignorant. Before building those new systems, and perhaps as an essential prerequisite to it, we need to change the way we think about collecting metadata. I am delighted that I am a continuing resources cataloger, because I think that gives me a leg up on making the conceptual shift between thinking about records as complete, finite aggregations of data about a bounded entity to thinking of discrete pieces of information linked by relationships. Creation and maintenance of dynamic bibliographic records from which data is added or subtracted as needed with the fullest possible documentation of linking relationships has been the defining feature of continuing resources cataloging for quite some time. Until the catalogers of other types of resources start thinking, as serials catalogers do, that no records ever completely finished and that discerning the relationships between the resource being described as an essential part of creating and maintaining effective and useful bibliographic data. Let the record show that Kevin and I agree. Naomi Young Principal Serials Cataloger, Smathers Libraries University of Florida na...@uflib.ufl.edu
