27.10.2011 19:09, James Weinheimer:
On 27/10/2011 17:42, J. McRee Elrod wrote: <snip>
Why not enter, for example, "[s.n]" as a code in 260$b, and have
systems display "[publisher not identified]", "[editeur non
identified]", "[Verlag nicht identifiziert]", "[chuban shang
meiyou queding]", etc., based on 040$b?
...
The main requirement for this kind of scripting is that the
information is consistent. In these cases, 260$b[s.n.], 245$c ... [et
al.] and other terms have been entered very consistently for a very
long time, so scripting would be pretty easy. Even I could do it.
This is one tiny aspect of the much wider issue of what our future
format is going to be like. LC have made it clear that RDA
implementation will come not before 2013 AND only after these
conditions have been met (among others):
A. Demonstrate credible progress towards a replacement for MARC.
B. Solicit demonstrations of prototype input and discovery systems (!)
that use the RDA element set (including relationships).
MARC, up until now, has been a storage and communication standard *as
well as* a data input format. So this will have to change, finally.
A. being a stiff one, B. might be even harder to meet. Right now, if
I'm not mistaken, there is not even a requirements list for those tasks.
I see two big issues here (among many more lesser ones) that should not
be taken too lightly:
1. MARC as input standard has made sure that it was (more or less) the
same everywhere. Someone trained at X could go to work at Y
immediately without a lot of retraining.
2. Dealing with raw data at the person-machine interface of data
input has at least two advantages:
-- Directness: What you see is what you get, no layers of
transformation and interpretation between you and the data.
-- Ease of human communication: The format became the very language
of catalogers' talk about the data; precise, succinct,
unambiguous, international (numbers, not words!). Just listen
in on any AUTOCAT discussion.
For all the flaws of MARC, these are great advantages.
Considering what modern systems can do, there could be any number of
highly convenient but widely different input systems. As soon as two
different ones are adopted at X and Y, points 1. and 2. are both lost.
And then, modern input systems will evolve, they will change over
time, get refined, modified, replaced by new designs. What will that
mean for the productivity of the cataloging workforce? And how are
they going to talk on AUTOCAT, for instance?
B.Eversberg
