11.01.2012 21:14, Gene Fieg:
Somewhere in this thread, there was statement FRBR and RDA, whose English was muddy, to say the least. One of the most important things that can be done to RDA is to rewrite it--in the understanding that a sentence should be subject, verb, object. As it stands now, who knows what anything means and we end up with constant interpretations of muddy language.
The rewriting will be an interesting exercise. Chris Oliver should be on it right now, and will hopefully report on the experience afterwards. The language is strongly influenced by database technicians' manners of speaking. One must of course get those people to better understand the nuts and bolts of our craft, so it might be no bad idea to keep the current version as one of eventually several (or as the publishers will hope, many) language versions. On paper, the RDA text suffers from reduncancy which results from the attempt to make every paragraph understandable when displayed alone, outside its context. The term they are using is, I think, "rewording", not "rewriting", and that will mean that the arrangement of chapter and verse will remain exactly as it is. Thinking of said redundancy, the task will not become easier because of that, but without that restriction, the whole thing might spin out of control and into utter confusion. No matter, however, how excellent Ms Oliver's product will turn out, the major roadblock on RDA's way to success will remain its closedness as a subscription product. So, under the circumstances given, how big is the chance of RDA succeeding anyway? I think the MRI business of Mac and Michal Gorman, together with the Open Cataloging Rules approach of Jim Weinheimer, have all the potential to lead into a future for cataloging that is both affordable and sustainable, open for more, inviting for collaboration across borders, and down to earth. The "circumstances given" will not change significantly, I think, before there is a new data model plus codification in a manageable, learnable, implementable, and efficient MARC replacement. Under the present circumstances, RDA implementation - if not going way beyond the test data! - could hardly justify the expense. B.Eversberg
