On 12/01/2012 12:12, Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
<snip>
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.
</snip>
And this expense comes at a highly critical time. I am still in a state
of shock about the finding of poverty in the United States!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57343397/census-data-half-of-u.s-poor-or-low-income/
In such a climate, I think we can all safely assume that finding
additional money for libraries will probably take a back seat to more
vital concerns for quite a long time.
There is currently a very interesting email discussion going on, on the
alcts-eforum list, talking about "The Incredible Shrinking Cataloging
Department," where people are talking about how they are dealing with
less staff for more work. On the bright side, there does appear to be
some hiring, and replacement of cataloging staff is going on, but the
major trend seems to be outsourcing through shelf-ready copy. One
interesting observation was that when a cataloger leaves or retires, in
many libraries there is not the previous automatic response to replace
the position, but to reconsider what are the needs of the library as a
whole. Also, there appears to be an increase in the use of students,
when possible.
Naturally, the new data models and methods and rules should be tested
(should have been long ago) to discover if they meet the needs of the
*public* better than what we have now. Still haven't seen it, but I
won't bore everyone with going over that ground again.
--
*James Weinheimer* weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com
*First Thus* http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
*Cooperative Cataloging Rules*
http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
