http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/framework-103111.html
Reading LC's statement (see URL above) on plans for future
bibliographic control, led to some interesting offlist correspondence.
I've received permission from the authors, Michael Gorman, Hal Cain,
and Bernhard Eversberg, to post their comments. Bernhard plans to
expand on his comments and post them on RDA-l, so most of his comments
are removed from the version posted here.
I think "American Libraries" editors should approach Bernhard for an op
ed piece, similar to Michael's earlier one on RDA.
I said:
Looking at these links, I see very little in the way of actual
proposals, just lots of generalities. Am I missing something?
Hal Cain wrote:
I haven't studied the statement closely. At a hasty reading, there
didn't seem to be much that required serious attention.
I doubt LC has many remaining staff in the data management area who
are competent to contribute to creating a new medium of recording and
exchanging bibliographic data. I suspect Rebecca Guenther's retirement
was strategic: "I don't want to be mixed up in this mess!" but I could
of course be wrong. I have no contacts remaining inside LC, since Tony
Franks has opted to go away in search of peace.
That leaves the enterprise prey to consultants. Alternatively it may
be outsourced to OCLC. I wonder where they think they'll get grants?
The likely outcome, as I see it, is that there will be an outline
scheme, with a rudimentary crosswalk to MARC 21 (OCLC are good at that
kind of thing, and will have to be on the inside anyway because LC
cataloguing couldn't survive without OCLC) but there will be no
consensus about its value and usefulness, by NLM and NAL.
I remain totally bemused by the blind pursuit of two conflicting
goals: more simplicity (BIBCO "standard record" schemes) vs.
complexity (RDA detail and the structure of the code).
Michael, I'm a fan of your "Concise AACR2" code. I wish RDA had been
written (if it was truly needed, of which I'm still not completely
convinced) in that style, with application manuals for particular
types of resources.
[snip]
Michael Gorman wrote:
This begins with a gaseous piece of nonsense: "[MARC is] based on
forty-year-old techniques for data management and is out of step with
programming styles of today", and gets worse. They want to change
for change's sake but have no idea what to do. What we can be assured
of is that the result will be worse and the slide toward
bibliographic chaos accelerated.
MARC is a framework standard that defines bibliographic elements
precisely. RDA and metadata (faux) standards such as the Dublin Core
(a pathetically inadequate subset of MARC) will ensure that the
content standards will be worse than before, so perhaps they deserve
a less precise framework standard .
Bernhard Eversberg said in response to Michael's comments above:
A harsh verdict, and it doesn't come from just somebody. This view
needs to get out in the open. It borders on an "emperor's new clothes"
situation.
Michael Gorman added:
I thought I should expand a little on my testy reply of yesterday (though
I meant every word of it).
MARC consists of sequential denominators of elements of access points and
bibliographic descriptions (plus some too-little used codes). Those
denominators identify a wide range of real world bibliographic conditions
precisely (i.e., a particular combination of tag and code will specify
exactly what that condition is and, by implication, what it is not) but
does not dictate how that condition is expressed (hence the reason why the
term "MARC cataloguing" is a nonsense--the cataloguing defines what goes
into MARC, not the nature of MARC--the framework that contains and defines
the data). That being so, we should ask:
1. Will the replacement for MARC have (a) the same level of precision,
(b) more precision, or (c) less? And why?
2. MARC is defined by numeric tags and alphabetic codes, what is t o
replace them? Why?
3. My understanding is that vendors have based the programming for their
library systems on MARC. How are they to migrate from MARC to non-MARC.
If the answer to 1., above, is a, the transition would be easy but what's
the point? If it is b or c, the transition would require a massive effort
that would not, I would have thought, be cost beneficial.
English speakers call dried plums "prunes." If it is decreed that, as
of January 1st, we call them "ghiwibels" and "ghiwibel" means 'prune' we
have gained nothing but suffered inconvenience. If "ghiwibel" means either
'dried fruit' or 'fruit with a stone in it,' we have lost definition (the
language being poorer) and suffered inconvenience.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
