Friday, September 29, 2006, 8:44:35 AM, you wrote:
BI> It would be best to codify these rulings into guidebooks, offering these
BI> to librarians for regular reference. It would also be taught in library
BI> schools, thereby ensuring compliance into the future. Of course, as
BI> time progresses and more interpretations change, additional editions of
BI> this guide will need to be published.
BI> ...Oh wait. We've already been doing this for the past 40 years or so.
BI> AACR, DRM? ALA, CLA, IFLA? Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Sure sounds familiar to me. And it goes waaaayyyy back more than 40
years for ALA cataloging rules, etc.
But what is consistency. What is foolish consistency?
Remember, Emerson said: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds in his essay Self-reliance. However, he didn't
distinguish between what is consistency and what is foolish
consistency.
And it is obvious that there's no agreement on how to distinguish the
two on this list. I took classes at U of Chicago four decades ago on
machine translation. At that time it was little more than a pipe
dream and a bunch of programming exercises. But, using the google
translator and others is far from perfect, but is good enough for many
purposes. It seems that we should be working in that same direction
to have cataloging automated, or not requiring human intervention to
the degree it is now.
Do I have an answer? No. But I believe that we're barking up the
wrong tree if we'r just going to try to sit around and contemplate how
to improve existing rules and such.
Now IF some want to do the diddling with current rules and procedures,
fine. But meanwhile, others need to be off in different directions.
dan
--
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan_at_RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com The Road Goes On Forever....
Received on Mon Oct 02 2006 - 22:11:24 EDT