Eric, this sounds interesting. Wish I knew more about XML. You're
right about the punctuation; that was created when records were then
printed on cards.
Elise
Elise T. Zappas
Humanities Cataloger &
Automation Librarian
Drew University Library
Madison, NJ 07940
973-408-3667
ezappas_at_drew.edu
>>> Eric Lease Morgan <emorgan_at_ND.EDU> 9/29/2006 2:56 PM >>>
The problem with MARC is two-fold:
1. MARC is an antiquated sequential data structure - Designed for
reel-to-reel tape and before relational databases invented, there are
too few tools and too few communities who know how to read and write
MARC records to make MARC viable in today's computing environment.
XML is much better choice.
2. The content of MARC records is not prescriptive enough - Dates
need to consistently structured. Names need to be consistently
structured. Things need to be defined in single locations,
consistently applied, and made unambiguous. A resulting MARC record
should be readable by (smart) humans as well as (dumb) computers.
There is too much syntactical sugar in AACR 2. Period here. Dash dash
there. Slash in this place. Parenthesis surrounding birth and death
dates in another place. All of these things can be much easily be
encoded using XML elements or attributes. XML schemas can be used in
this context. Records that do not validate against a specific XML
schema should be returned to their editor for correction.
Mind you, I am not throwing out the baby with the bath water. The
fundamental principles behind cataloging are very sound. The problem
is with the medium in which the principles are embodied.
--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame
Received on Tue Oct 03 2006 - 08:45:17 EDT