coyle/hillman article from dlib

I encourage people on this list to read the the Coyle/Hillman article
from D-Lib Magazine on the topic of Resource Description and Access
(RDA). Some quotes from the article include:

   The library's signature service, its catalog, uses rules for
   cataloging that are remnants of a long departed technology: the
   card catalog. Modifications to the rules, such as those proposed
   by the Resource Description and Access (RDA) development effort,
   can only keep us rooted firmly in the 20th, if not the 19th
   century. A more radical change is required that will contribute
   to the library of the future, re-imagined and integrated with the
   chosen workflow of its users.

   At first seen as amateurish, the Internet gained in bona fides to
   the point that today some disciplines give preference to online
   publication, taking advantage of increased speed of delivery to
   an audience and broader geographical coverage. The library
   catalog and its conventions, valued by libraries as both an
   inventory of regularly published items and as the sharing
   mechanism for catalog entries, does not have a means to respond
   to this new, more chaotic information environment.

   Too many librarians still consider themselves the only true
   experts both in bibliographic metadata creation and in service to
   information seekers, behaving condescendingly to others newer to
   the information enterprise. But users have spoken with their
   keyboards, overwhelmingly preferring non-traditional and
   non-library sources of information and methods of information
   discovery.

   http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january07/coyle/01coyle.html

In short, maybe cataloging rules need to be radically altered not
incrementally tweaked, and the rules may need to take into greater
consideration the almost completely changed information environment
in which we live and work.

--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame

(574) 631-8604