I don't think the question is neccesarily "how full featured", "how
detailed", "how precise", or "how controlled". I don't think the problem
is neccesarily that RDA is too full-featured or too controlling.
I think the problem is that RDA isn't leading to controlled data that
can be used effectively by computers. Compare the way we do things to DC
or RDF--not in terms of how precisely our standards control, but in
terms of how things are _encoded_: for machine use, for
inter-operabiltiy with other metadata systems, for re-useability. Also
in terms of systems that "degrade" so less-fully-specified data can
easily inter-operate with more-fully-specified data. (Look at how DC is
solving this problem, it is instructive).
I will say again that in the 21st century the cataloging community and
the IR systems community need to become different parts of the same
community. They are not now.
Jonathan
Charley Pennell wrote:
> Hi Eric-
>
> For what I am sure are perfectly legitimate reasons, there still is a
> need to produce a full-featured content standard like RDA. Libraries,
> and perhaps others as well, will continue to describe some resources at
> that level. Perhaps what folks are hinting at here is a parallel need
> for a less robust and simpler standard to apply in cases where the time
> and/or training is not there to apply an involved standard like AACR2 or
> RDA. An "RDA Lite", which would function as a core standard much as the
> MARC Core level functions (or was supposed to function) in relation to
> the full MARC21 standard or Dublin Core functions in relation to METS,
> VRA Core, EAD, and almost any other metadata standard out there. It
> perhaps is unfortunate that it is easier to spin off a core standard
> from one that is full-blown rather than the other way around, as
> obviously many of us feel the need for the core more acutely than the
> need for the full. A chicken and egg problem.
>
> Charley
>
> Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
>> 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
>
> --
> __________________________________ __________________________________
> """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
> Charley Pennell mailto:cpennell_at_unity.ncsu.edu
> Principal Cataloger for Metadata voice: (919)515-2743
> Metadata and Cataloging Department fax: (919)515-7292
> NCSU Libraries, Box 7111
> North Carolina State University
> Raleigh, NC 27695-7111
>
> Adjunct Librarian, Memorial University of Newfoundland
> World Wide Web: http://www.ibiblio.org/hillwilliam/chuckhome.html
> __________________________________ __________________________________
> """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Tue Jan 16 2007 - 13:10:47 EST