As Mark Needleman once said "The problem with 'standards' is the 's' on the end." So LoC in general, and MARBI in particular (and not just MARBI - there is NISO, ISO, BISAC, SISAC, to name a few) exercise a community-tolerated benign-dictatorship with the appearance of democracy - a political system which works well for some countries, too. Mark Andrews
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries on behalf of Karen Coyle
Sent: Sun 5/27/2007 3:31 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] LoC - really in control? (was "[NGC4LIB] MARC vs XMLMARC")
No, LoC does not create records as an act of congress -- far from it,
since LoC is *not* our national library but the library of congress.
However, our profession does seem to have conferred on them the official
(and so far uncontested) role as standards body for MARC/MARC21, much as
we have conferred on NISO the role as standards body for things like
steel shelving and OpenURLs. The problem with a competing group setting
up shop is that competing standards don't fulfill the role of standards,
at least not in our particular environment where we want all of our data
to be compatible, so such a move would most likely be seen as against
our own best interest. We depend on LoC for the cataloging that they do
and we want to use their data (using a rather broad "we" here), which is
probably why we've allowed them to take charge of the data standard. In
a sense, you could say that Dublin Core was created to compete with
MARC, but it does not occupy the same space and never had uptake from
libraries.
kc
Andrews, Mark J. wrote:
> By "de jure" I mean an Act of Congress that requires and empowers the Library of Congress, as an agency of the legislative branch, to form and implement bibliographic standards. Absent any such law, why couldn't a competing group set up shop? Whether that's a good idea is another question.
>
> Mark Andrews
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries on behalf of Karen Coyle
> Sent: Sun 5/27/2007 12:30 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] MARC vs XMLMARC
>
> I would say both. As I say, the group is advisory to LoC and there is no group other than LoC that can make decisions about MARC21, although MARC21 now includes LoC, the Canadian national library, and the British Library. Those latter two (which I had forgotten in my earlier post) also have non-voting seats on MARBI, much as LoC does. However, LoC sits at the head of the table and presents the proposals for changes. I don't know within LoC if there is any other structure that combines the three "national" libraries for decision-making. LoC does not have direct control over ISO 2709, but I think it is highly unl
> ikely that there will be changes to that standard since it has not changed since it was created in 1966 or so.
>
> kc
>
>
--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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Received on Sun May 27 2007 - 14:51:50 EDT