As I have said recently, I'm really not sure I want to belong to a
profession whose main strategy is to wait for people to retire so we can
move forward. So I guess I'm saying ditto to Selden and Alex.
How about we just ignore the nay-sayers and start doing some good work?
We could identify needs and potential projects, figure out how to do
them...
I've been mainly working in the area of vocabularies and trying to
untangle the mess of authoritative lists in our data. I've got something at:
http://futurelib.pbwiki.com/Data+and+Studies
but I've also started adding a bit of data to the DCMI/RDA task group
wiki, which none of us have had time to really work on yet:
http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/FrontPage
Here's the motivation:
We have hundreds of "lists" in the cataloging rules and in our data
format (MARC21). These lists need to be moved out of the standards and
onto the web where they can be managed in a rational way, and also where
they become available to applications.
I would like to see various studies of the data (which I have in a
tab-delimited form for anyone to use -- see the futurelib page), such as
overlaps between lists, and eventually overlaps between RDA and MARC.
It's not THE most important thing to do, but it's an interesting area of
low-hanging fruit where we can do something pretty quickly. Don't
hesitate to get in touch if you are interested.
kc
Selden Deemer wrote:
> Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen_at_GMAIL.COM> writes:
>
> Oh no, I fully understand where the reality of this is ;
> http://shelter.nu/blog/2007/08/resignation.html
>
> Working in the library field in Australia, you must be familiar
> with Sean McMullen's "Souls in the Great Machine."
>
> I'm at the other end of my career, but occasionally wonder how
> much longer I can stand it.
>
> --
> Selden Deemer, Library Systems Administrator
> Emory University Libraries
> Atlanta, Georgia
> EMAIL: libssd_at_emory.edu
> PHONE: 404-727-0271
> FAX: 404-727-0827
>
>
--
-----------------------------------
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
------------------------------------
Received on Wed Aug 29 2007 - 17:51:29 EDT