----- "Walt Crawford" <waltcrawford_at_GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Not to try to defend ALA and its partners in this regard, but "free
> standards" are the exception, not the rule.
>
> NISO, the standards organization most relevant to libraries, does in
> fact
> make its standards free for downloading--but that hasn't always been
> the
> case. That was a policy decision. It's fairly unusual.
>
I know that many standards cost varying degrees of money. In the past this even made sense as you had to pay to print them. That said, I don't really begrudge a fair fee for standards (well, I do, but I have learned to live with it). However, as I understand it, one reason for RDA is to create something that people outside of the library world will use as well as libraries/library vendors. If RDA costs > $0 this will be a huge impediment to this happening.
Edward
Received on Tue Apr 08 2008 - 17:53:10 EDT