To be fair, reading any standards document is incredibly boring. Look at the standards for as determined by the Codex Alimentarius at FAO of the UN. http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/standard_list.jsp
My favorite is the one for chocolate. Here is an extract:
"2.1.7.2 Gianduja Chocolate
Gianduja” (or one of the derivatives of the word “Gianduja”) Chocolate is the product obtained, firstly,
from chocolate having a minimum total dry cocoa solids content of 32%, including a minimum dry non-fat
cocoa solids content of 8%, and, secondly, from finely ground hazelnuts such that the product contains not
less than 20 % and not more than 40% of hazelnuts."
These guidelines may mean nothing to me, but all of those rules exist for a reason. They are *very important* for the specialists who have to figure out how, e.g. to make gianduja chocolate, or what kind of bolt is needed to make sure that the roof on a house that won't fall in, or how to set up a person as a corporate body. (e.g. A proclamation of a King).. So, the rules exist to solve problems for the specialist. They are not there for the general public. But as a user or consumer, I care that these products are made to specific standards.
20 years ago, it was necessary for people to have to pay for these standards, but that was 20 years ago. Today, if you want people to read your writings, it is very advantageous if they are free (witness the growth of the free internet, the NY TImes going completely free, the growth of open archives, etc.), and it is the same if you want to appeal to people and organizations who have never followed your standards before. If you want them to follow your standards, you cannot expect these people to pay for your standards unless you come up with some really good reasons.
I haven't seen any such reasons yet and I can't really imagine any. If I were in charge of a publishing house, creating our internal metadata and oblivious to the finer points of information retrieval, I would be very skeptical of going with another standard (or following a standard at all), and especially if I had to pay for it. Otherwise, only libraries will pay for it.
It seems to me that if the library world wants to make a difference with their standards, they either must make a very good case why somebody should pay for them (which seems an impossible task), or make them free.
But this is only a first step.
Jim Weinheimer
> > 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.
> >
>
> Sometimes, people will not perceive that a product has value unless
> you charge for it. In this day and age, this seems the most credible
> possibility for AACR2.... ;)
Received on Wed Apr 09 2008 - 04:58:26 EDT