Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> There is as of yet no accepted and widely known standard for
> bibliographic metadata other than MARC. The world at large is
> much more likely to follow Google than libraries when it comes
> to standards. Look at systems that provide and exchange bibliographic
> metadata: the only thing they have in common is that they are all
> completely idiosyncratic. Except the MARC world. And this world can
> very well go on using MARC internally, if only they provide services
> that give users what they want - but currently there is not, as I said,
> the one or predominant standard they would all want (and know how to
> use).
The library world can continue to use MARC internally until the library decision makers, who as we rise up in a bureaucratic hierarchy know less and less about libraries, will eventually decree that MARC is not used anywhere in the "civilized world" (i.e. only in libraries), it is obsolete, and it is too costly to maintain completely separate standards and systems. The Google/Dublin Core/or similar simplified API will be used almost everywhere, and people will "be happy" with it. Whether we agree with these decisions will be irrelevant.
I hope I am wrong....
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Mon Sep 29 2008 - 06:38:18 EDT