On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 08:55, Miksa, Shawne <SMiksa_at_unt.edu> wrote:
> That is an incredible disingenous statement, Mr. Weinheimer. Who exactly are your catalogers? Most of the catalogers I know look way beyond their local collections. My cataloging students certainly do not escape my classes without having that wide worldview seared into their brains. (Perhaps it is the administrators who are short-sighted and don't provide the resources to make this happen.)
Huh? You're so smart, therefore Jim is wrong? Are you friggin' kidding
me? If you can't understand the simplicity of Jim's message here, then
maybe you *shouldn't* be teaching those future catalogers. Hate to be
blunt about this, but Jim's point is so simple and void of pointing
fingers at anyone in particular (read: you and yours). It means
looking beyond your tools and practices. When was the last time you
cataloged something using persistent identifiers using HTTP URIs, for
example? Or insisted you use a tool that understand post-merge of
semi-controlled vocabularies? Or that you insisted on using Unicode16
instead of the default? Using them in the context of sharable data?
Cataloged anything using meta languages instead of AACR2 and the
culture of MARC to squeeze it into? Distributed identities lately?
Shifted contextual enquiry of any title fields? When you catalog your
title in English, are you cataloging with Indian people in mind? (And
you can retort with a "Why should I?" here if you like; I've got a
long, lofty response to that :) There are *so* many considerations a
cataloger *should* be doing in a global cataloging world that simply
isn't done, neither by you or yours, and I'm not sure if it starts in
library school, is hung up by the tool-makers, or libraries lack of
balls to demand it properly, or what. I'm not afraid to call a spade
for a spade here, and put the responsibility of doing things right
back in *your* hands; if you want good meta-data that is relevant to
the world, you need to think further than your local catalog, the
national catalog, even the multi-national ones like OCLC (which comes
with its own set of problems). Jim is trying to do *something* about
the state of things, and you are getting hurt on behalf of all
catalogers for him daring to point out the bleeding obvious.
*grumble*
Alex (who's not as humble and nice as Jim, obviously)
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Wed Oct 28 2009 - 19:24:36 EDT