On Nov 10, 2009, at 1:39 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
>> Study of the North American MARC Records Marketplace. October 2009.
>> http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/MARC_Record_Marketplace_2009-10.pdf
Yes, I read this report over the weekend myself [1], and here are the few things I took away:
Written by the R2 consulting team and sponsored by the Library of
Congress, this report describes the economics of creating and
distributing MARC records. In the end, the report characterizes
the marketplace as "dysfunctional". First, the professional
ethics of librarianship conflict with the economics of their
creation. Second, the cost of producing MARC data is artificially
depressed and the incentives for individual libraries to create
their own records are too few; the creation of MARC records "can
only be described as a subsidy."
The reports outlines ten conclusions: 1) Library of Congress
cataloging continues to be widely valued, 2) the Library of
Congress subsidizes portions of the market, 3) Library of
Congress records are significantly underpriced, 4) cataloging
backlogs continue to grow, 5) there is adequate cataloging
capacity in North America, 6) cooperative cataloging has not
realized its full potencial, 7) the market for cataloging records
is conflicted, 8) the market provides insufficient incentives to
stimulate additional original cataloging, 9) 80% of libraries
edit records for their local catalogs, and 10) 78% of libraries
are unaware of any restrictions on MARC record use or
redistribution.
R2 believes that if every cataloger were to create a single
original cataloging record per day, then there would be little
need for the Library of Congress to do the work. In short, we,
the library profession, do not cooperate as much as we can.
Finally, the remarks in the report reminded me of the
"dysfunctional" nature of the scholarly communication process.
The values of librarianship conflict with the values of a
capitalistic marketplace. In today's environment, where economics
surrounds services instead of physical items, the buying and
selling of information is seen as valuable.
[1] my marked-up version - http://infomotions.com/highlights/open/fischer-study.pdf
--
Eric Lease Morgan
University of Notre Dame
Received on Tue Nov 10 2009 - 13:51:25 EST