Quoting Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_JHU.EDU>:
> Also, figuring out if two marc records exported from two different
> libraries represent the same 'thing' is non-trivial, due to the nature
> of our data. OCLC provides a variety of services to make that easier,
> including simply the fact that catalogers manually attach OCLC numbers
> to their records (or manually download an OCLC record with an OCLC
> number) -- an OCLC service.
It's pretty clunky, however. A user interface that allows you to put
things together would be great (something like LibraryThing has). But
it's complicated by the fact that the OCLC records need to represent
the bibliographic data of actual libraries. In the Open Library there
are some background tools (that eventually may become general UI
tools) that allow you to see a list of authors with similar names and
say: "put these together." But that's mainly possible because that
database isn't representing the records in particular library
databases -- it has no effect on others when changes are made.
Part of the problem here is the "full record replace" aspect of the
MARC record. We need systems that can share entities, not full
records, so that a change to an author doesn't mean that millions of
bibliographic records around the world have to be replaced. The MARC
"unit record" model is a hindrance, and changing that is even a bigger
change than having libraries get their cataloging from someone other
than OCLC.
kc
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
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m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Tue Mar 09 2010 - 13:32:01 EST