On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 5:12 AM, Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
> So, when we map, e.g. 100,700 = <name type="personal">, this is more understandable to a non-library cataloger; although not that much more. Calling something a "personal name" is exceedingly strange for the uninitiated. But still, others can work with MODS much more easily than MARC and therefore, they may be more tempted to do so and use our records in whatever they create.
Honestly this debate between MARC or MODS is a red herring. The MARC
structure is not insurmountable and it's easy enough to abstract it
away if need be. The problem is (as Alexander has pointed out) the
data it's actually transporting. ISO2709 isn't nearly the problem
that ISBD/AACR2 punctuation brings for a developer (or, anybody but a
librarian, really) trying to make semantic sense of anything but the
most controlled set of records.
Even the punctuation wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't all human
entered, inconsistently used and wildly error-prone.
It doesn't matter what carrier format you want to use (MARC,
MarcXchange, MODS, RDA in RDF, whatever) if you have buckets full of
unparseable string tokens.
-Ross.
Received on Tue Apr 20 2010 - 08:21:00 EDT