Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
<snip>
MJ Suhonos wrote:
>>
>> Can you envision catalogers talking MODS to the same effect and
>> efficiency they are now talking MARC? Efficiency matters.
>
> There's the problem: cataloguers are *forced* to learn how to "talk MARC" and thus become superhuman. MODS, in contrast, is readable by "mere" humans. Why do we require cataloguers who aren't doing under-the-hood system maintenance to understand MARC?
>
No, to learn MARC does not consist of learning all the numbers and
codes, that's rather trivial. You have to learn the precise meanings and
the concept, and that's the same with verbal tags. You only *think* you
understand something when reading verbal tags, but without the
understanding of the precise semantics you are prone to producing a hell
of a mess. Dublin Core data have proved this point in abundance;
read Roy Tennant's "Metadata's Bitter Harvest":
</snip>
A few points.
Here is an example in the mapping from MARC21 to MODS for uniform titles from http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-mapping.html:
130, 240 $a$d$f$k$l$m$o$r$s
730 $a$d$f$k$l$m$o$r if ind2 is not 2
Maps to:
<title> with <titleInfo> type="uniform" and
130, 240, 730 $n (and other subfields following as above)
Maps to
<partNumber>
130, 240, 730 $p (and other subfields following as above)
Maps to:
<partName>
130, 240, 730 $0 add xlink="contents of $0" (as URI)
Now, compare this to the MARC Guidelines for the 240 field:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd240.html
and the LC Rule Interpretations (these are the additions to AACR2, not AACR2 itself) for uniform titles:
http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/aacr2-chapter-25
Here is the Uniform title in UNIMARC:
http://archive.ifla.org/VI/3/p1996-1/uni5.htm
A non-cataloger will probably ask: What is a uniform title? And that would be the correct response because there are different types of uniform titles for different purposes and they are terribly complex. It should also be accepted that there are legitimate reasons for this complexity. The above rules work together intimately to ensure standards for both the coding and standards for the information. (Except for the UNIMARC, which has different standards)
When you look at the mapping of MARC to MODS, there is a great deal of data loss. Therefore, let us take the version information: 240$s (that I have personally agonized over at times) just gets bunged in together to <titleInfo type="uniform"> along with lots of other information. This is definitely a loss of information. UNIMARC is probably as complex with uniform titles, while all the other formats will probably be very difficult.
Bernhard would have different entry practices for entering the conceptual idea contained in 245$s, but I am sure they have their rules for this. Yet, how do we share that information using MODS? We don't. We can't, since it mushes everything together. Therefore, MODS is not good enough for us to share with, e.g. the Germans even they may code the same information separately as we do in our 245$s. The only way to share is to either forget the separate $s or recode locally.
Still, to calm the working catalogers, they need to be aware that this "loss of data" happens only when another organization harvests your record, and these others can select from different formats, e.g. harvesting from American Memory right now, you can choose Dublin Core, MARCXML or MODS.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/oamh/oai_request.html In any case, the information in the local database that the catalogers create still exists and is fine.
How much of this does the computer programmer need to know? I don't know, but the programmer doubtless needs plenty of help and should not expect to do such things on their own. There should be a happy medium somewhere.
James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
fax-011 39 06 58330992
Received on Tue Apr 20 2010 - 11:08:36 EDT