>
> And Karen, does my memory fail me, or haven't there already been
> (relatively) recent studies about the utility of MARC fields? Admittedly
> it's a moving target, as systems and expectations evolve.
>
The question is when most of this will be moot as a rapidly shrinking
percentage of the stuff people are looking for will ever exist in MARC.
Worrying about whether the subfields are necessary is a lot like wondering
if the indicators are necessary. The real question is whether you can get
the data out that you want. The whole reason MARC is such a mess is that we
have a culture that creates, structures, and keeps data to meet fringe or
even imagined uses while not dedicating attention to real uses. I like to
describe the problem as "measure with micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with
axe" -- describing inconsistent data with a super precise instrument makes
no sense
MARC is just a container. As such, you can normalize the data and structure
to make the data useful for an application. But there is no technical fix
for conceptual problems.
kyle
Received on Fri Jun 04 2010 - 12:02:35 EDT