Ross Singer wrote:
>
>> What can COPAC do, thanks to MODS, that a MARC-based catalog couldn't?
>> From visiting it, I'm at a loss to answer that question, but I may have
>> failed to look hard enough. (The granularity of MODS, to mention one
>> point, is by design inferior to MARC's.)
>>
> While I did not come here to praise MODS, I feel this is a little
> disingenuous. I think two questions need to be addressed here: 1) is
> any real granularity lost between MARC21 as it's found in the wild and
> MODS? 2) if so, is it anything that really, honestly matters?
>
Both questions are not solvable across the board but need to be
addressed specifically for an application and implementation.
It's the *potential* that matters and the *intentions* to be served.
You are right that more granularity is not automatically beneficial,
but there are always some chances that it turns out that way.
If, OTOH, you could prove that MARC's additional granularity is
not really and honestly of use anywhere, then by all means let's
go ahead and finish MARC off.
My main question was the other way: what can MODS do that MARC can't?
And I provided a partial answer: part<->whole relationships. Which,
however, not many applications on the list do need or provide.
COPAC, as far as I see, doesn't. (No wonder when all the data if
contains is from MARC sources.)
B.Eversberg
Received on Tue Jun 22 2010 - 08:40:39 EDT