Jim,
I'm not inclined to take issue with what you wrote here
-- except for one part of it, where you could perhaps
better have been less breviloquent and more explicit :
> . . . what we have will definitely *not* be
> useful outside our own library world, and we
> must assume that fewer people will be visiting
> our world.
Let's be frank about it, shall we ? Instead of "we must
assume that fewer people will be visiting our world",
wouldn't it be more complete and more accurate to say
"we must assume that fewer people will be populating
our world and visiting our world" ?
I.e., until it becomes so few people that we reach the
point at which that world cannot but evaporate
altogether. ( Or, just possibly, has morphed into quite
another kind of world altogether. )
- Laval Hunsucker
Breukelen, Nederland
----- Original Message ----
From: Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_AUR.EDU>
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Sent: Thu, June 24, 2010 10:06:31 AM
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] ALA Session on MODS and MADS: Current implementations and future directions
Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
<snip>
Correct. But exactly "what is needed" is what we still don't know or
can't pin down. And I think there will not be one easy answer but any
community, no, any one person needs something ever so slightly different
and something else the next time. So, our data model needs to support
exports in many flavors and dressings.
But now, the mighty RDA toolkit is out. Go and look if it might get us
closer to solutions, based on the FRBR data model as it is. But don't
forget there are gigatons of legacy data.
</snip>
This is exactly the problem. We have tons of metadata made over many decades (if not more) that--at least I believe--will definitely prove useful in this new environment, but we don't know exactly *how* it will be useful. We do know however, that in the current format (in various senses of this word), what we have will definitely *not* be useful outside our own library world, and we must assume that fewer people will be visiting our world.
The FRBR data model is already an anachronism and has never been tested. I find it amazing that FRBR makes this incredible statement that people want to "find / identify / select / obtain --> works / expressions / manifestations / items --> by their authors / titles / subjects" which we absolutely *know* is wrong! That describes how the card catalog worked--even in the OPAC, keyword searching quickly became the dominant search. Does anybody really do this anymore? Once in a very great while when I am searching for a specific edition of, e.g. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, but in addition to keyword searching, there is this thing called "Google" and "relevance ranking" that has come around in the last 20 years or so...
I certainly cannot imagine that RDA/FRBR changes will interest anybody in our data, and after looking at some of Karen's attempts, I suspect it isn't even a valid data model for our present records. (Is there *really* such a thing as an "expression" or even a "work"? This has turned out to be far more difficult in reality than we thought, or what I thought, anyway! Perhaps the work and expression as simple collating points for a card/printed catalog, are not "entities" with lots of "attributes" but something else entirely)
In any case, one of the most basic business practices of new product development has never been tried, at least not to my knowledge: does our projected product (i.e. FRBR displays) fulfill *our patrons'* needs? Or a significant number of their needs? I haven't seen anything that deals with this. From my own experience with users, and my own searching patterns, I can't imagine that anybody would look at these displays and say, "Yes!! That is what I have always been missing!!"
But it seems as if the library world is doomed to continue onward toward spending its limited resources to create an untested product and train staff to create that untested product that, quite probably, nobody wants.
Again, I want to mention that there is a choice: The Cooperative Cataloging Rules at: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
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 Thu Jun 24 2010 - 12:45:34 EDT