> Here we are talking about the value of OCLC, AACR and RDA cataloging
> standards, ostensibly developed by librarians, but we have yet to
> collaborate to attempt to develop a "non-profit" relatively standardized
> but adaptable ILS (or at least OPAC) that would be best fit to the "rules"
> only we fully understand and respect.
Who is "we"? Evergreen, Koha, Blacklight, VuFind, XC.
If (enough?) catalogers aren't involved in these projects, why not? Some of "we" are spending a whole lot of energy trying.
Although if you think the project is solely fitting the systems to the existing rules, and doens't involve necessary changes to the rules, standards, unwritten rules--then it's a non-starter for me.
The professional cataloging community ought to be really well placed to understand what the rules (many unwritten) are intended to accomplish, and how to adapt them to actually accomplish these things (and other things they weren't originally intended to accomplish, but need to now) in the modern environment. There is actually some respectable software development going on, whether you are aware of it or not, but who's doing the next generation metadata control work? RDA? (not impressed, except by the hillman/coyle modelling work, but it's not enough).
Jonathan
Received on Fri Jul 30 2010 - 14:46:01 EDT