Hey! Mike & Phil are ganging up on me... ;-)
Phil Barker wrote:
> Mike was understating his case when he said it would "make life
> easier" for
> cataloguers: he could have said "make the cataloguing possible" :-)
Eh? Don't get it. How will the cataloguing not happen if this element is
left in as mandatory?
> But rest assured, the fact that (in many cases) the information isn't
> useful to LTSN's end users is also a factor.
Yeah, I thought so too. It's not just about LTSN's (or whoever's in any
given case) end users though, it's also about interoperability- the
wider needs of the community sharing/harvesting metadata and resources.
Anyway, I was responding to his specific case by making a general point
that I feel very strongly about. I know I can't change things in the
LTSN project, and I think Mike & co. are doing a great job with the
resources they've got. This is a funding/management/policy issue, and if
it's too late for some projects, at least future ones should be starting
from a different place. If they still decide they don't need this
element that's fine, but if it's just they aren't prepared to offer a
bit of simple support to those doing the cataloguing (whoever they are)
... these things need to be thought through when a project is being
planned and funded. No criticism implied for all of you out there who
are struggling with whatever constraints you've got to deal with. There
will always be constraints of course, but how we approach them should be
informed by thinking clearly about the big picture and the future as
well as the bit of money and the immediate users we have today.
S.
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Ms. Sarah Currier
Librarian, Stòr Cùram Project
"A Storehouse of Learning Resources for Social Care"
Dept. of Social Work, University of Strathclyde
c/o: Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde
Graham Hills Building, 50 George Street
Glasgow G1 1QE, Scotland, United Kingdom
Web: http://storcuram.blogs.com/weblog/
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Stòr Cùram is Gaelic for Storehouse of Care
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