James Weinheimer [mailto:[log in to unmask]] suggests that
> [...] it would be more productive to take what we have
> learned in hundreds of years of cataloging experience and
> all of us could simply accept its utility. (That's what DC
> is founded on) From this well-established standpoint we could
> reevaluate and see where our guidelines could be pared down for
> the ephemeral items on the web.
This reasonable approach has been ongoing for many years and should
continue, perhaps with accelerated effort and broader participation.
Here is a short compendium of actual assertions I have heard since I started
investigating the cataloging of Internet resources in 1991:
"There is nothing worth cataloging on the Net."
Wrong.
"Everything on the Web is here today, gone tomorrow."
Wrong.
"MARC and AACR2 won't work."
Wrong.
"Even if MARC and AACR2 will work, libraries won't catalog Internet
resources."
Wrong.
"Libraries won't want to provide improved access to Web resources through
their online catalogs."
Wrong.
To see the results of cooperative library cataloging using traditional
standards, systems, and methods, see the InterCat Catalog, which now
comprises nearly 83,000 records for Internet resources that have been
identified, selected, and cataloged by libraries worldwide
(http://purl.org/net/intercat).
Here's what we get when libraries step up to the challenge of providing
improved knowledge management for digital resources:
1. We can start now: no delay, low training costs, and short learning curve.
2. We can use the world's most widely deployed standard for the exchange of
bibliographic data, MARC.
3. We can benefit from a highly trained, professional, and experienced
workforce that is deployed in all types of libraries associated with all
types of knowledge-creating, -using, and
-preserving organizations worldwide.
4. We can extend and leverage the sunk costs associated with library systems
worldwide.
5. We can integrate records for Internet resources into library catalogs so
that users can benefit from retrieval sets that include materials of all
types and formats.
6. We can extend the foundations of library cooperation that have been
developed and nurtured for decades.
7. We can apply new computing capabilities to existing applications to
discover, apply, and benefit from such practices as classification, subject
analysis, and authority control in new and heretofore impossible or
impractical ways.
The *combination* of 1-7, above, has got to have tremendous positive
economic benefit, not to mention direct benefit to information producers,
users and managers.
Moreover, we have gained and continue to gain insight into cataloging rules,
formats, practices, work flow, and cooperative enterprises. This
information has led directly to key changes, helped us to imagine future
changes, and enabled us to better assess and influence both our current
methods and those that are emerging, such as Dublin Core metadata.
--Erik
Erik Jul
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