Alex Satrapa expresses feelings many readers may harbor:
>
> While taxonomies inherited from existing schemes might be of value (eg:
> Geographical terms are tacked onto the end of a classification to indicate a
> specific region of importance for the content), I'd like to be able to throw out
> all the AACR books (or the two CDs, as the case may be) and stick to something
> really simple.
>
And here, history repeats itself, as it often does.
Back in 1976 (yes, seventy-six) I attended an international meeting on
library networking. To the eminent representatives of OCLC and other
institutions, I put questions to the effect of: "Should it not be possible to
get away with something a lot simpler than MARC+AACR" and so on. The reply
was, "We had the same thought! We even set up a task force to work out a much
simpler approach. After many months of intense deliberations, we found
we had re-invented MARC."
I'd like to add: We are not using complicated standards because we enjoy
glass bead games. We are using them because the world (or those aspects
of it we have to deal with) *is* complicated. And it has not become
simpler since 1976. To throw AACR out and try a fresh start seems like,
in all due respect, an act of desperation that won't get you where you
think you want to get any sooner, but probably a lot later. Because you
force yourself to repeat history. It is difficult, agreed, to separate the
wheat from so much chaff in MARC+AACR, but much more difficult to start from
square one.
Bernhard Eversberg
Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329,
D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany
Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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