The Web has forced us all out of isolated communities of practice and into the Internet Commons. Certainly the practice and topography of librarianship is changing out from under us. As we struggle under the stress of these changes, it is perhaps predictable that legacy systems such as cataloging practice will change even more slowly. The RDA effort recognizes the importance of updating our profession to fit more comfortably into the Internet Commons. If we are to achieve anything like the interoperability we hope for, we will need common structural models. If the effort devolves to simply unraveling existing rules and rewinding the yarns, we will fall short of the integration we need to support our future. The successes and failures of the DC community in its own modeling struggles can be usefulŠ and reusable.  I gather that the Joint Steering Committee has sought consultation with representatives of the IEEE LOM metadata community as well as with DCMI. It would be fitting if the DCMI could return some value to the community that has provided so much of the insight that has motivated its own progress.

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