Oclcmougpresentation

This presentation was prepared for and delivered to the OCLC/MOUG Conference, Cleveland OH, Sept. 25-28, 2008.
Missing from the slides is the extensive narrative that emphasized
The gratitude & respect due the Joint Steering Committee for all their work;
The intellectual debt owed Barbara Tillett for her vision and leadership;
And the emphasis that this is just Heidi Hoerman making an educated guess and in no way represents the opinion or sanction of anyone else.

How Should I Prepare for RDA? Should I Prepare for RDA?

What the Heck’s Going on with RDA!?!

Why Me?
I don’t have a horse in this race
I’m old as dirt
Teaching faculty have got it made
I must figure this out to prepare students

Basis for Best Guesses
Reading
From many different sources
Cataloging folk & machine folk
Anglo-American & other countries
Poking informants
Asking folks whose opinions I respect
Asking folks who have been involved
Thinking and thinking and thinking …

AACR2
ISBD
MARC
FRBR
FRANAR
FRSAR
RDA
…
JSC
LC
CC:DA
ALA Publishing
LC Working Group
MARBI
IME ICC
…
What? Who?

And what about …?
MARC?
Dublin Core?
OAI PMH?
The Consolidated ISBD?
OCLC?
ILS vendors?
Let alone the “metadata community”

Malaclypse the Younger. Principia Discordia . (1977)

Conclusions:
RDA will die a quiet death.
AACR2r2010 will be published.
RDA’s aims will be realized in due time.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE FOR RDA
RDA - Resource Description and Access will be a new standard for resource description and access, designed for the digital world.
Built on foundations established by the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR), RDA will provide a comprehensive set of guidelines and instructions on resource description and access covering all types of content and media.
RDA will enable users of library catalogues and other systems of information organization to find, identify, select, and obtain resources appropriate to their information needs.
From the JSC Strategic Plan for RDA

What are the aims of RDA?
To get rid of old baggage
To have a new code
To be more global
To solve the multiple versions problem
To enable data sharing with the “metadata community”

To get rid of old baggage
Eschew “AACR3”
Eschew words like “cataloging”
Try to look more like the other kids
Get rid of funny punctuation
Get rid of strange rule numbers

And so, JSC changed course.

To have a new code If ALA Publishing has a best seller it's the cataloging rules.

To be more global
Get rid of “Anglo-American”
Oops! But only Anglo-American Participants No coordination with IFLA Makes ISBD optional

Multiple Versions Problem
Solving the multiple versions problem.
Barbara Tillett
Her dissertation: Bibliographic Relationships: Toward a Conceptual Structure of Bibliographic Information Used in Cataloging . UCLA, 1987.
Leading force in FRBR
We are starved for theory & leadership

“ We are now at a point in history where there is a convergence of ideas reflecting the optimism that improvements can be made on the way we describe, organize, and make resources available to users. We now have the ability to use descriptive metadata for direct access to resources. … B. Tillett. In Understanding FRBR. (2007)

“… When the resource is available digitally online, that descriptive metadata can be the direct connection to serving the user with the desired resource, while also enabling libraries to inform the user of versions of that resource in multiple languages or editions and providing pathways to related resources—all the works by the same creator(s), all the resources on the same subject, etc.” B. Tillett. In Understanding FRBR. (2007)

There were no hearings
There was no research on efficacy
There was no testing of sample systems
There was no assessment of the bibliographic knowledge base available to those who create bibliographic records
Did the Cataloging Community Agree to Operationalize FRBR?

“ As bibliographers, we cannot indeed but wish, that the catalogue of every library were a bibliographical dictionary of its books. Practically, however, we must restrict our efforts, with the limits of probable accomplishment.” C.C. Jewett. Smithsonian Report on the Construction of Catalogues of Libraries. (1853)

The Vision Thing meets Practicality
FRBR is glorious as vision
Realizing a vision takes planning, coodination, cooperation, pooled effort, compromise, investment …
JSC jumped the gun

The IFLA principles aren’t finalized There are no findings from FRBR experiments There is no general commitment to ramp up catalogs and cataloging by libraries RDA goes forth, but

Data Interoperability
Marc produces serial (linear) data suited for communication of individual bibliographic records
Marc was developed in 1967
Marc is a labeling system
Is the problem with the cataloging or with the coding?
Is the problem with MARC or with the content of bibliographic records

Are We Coordinating with the Wider Metadata Community?
RDA ignored Dublin Core until last year
Only last year MARC/RDA group formed

Are We Coordinating with the Wider Metadata Community?
The meaning of “Resource Description” as in “Resource Description Framework” is well established
RD refers to data structure not to specifics of data content
RDA eschews discussion of data structure
RDA is all about content

RDA changes the cataloging not the coding

“ Remember, RDA is Resource Description and Access, an in-progress revision to cataloguing rules, and the Dublin Core Metadata Intitiative (DCMI) is behind a widespread and fairly simple metadata schema, Dublin Core. RDA and DC are sometimes contrasted because the former is (or will be) a huge book full of complicated rules and DC can be used extremely casually.”
William Denton on The FRBR Blog

Conflicting Hopes for RDA
Extensibility, flexibility, etc.
Enabling use of the data for many purposes in many environments
Specificity, detail, etc.
Leading to consistency of products for sharing across environments

RDA reminds me of …
TGI Friday’s
Szechwan
Shrimp
Fettucine
Alfredo

It will be compatible with AACR2
But a break with the past
It will get rid of the archaic “main entry”
But will have “primary” entities & relationships
It will enable showing FRBR relationships
But will allow us to make the kind of bibliographic records we are used to
It will enable sharing of data
But it’s not a data standard

It will be simpler without jargon
It’s growing in length by leaps and bounds
It has it’s own jargon that is unique to it and FRBR
It will be easier to teach, train, etc.
Can you understand what you’ve read of it?
And what about losing all the mnemonics in rule numbers?

LiCoWoGrFuBiCo
“ Suspend Work on RDA.”
Nails in the Coffin

LC/NAL/NLM Statement
We’re committed to its further development.
We will test it.
We will assess it.
We will do a business model for implementation
And then we’ll decide …
Nails in the Coffin

And then the economy took a dive Nails in the Coffin

Recent AUTOCAT & Blog discussions
Recent confirmation of the unreasonable calendar
Nails in the Coffin

Conclusions:
RDA will die a quiet death.
AACR2r2010 will be published.
RDA’s aims will be realized in due time.

Where does this leave us
With a code of rules not updated since 2005
Good & well meaning people frustrated
Back at square one
If we are still going to use AACR2 through this decade we need to maintain it.

Malaclypse the Younger. Principia Discordia. 1977 RDA’s reign as sacred chao is coming to a close.

"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star." Friedrich Nietzsche .

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Oclcmougpresentation

by Heidi Hoerman on Sep 30, 2008

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Oclcmougpresentation — Presentation Transcript