Re: [ARSCLIST] More on cataloging

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Scott Phillips wrote:

> One would think that at least going forward, ANY new consumer standard
> should include a data file that includes reasonable discography
> information. Such information is so easily supplied when the masters are
> to be pressed, and could fully standardize the information data format.
> I'm a mere amateur in this area.... But it seems to me that from what I
> read here there is not much effort being made to cure the problem in an
> ongoing sense. All the effort is towards standardizing data for old
> recordings. This is needed and laudable, but if the way new recordings
> are made don't change situation will simply go from *improbable* to
> solve to *impossible* to solve. The mountain is just getting higher to
> climb.


I believe the mountain might have already reached the point
where the resources which are likely to be devoted to the process of
cataloging will never be adequate to get us much past base camp.

I wonder about this not just in terms of the cataloging process, but in
the preservation area as well. Not too long ago I encountered a grant
applicant who wanted to regularize the process of creating WAVE files from
the DATs being produced by a local performing organization. I suggested they
consider having the performing organization record on a laptop and just
give the holding institution those files. Curiously, the applicant found
my suggestion too complicated.

It would seem to me that if we can save time with the new, we can have
more time for the old, assuming our staffing is not reduced should we not
need as many staff to keep up with the new.

Have there been an initiatives along these lines?

Karl