Re: [ARSCLIST] Cataloguing again--more OCLC, AACR2 bashing

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 10 Aug 2006, steven c wrote:

> Actually, punctuation is very often used in databases...especially
> text-based databases...and, as well, in virtually all programming
> languages! And the rules there are CONSIDERABLY more arbitrary and
> complicated than punctuating English prose at its worst. When I
> write a C or C++ program, leaving out a semicolon, or putting an
> extra one in the wrong place, whill result in a string of warnings
> and error messages...most, or quite often ALL, of them won't refer
> directly to the erroneous puntuation itself!

Yes, but, and I know I didn't make this clear...writing code requires a
level of expertise that should not, and I would argue, need not be
required of cataloging.

> out in Gravity Falls, E. Dak.! What little I know about MARC
> suggests that it would be well suited to an XML approach (I hope
> you know what I'm talking about here).

Yes, and some interesting alternatives like Dublin core have been offered
as alternatives. However, at least from my perspective, all of these
alternatives do not really start from the ground up, which is what I
believe needs to be done.

Most of the alternative constructs suggested are still, from my
perspective,  predicated on the Euclidean linearity of print.

> As well (at least to me)...one of the main problems in asking
> librarians or folks with degrees in Library Science to catalog
> archives/collections of sound recordings is this! They are
> extensively trained in the cataloguing of printed documents
> (mostly books)...so, as a result, everything they need to
> organize or catalog becomes, in their eyes and mind, some
> kind of a book! Given that libraries have had and used card
> catalogs at least since typewriters were invented (if not
> before), and are thoroughly familiar with only the Dewey
> Decimal System and the LOC system (both of which offer
> considerable room for error and are glacial in adapting
> to the rapid evolution of technology, especially when
> that technology becomes a subject itself!)...they
> develop elaborate systems for creating functional
> duplications of catalog cards (digital, tape, punched
> tape/cards, wotever...) for BOOKS! I can imagine (but
> I'd rather not) the confusion were they given the task
> of inventorying a hardware store...!

I agree with you. Plus I would even question the need for the
classification of books. We should be able to "browse" the shelves
digitally. I think of those wonderful interfaces, used by places like
Amazon which offer "similar" selections and end up having me spend more of
my money.

> So...were I not nine days older than dirt and twice as
> polluted (63.8 in Earth years), I'd sit down and try to
> create a program in Visual Basic 6 (which I have) which
> would allow questions to be answered in text boxes and
> then output the data in a MARC-compatible text file.
> Once I did that, I could load that program onto my
> steam-driven computing machine and go library-to-
> library rather than door-to-door...perhaps crying
> "Any rags? Any bottles (full preferred!)? Anything
> need to be catalogued?..."

You don't have to go door to door, the libraries are already sending it to
vendors, but unfortunately, they, the libraries, at least from my
perspective, still don't "get it."

It seems to me as though libraries are trying to run a race with a horse
headed to the glue factory when the person in the next lane has discovered
wormholes. So the library keeps pouring more oats into its horse and then
when it still doesn't run faster or economically, they "farm" it out to
see if some company can force feed the oats fast enough, thinking the
horse will be able to catch up with the person using the wormhole.

No doubt I am missing something in this equation...for it seems to me to
be so obvious that there is such a huge amount of wasted energy in the
process, energy and resources being wasted by libraries, organizations
that supposedly don't have an over abundance of resources. And what is the
result...a citation which doesn't really serve well the research
community.

I just don't "get it."

Karl