Dear LC Working Group:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this significant draft final report. Due to the short length of time for review, these comments will be very brief and impressionistic.
- Overall, I think the report envisions positive steps forward for the Library of Congress and the library community as a whole.
- We seem to lack not only, a vision for the future of bibliographic control, but also a vision for the future role of libraries. In the “guiding principles” section, I recommend starting one level up before “redefine bibliographic control” with “redefine libraries.”
- How about suggesting decentralizing the CIP program?
- I don’t recommend halting RDA development until further testing is done on FRBR. A better scenario (and one that JSC has probably already considered) is to start beta testing RDA during this next year before it’s published in 2009.
- Consider recommending the funding of the DCMI/RDA work.
- One of my problems with this report is that it fails to mention the human, intellectual role in bibliographic control and metadata creation. Effort needs to be made to encourage and inspire librarians involved in bibliographic control. The anticipated changes and complexities will require cataloger’s judgment now more then ever. And our professional skills will be applied in new and challenging ways.
- I thought the report was vague on a few of important issues: the future of the MARC format, Library of Congress Classification (LCC), and OCLC’s role in the future of bibliographic control.
- The section titled “redefine bibliographic control” could use some work. It seems to contain contradictory statements: at one point talking about “a unified philosophy of bibliographic control” but in the next paragraph describing the complex diversity one encounters and the need for less consistency in bibliographic description. It’s a little fuzzy.
- On p. 11, when the current cataloging practice is described as “to transcribe, by hand” it sounds like we’re writing out cards in library hand! I’m not sure how to reword it, but it sounds very antiquated and somewhat misrepresents our computer-based work.
- There needs to be a recommendation on the licensing and sale of bibliographic data. It would be helpful if the Working Group shared their opinion on this issue. Is there support for open access and re-use of bibliographic data?
- Please clarify with an example the reference to “cost recovery” on p. 13.
- 1.2.1 “share responsibility for creating bibliographic records” lacks a recommendation for OCLC to reevaluate their business model and its effect on whether or not libraries can actually share responsibility for the enrichment and correction of bibliographic records.
- On p. 22 in 3.1.1.1 the word “carrier” is used. Would “schema” be a better term? Also, if you’re talking about a replacement or transformation of MARC, could it be explicit in the recommendation.
- On p. 31 there is no mention that LCSH headings can function as keywords. One does not really need subject expertise to benefit from LCSH headings (although the addition of tagging and folksonomies would help also).
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Schwartz
Head Cataloger
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries
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