MARC--Controversial literature

I don't really agree with this post: Radiohead and the death of MARC cataloging, but I'm always on the lookout for librarians weighing in on the future (or non-future) of the MARC format.

A year and a half ago - without any librarians seeming to notice - the MARC cataloging standard officially became obsolete. For years now librarians have noted that MARC is great for describing books but not other media types. The problem lies largely in the fact that MARC and AACR2 are geared to describing single, owned, and published material (i.e. monographs). Moreover, most libraries still focus almost exclusively on purchasing books. But the internet, the abundance of multimedia formats, and their meteoric expansion have slowly eaten away at our old-steady reading partner....

I’m not saying that it will be easy to fix this problem. Providing access to a digital resource requires specific tools and specific technological skills. Fixing or replacing MARC is even more problematic! Nonetheless, librarians don’t have a much of a choice about what to do. Digital resources aren’t going anywhere soon and the good old days are gone for sure. An airbag may have saved Thom Yorke’s life once but he’s shown that unless libraries get their act together we all may be dead.

Comments

[Million]

To be honest, I'm not completely convinced that I convinced myself when I wrote it. Irony there, eh? :)

I guess I was really thinking was along the lines of this (although I'm still up in the air) - a search engine can pull up free-web content automatically, and social networking tools are excellent at quickly sharing information with like-minded individuals, but MARC isn't. You have to create or download a record and then the patrons have to visit an external link to begin with. This might work if people browsed OPAC's like the web but they don't.

The Nietzsche reference was just intended to show that MARC has to do more than simply provide access. It has to be relevant and timely. Otherwise, people go elsewhere for electronic material.

[Christine Schwartz]

Million, Thanks for the comment and further thoughts on your post. I'm definitely more sanguine about using the MARC format for digital resources--I think it can be adapted if need be.

However, I think we'll move away from MARC eventually. What will replace it and how we get there is one of the most interesting library metadata question right now (interesting to me, at least).

[Million]

Hence the name of the blog I suspect. :)

I was actually really disappointed that none of my library school classes covered alternative approaches. For example, everything I know about metadata other than MARC basically came from me learning on my own. Even now it's weird not seeing a definitive alternative.