daRoza, Ida
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:17:37 -0700
It would be great if reference librarians and IT librarians were more proactive in learning and discussing RDA and having sessions at ALA about the potential implementation. I don't see that happening in reference or IT listservs or in programming on the state or national level. Take a random poll at your library and ask reference people about RDA - are they advocating for it for their patrons? Is It advocating for it as a better system? It seems like cataloging departments are alone in this effort to work it out. What is worrisome is that we may need to work it out sooner than later if as in October RDA records from test libraries will be showing up in the OCLC without OCLC allowing the option of parallel AACR2 record - there are going to be a lot of catalogers in a tough position without the backup of the full library team. Ida Z. daRoza dar...@smcl.org SMCO Collections & Cataloging San Mateo County Central Library 125 Lessingia Court San Mateo, CA. 94402 650-312-5255 -----Original Message----- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Miksa, Shawne Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 11:38 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Time and effort Jim unbelievable wrote: "But it must be accepted that catalogers are *most definitely NOT* the people to know what people need from information. That can only come from reference librarians and the public, the researchers, scholars, and students, themselves." With all due respect---what planet are you on, Jim? Come back to this one. Where do you get this stuff? Let me welcome you to the 21st century where catalogers are user-centric, born and bred. We start from the point of the user--what are their needs, how do we organize it to help them meet those needs; how do the choices we make as organizers affect their ability to find, identify, select, obtain, navigate.....and so on. Let's call it functionality, shall we? Only a reference librarian, and not a cataloging librarian, can know what people need from information? Bulldada. If there is an instance of this then it occurs when a cataloger gets so wrapped up in the 'brilliance' of their own cataloging skills that they can't see the forest for the trees. Done. Outta here. Buh-bye. ************************************************************** Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Library and Information Sciences College of Information University of North Texas email: shawne.mi...@unt.edu http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101 **************************************************************