James Weinheimer wrote: > I don't think I am missing the point of RDA, and the abbreviations are a > great example. Do we really believe that a simple rule change will "solve" > whatever "problems" the public supposedly has with abbreviations in the > catalog? Sorry, but I find that very naive.
Did you read the rest of my post? This response shows that you still do not understand at all. The "simple rule changes" are *NOT* the changes that are significant in RDA. What is significant and has great potential is the entire concept behind RDA, creating a framework that brings metadata into the current age of information technology. When work was first begun on AACR3, the problem was that it was essentially just another revision of AACR2. If you look at the Dec. 2004 draft today, it hardly looks any different from AACR2! That draft got a *huge* negative response, and it soon became apparent that the entire thing needed to be completely re-thought. If we had ended up getting AACR3, it would have been just a rewrite of AACR2, incorporating the kinds of little changes that Jim has been citing. It would have taken us nowhere. I think what the Committee of Principals and the Joint Steering Committee ended up doing was very brave (they have received a lot of criticism through the years, including from yours truly). AACR3 was totally thrown out, and replaced with a whole new concept. While I still see large problems with the Toolkit functionality, language of the guidelines, and distribution model for RDA, I have to admit that the JSC really got it right with the foundation, the idea of uniquely identifying each part of the description, each of the relationships. The things like abbreviations, or having "other title information" be required or not, can be changed back and forth by the JSC at any time and not have any significant impact on what RDA is and is all about. Having a list of elements and relationships, and guidelines for determining the values of those elements and relationships, is the essence of RDA and is what will enable us to have much more powerful metadata. It's only one part of what we need; we also need carriers to store the metadata and systems to manipulate it, but now we at least have the important first step, which is identifying all of the pieces of metadata. Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Bibliographic Services Dept. Northwestern University Library 1970 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: k...@northwestern.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-4345
