Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
1. What about the "rewording"? Does it reduce the amount of necessary
exegesis?
Perhaps a bit, but not dramatically so.
Readability has certainly increased considerably in the reworded
chapters. But the rewording doesn't help with matters of arrangement.
E.g. in the case of rule 2.3.4.2 ("Take other title information from the
same source as the title proper") there should be a reference saying
roughly: "Information which looks like other title information but is
not positioned on the same source as the title proper can be recorded as
a variant title (see 2.3.6)."
2. Based on the fact that next to no one will have all the time
it would take to do all this careful reading and reasoning,
what will be the chances for consistent data?
I often wonder how many catalogers will really work with the text of RDA
itself, at least in the long run. Because of the costs, I expect that
even at larger libraries there will often be only a license for one
concurrent user.
People will turn to other materials instead. Hopefully, we'll have a
couple of good general textbooks on RDA soon which will explain things
much better than the rules itself. In my opinion, the 20/80 rule also
applies to cataloging, i.e. only a fairly small number of rules is
needed to cope with the majority of the stuff catalogers are confronted
with in their everyday work. So, although a general textbook won't be
able to cover every rule of RDA, it will still make the life of
catalogers a lot easier. Add a couple of more specialized textbooks for
different kinds of media. Then it should be no longer necessary for
everybody to work through all the minutiae and find their path through
the labyrinth of RDA for themselves.
By the way: When exactly will Robert Maxwell's "Handbook for RDA" be
published?
3. Hadn't one of the objectives for RDA been to make cataloging
more economical? Who's going to evaluate this and to determine
if the results fit the business case for RDA?
Who indeed.
But it certainly needs to be done, and my prognosis is that RDA won't
look too good when it comes to "easy cataloging". A few things may be
easier than before, but on the whole I'd argue that RDA is no less
complex than AACR2.
4. How will all of this appeal to the "other communities"? (If they
can be persuaded to buy access to the rules, that is.)
Well, I've always been rather sceptical in this respect. Here in
Germany, even archivists claim that RDA has nothing to do with them -
and that's certainly a community which is still very close to our
profession. But perhaps everything will come alright with BIBFRAME??
Heidrun
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Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
