Attached to Bernhard's excellent prototype, I want to share something else. At: http://www.galileo.aur.it/opac-tmpl/npl/en/libweb/RDA-Koha-Example.html you will see a non-working copy of my Koha 2.2.7 entry input page. Koha is an open-source ILMS. By the way, Koha 3 has a much improved data entry page.
When you click on "2" in the left-hand corner, you will go to the 2xx fields, and under the 245 field, you will see how I can link into the appropriate areas of Bernhard's rules. This is very quick and very dirty, but someone asked how long it would take to implement the system described by Bernhard. While expecting a company to implement something like this could take years (luckily months) this small example can serve as an example of how *frighteningly* fast open development can be. I could implement this right now, and I'm not even all that good at computer programming Someone who knows what they are doing could do something much, much better and much more efficiently. There are a lot of programmers out there who are positively itching to do something like this. And when you add into all of this the cooperative comments from suggestions from people on such a list as this, the results can be unbelievably good. But it must be open. Jim Weinheimer > A small demo example for what "open development" could do: > > http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/wtr/content.htm > > Using modest, no-frills tools and designs, this offers browsing by rule > number, rule title, core elements, and keyword (all words from all > rules). Appendices are not included. > > If you want to jump in directly to, say, rule 1.6.3, just say > > http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/wtr/page.php?urG=PAR&urS=1.6.3 > > This is _just_ for _demonstration_ purposes. It will be of little use > after the full software becomes available, and will then be > withdrawn. Presentation of rule texts is suboptimal, and it is not > possible to download any of it in a format usable by other software. > There are inaccuracies and some chapters are omitted. > The important parts are the browsable indexes. OTOH, it would be > possible to link from this presentation into the finalized online > version, provided it comes with an open linking interface. > Of course, lots more and a lot of very different and much better things > might be brought about by open development! There's a big chance here to > really open up to the metasphere at large. > > If, however, open development should be excluded due to a reluctance to > make rule texts available for at least non-commercial re-use, as it is > with AACR2, success of RDA will be impeded and even a split of the > catalog sphere may very likely become unavoidable. This may well turn > out the most crucial stumbling block on the road to acceptance and > implementation. Esp., closed source text will hardly be accepted > in the DC arena, and that means the DC-RDA collaboration and the > outreach to "other communities" will remain academic or > pie-in-the-sky. > > > B.Eversberg
