Mac, et al., I certainly agree that the changes will be more dramatic, and to be honest, in some cases not welcome (to my mind, at least). What also has changed since AACR2 came along is the number of staff members we have supporting the cataloging, and the willingness of our administration to devote resources to things like retrospective conversion of existing bibliographic records. In a world of batch-loading recordsets, outsourcing, and Google Books, it is just not a priority for the people who make these decisions. Let me emphasize this is not a change I am overjoyed with, but it is what it is.
That said, I am certainly interested in whatever automated conversion options might be available. --Ben ________________________________________ From: J. McRee Elrod [m...@slc.bc.ca] Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 4:01 PM To: Benjamin A Abrahamse Cc: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Plans for Existing Bib Records? Benjamin accurately said: >I would just point out that, for most if not all of us, a hybrid catalog is= > already the norm. For example, plenty of pre-AACR2 records persist (parti= >cularly for serials) in our catalog as in LC's and the like. The differences between the red and green books, AACR1, and AACR2 records were not as dramatic as those between AACR and RDA. I doubt if many patrons notice 2d vs., 2nd, ill. vs. illus., nor ISBD punctuation. Spelled out abbreviations is a greater change. There were no main entry changes for monographs as dramatic as the dropping of the rule of three. For me, the most difficult earlier change was entry for serials and series. I had spent years with "Journal of chemistry" being entered under title, and "Journal of the Chemical Association" being entered under the association. But that pales in comparison with the end of GMD, unjustified added entries, no standard for number of authors to be transcribed or traced, no defined standard for title capitalization, no indication of typos in situ, imprint place jurisdiction not being supplied if lacking, and *long* phrases replacing ISBD inclusions. __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________