04.11.2011 21:12, James Weinheimer:
Concerning "A Bibliographic Framework for the Digital Age"
http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/framework-103111.html
Also, in deference to Bernhard and his statement
<snip>
(ISO2709, BTW, is *not* among the flaws and issues. It is a very
marginal issue of a purely internal nature and is in no way related
to MARC as a content standard.
...
</snip>
I must disagree 100%. Maintaining that ISO2709 is not a problem is like
saying that the water in the local stream is fine. While you can't drink
it immediately, all you have to do is take a few buckets of that water,
let them sit for 5 or 6 hours to settle, then skim off what's on top.
Boil the water you skimmed off for 10 minutes or so and then throw in a
couple of chlorine tablets at the end. Shake it all up and voila! You
can drink it. Therefore, the water is safe to drink!
Jim, ISO2709 is a nuisance, agreed. And I dislike it no less than you
do because I'm a real programmer and know what it feels like.
But don't let's get carried away and rush to premature conclusions with
inappropriate metaphors. Rather, consider this:
Would you tear down your house and rebuild it from the ground up
if the old wallpaper gives you the creeps?
For that's what ISO2709 is: mere wallpaper. Easily replaced or painted
over. Nothing serious, nothing that affects any qualities of the building.
And in all those many OPACs that have a MARC display option: Does one of
them show ISO data? Whether or not this option is anything an OPAC
should have, this observation easily falsifies the hypothesis that MARC
should be dumped or even sneered at because of ISO. And data
communication, ISO's real and only intention, can be carried out just
as well with MarcEdit's external text based format, with no end-user
noticing any change.
And while we are at this: What about the triplestore format LC has
used to make their authority data available for download, esp. the LCNAF
stuff with RDF/XML wallpapering:
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names.html
Would that be a promising alternative to MARC (ISO or not)?
B.Eversberg
