Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
On 12/7/2013 9:38 PM, Kevin M Randall wrote: snip No, the FRBR model uses the language of entity-relationship models. But that model is being used to illustrate the relationships of the elements. It's a language for understanding the data. But the model isn't talking at all about the structures of data storage. Not one bit. That is not what it's concerned with! FRBR doesn't care if you keep the subject information (name of the subject, etc.) in a single record, not duplicated anywhere else, or copied in full into the records for every work, expression, and manifestation it's related to. That is irrelevant to what FRBR is talking about. FRBR isn't about database efficiency; it's about knowing what the pieces of data are, what they mean, and how they relate. /snip FRBR isn't about database efficiency; it's about knowing what the pieces of data are, what they mean, and how they relate. I cannot agree with that statement since the reason for an entity-relationship model is for building databases and primarily relational databases, but for the moment, let us say that you are right and that FRBR is bigger than that. Therefore, I gather you are focusing on the relationships section in the FRBR data model because our current records show very clearly what each piece of data is and what each means (a uniform title, a series, a personal author, a topical subject, a publisher, etc.) and FRBR changes nothing of that. I have already agreed that adding the FRBR relationships, that is, the specific relationships of adaptation or summarization or complement or supplement and so on, and adding the relator codes, where someone is editor or director or actor would provide something different from what we have today. I have already mentioned this. There are two major hurdles, as I have already noted. The first is practical: the specific relationships are currently not in the legacy data. Please explain how are we supposed to include those relationships in our legacy data because, as I demonstrated, the legacy data amounts to *millions* of instances. That is an absolute fact that cannot be denied. Are catalogers supposed to add that information to those records? If so, please let us know how we are supposed to add the relationship information to those millions of records. Many more people than myself are very interested in how we can change millions of records. How are catalogers supposed to do it manually? Or is someone else going to do it? If so, who will do it and how? Perhaps there is some kind of automated solution available that we do not know about. If so, could you please provide us with details of some projects or of work in progress? Costs are always a consideration. How much will any of this cost? Or, are we simply supposed to ignore the legacy data altogether? What happens then? I suspect that the legacy data is considered to be relatively unimportant to the FRBR/RDA community and that is why nobody wants to discuss it. Unfortunately, it is quite the opposite for the public: the legacy data is 99%+ of what is available to them in the library. If the legacy data is to be ignored, or put off for another day shouldn't the users be a part of such an important decision that would, as I have discussed in my podcast on Consistency, where I mentioned that ...implementing RDA and FRBR will actually /*reduce*/ access to the materials in our collections and then went on to explain how and why. http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2012/09/cataloging-matters-no-16-catalogs.html If users shouldn't be a part of such a decision, why should catalogers be the only ones to decide? The second hurdle is not so much a hurdle, but a problem: could you demonstrate to us why adding the relationship information will make such a fundamental difference to users so that they will return to our catalogs? Are the relationships really what the public has been missing and needing all this time? Where is the evidence for that? I have never seen anything that suggests anything like that, but I confess I live far away in Italy and have been out of the mainstream in many ways. Nevertheless, I am willing to learn if sufficient evidence warrants it. -- James Weinheimer weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com First Thus http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus Cooperative Cataloging Rules http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/ Cataloging Matters Podcasts http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
On 12/6/2013 11:12 PM, Kevin M Randall wrote: snip James Weinheimer wrote: To be fair, the original version of FRBR came out before (or at least not long afterward) the huge abandonment by the public of our OPACs. Google had barely even begun to exist when FRBR appeared. Still, there could have been a chapter on the newest developments back then. But even today, nowhere in it is there the slightest mention of keyword or relevance ranking much less anything about Web2.0 or the semantic web or linked data or full-text or Lucene indexing (like what we see in the Worldcat displays). It's as if those things never happened. There's no mention of that stuff because it is *irrelevant* to what FRBR is about. It has absolutely nothing to do with what technologies or techniques are being used to access the data. It's about the *data itself* that are objects of those keyword searches, or relevance raking, or Lucene indexing, or whatever other as-yet-undeveloped means of discovery there may be. How many times does this have to be said? /snip There is one point where we can agree: it is irrelevant. And that is precisely why FRBR is also irrelevant to how the vast majority of the public searches every single day. It is also irrelevant to implementing the user tasks, since those can be done today. FRBR is irrelevant for linked data. Also (apparently) irrelevant is how much it will cost to change to FRBR structures. But saying that FRBR is about the data itself, I must disagree. We have gobs of data now, and it is already deeply structured. FRBR does not change any of that. There will still be the same data and it will still be as deeply structured. FRBR instead offers an alternative data *model* that is designed for *relational databases*. We currently have another model where all the bibliographic information is put into a single manifestation record and holdings information goes into another record. FRBR proposes to take out data that is now in the manifestation record and put certain parts of it into a work instance, while other data will go into an expression instance. So why did they want to do that? Designers of relational databases want to make their databases as efficient as they can, and one way to do that is by eliminating as much duplication as possible. This is what FRBR proposes. It is clearest to show this with an example: Currently if we have a non-fiction book with multiple manifestations and this book has three subject headings, the subjects will be repeated in each manifestation record. With FRBR, the subjects will all go into the *work* instance, and as a result, each manifestation does not need separate subjects because the manifestation will reference the work instance and get the subjects in that way. What is the advantage? A few. First, the size of the database is reduced (very important with relational databases!), plus if you want to change something, such as add a new subject, you would add that subject only once into the work instance and that extra subject would automatically be referenced in all the manifestations. The same goes for deleting subjects or adding or deleting creators. Nevertheless, the *data itself* remains unchanged and there is not even any additional access with the FRBR data model. It simply posits an alternative data *model* and one that I agree would be *far more* efficient in a relational database. But as I have been at pains to point out, something that may at first seem rather benign such as introducing a new data model, has many serious consequences that should be considered before adopting such a model. Something that makes the database designers happy may be a monster for everyone who uses it: both the people who input into the database and the people who search it. But the designers remain happy. This is what I say we are looking at now with FRBR. Strangely enough, we have different technology today, with Lucene-type indexing such as we see in Google and Worldcat with the facets and everything is flattened out into different indexes, since this is how the indexing works. (The best explanation I have found so far is at http://www.slideshare.net/mcjenkins/the-search-engine-index-presentation but it also becomes pretty dense pretty quickly) Essentially what Lucene does is make an index (much like the index at the back of a book) out of the documents it finds. It indexes text by word, by phrase, and other ways as well. It also adds links to each document where the index term has been used and ranks each term using various methods. The advantage is: when you do a search, it does not have to scan through the entire database (like a relational database does), it just looks up your terms in its index, collates them together and presents the searcher with the result, and it does this blazingly fast as anybody can see when they search Google. The Google index is over 100,000,000 gigabytes!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
James Weinheimer wrote: FRBR proposes to take out data that is now in the manifestation record and put certain parts of it into a work instance, while other data will go into an expression instance. No. Most emphatically, NO. This is at the heart of your fundamental misunderstanding of FRBR. Just as FRBR has nothing to do with the display of information to the user, FRBR also has nothing to do with the storage of data. FRBR has to do with the identification of entities and their attributes, and the relationships between entities. That is all. If the MARC format were robust enough, we could discretely identify ALL of the entities, attributes, and relationships for any one given resource in a single MARC bib record. All of the work data, expression data, manifestation data, and item data. It would still be FRBR compliant. Or it could be so scattered that each individual character in the description were in its own record somewhere, but able to have all of the thousands and thousands of characters pulled together for a coherent display for the user. And that would also still be FRBR compliant. There is nothing at all in FRBR saying that we have to take data out and put it somewhere else. We don't put stuff into a work container, or an expression container. All it's saying is that we somehow identify it in a way that we can relate it. But to beef up the MARC format enough, we'd need to add many, many more tags, indicators, subfield codes, etc. in order to identify all of the different entities and attributes. And it's been pretty much decided that the work to do that would be too great. Yes, we can identify some of the FRBR elements right now, and can do some things that years ago would have been thought of as impossible. But it's nowhere near what we should be able to do, because the data just aren't able to be identified precisely enough. Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
James Weinheimer wrote: Designers of relational databases want to make their databases as efficient as they can, and one way to do that is by eliminating as much duplication as possible. This is what FRBR proposes. No, the FRBR model uses the language of entity-relationship models. But that model is being used to illustrate the relationships of the elements. It's a language for understanding the data. But the model isn't talking at all about the structures of data storage. Not one bit. That is not what it's concerned with! FRBR doesn't care if you keep the subject information (name of the subject, etc.) in a single record, not duplicated anywhere else, or copied in full into the records for every work, expression, and manifestation it's related to. That is irrelevant to what FRBR is talking about. FRBR isn't about database efficiency; it's about knowing what the pieces of data are, what they mean, and how they relate. Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
06.12.2013 09:12, James Weinheimer: I do believe that FRBR is the main enemy (to use your term). Why? Because everything, including RDA and the new formats, etc. all state explicitly that this is what they are aiming for, even though the model has never been proven to be what people want. Why should we assume that people want it? On the contrary, is there any evidence that people *do not* want FRBR? Yes, and it is highly significant. We might briefly say, I think, that FRBR, even if we had all the legacy upgraded and FRBRIzed to the ultimate extent, this would cover only a small amount of use cases. The FRBR idea originated from the necessities of library houskeeping, not from an analysis of end-user requirements and expectations. Libraries need(ed) to be able to check their collections for the presence of other editions or translations before they ordered a copy of a new book, for instance. And such checks had to be efficient. This was and is everyday experience. This makes librarians think in a different way from end-users. They think in terms of large chunks of recorded knowledge, also called books. End-users think in terms of much smaller chunks: facts and figures, very specific questions mostly, and larger questions occasionally, and to some of these cases a book may be the answer. Such cases cases may profit from subject access to the opac (up to now no business of RDA's), the former - nowadays - only from search engines. And many more larger questions than ever before have now become answerable by online access, so that the former default, the library, has slipped from the public mind as a provider of answers. The default, for ever more searchers, is the activity now called googling. Only for questions and problems beyond that, libraries may remain a place of last resort, but RDA can certainly not be the life saver or the most important develeopment to keep libraries interesting. Thus, considering that much of what FRBR promises is reality already, as Jim has pointed out, the migration to RDA appears to be a waste of resources. Not only, but also because we are supposed to shell out hundreds of dollars per year just for the privilege to *read* those rules. B.Eversberg
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
Bernhard Eversberg wrote: Thus, considering that much of what FRBR promises is reality already FRBR doesn't promise anything. It just describes what was always being done, and shaped into a model to help us better understand what was being done. The newer functionalities we are seeing, such as the faceting in Jim's Hamlet example, are real-world examples of the principles that FRBR describes. I highly suspect that there is a strong link between their development and the FRBR report. Even if FRBR hadn't been written, they very likely would have come about anyway, because FRBR isn't telling us how to, it's telling us what is; the what that is was always there--we just see it more clearly through the FRBR report. And seeing it more clearly facilitates the development. If we don't need what FRBR talks about, then that means we must not need that stuff we find at http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3A%22shakespeare+william%22+ti%3Ahamletqt=results_page Might as well just tell OCLC No thanks, take it away, please. If we don't need what FRBR talks about, then we don't need to know who the creator of a resource is, who published it, when it was published, what other resource it is related to, etc. Because that's all that FRBR is about. Please, everyone, stop seeing FRBR as a model for bibliographic records in a user display. That is NOT at all what it is. It is a model of the data underlying the bibliographic records. Those are very, very, very different things. Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
On 12/6/2013 7:12 PM, Kevin M Randall wrote: snip FRBR doesn't promise anything. It just describes what was always being done, and shaped into a model to help us better understand what was being done. The newer functionalities we are seeing, such as the faceting in Jim's Hamlet example, are real-world examples of the principles that FRBR describes. I highly suspect that there is a strong link between their development and the FRBR report. Even if FRBR hadn't been written, they very likely would have come about anyway, because FRBR isn't telling us how to, it's telling us what is; the what that is was always there--we just see it more clearly through the FRBR report. And seeing it more clearly facilitates the development. If we don't need what FRBR talks about, then that means we must not need that stuff we find athttp://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3A%22shakespeare+william%22+ti%3Ahamletqt=results_page Might as well just tell OCLC No thanks, take it away, please. If we don't need what FRBR talks about, then we don't need to know who the creator of a resource is, who published it, when it was published, what other resource it is related to, etc. Because that's all that FRBR is about. Please, everyone, stop seeing FRBR as a model for bibliographic records in a user display. That is NOT at all what it is. It is a model of the data underlying the bibliographic records. Those are very, very, very different things. /snip FRBR is not so benign, as I have tried to show and as many library departments are beginning to understand. Accepting FRBR (and RDA) has many implications, some of which are surprisingly huge. I think everybody understands clearly that we are seeing only the very beginnings of the ultimate costs of FRBR. FRBR is actually an entity-relationship model that is used for setting up a relational database. The very first step in making such a model is to determine what people want to do with the database you are going to make (i.e. figure out the user tasks) and from there you can figure out the entities, attributes and relationships in order to fulfill those user tasks. This is fraught with many problems in today's environment, but the very first part is supposed to demand working with the people who will use it to find out what they want. The very simple fact is: there was not any effort to figure out what the public wants to do with information in a bibliographic database. The paper by Amanda Cossham pointed this out clearly. It still hasn't been done! Here was a tool that the public never cared for (the card catalog), then it was transferred with almost no changes into another tool (the OPAC) where in many ways it worked much worse than the original card catalog, and after all of that, should it come as any surprise to discover that the public abandoned the card catalogs/OPACs just as soon as they had a real choice (keyword, full-text relevance ranking)? Does it then make any sense to set out in relational database format what was already being done and *has already been abandoned* by the public? To be fair, the original version of FRBR came out before (or at least not long afterward) the huge abandonment by the public of our OPACs. Google had barely even begun to exist when FRBR appeared. Still, there could have been a chapter on the newest developments back then. But even today, nowhere in it is there the slightest mention of keyword or relevance ranking much less anything about Web2.0 or the semantic web or linked data or full-text or Lucene indexing (like what we see in the Worldcat displays). It's as if those things never happened. So, the purpose of the Worldcat search I demonstrated, where anybody can do the FRBR user tasks for Shakespeare's Hamlet, isn't to conclude No thanks, take it away, please. It is to say that we don't need the entire FRBR structure because what it envisions can be done *today* *right now* with what we have and without the incredibly expensive changes either to the content or to the format that FRBR demands. That is a simple fact and it should be celebrated, with huge kudos going to the programmers. As a rather incredible addition, the technology that allow it is... *FREE*!! Instead it is ignored, to the detriment of the entire cataloging community, with vast resources wasted to build something that has already been done. If some other purpose has replaced the FRBR user tasks, but still demands the FRBR structures, whoever has decided that should let everyone else know--and perhaps it could be debated?! As it stands now, we must assume that huge resources are being used to create something that has already been done, and done far more cheaply and quickly, and perhaps, even better. -- James Weinheimer weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com First Thus http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus Cooperative Cataloging Rules
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
James Weinheimer wrote: To be fair, the original version of FRBR came out before (or at least not long afterward) the huge abandonment by the public of our OPACs. Google had barely even begun to exist when FRBR appeared. Still, there could have been a chapter on the newest developments back then. But even today, nowhere in it is there the slightest mention of keyword or relevance ranking much less anything about Web2.0 or the semantic web or linked data or full-text or Lucene indexing (like what we see in the Worldcat displays). It's as if those things never happened. There's no mention of that stuff because it is *irrelevant* to what FRBR is about. It has absolutely nothing to do with what technologies or techniques are being used to access the data. It's about the *data itself* that are objects of those keyword searches, or relevance raking, or Lucene indexing, or whatever other as-yet-undeveloped means of discovery there may be. How many times does this have to be said? Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
04.12.2013 21:07, Laurence S. Creider: If I were a business or business group thinking about adopting a new standard and had a choice between the costs of RDA and a community standard that was largely open, I probably would not choose RDA even if it were markedly superior to the other standard. I think that the most we can hope for is for other content standards that we can make compatible to RDA so that data can be exchanged in the other format. We have to realize that schema.org, mentioned by Jim, is not a content standard but a markup standard. What you put under a microdata tag is up to you! There are no mentionable content rules for names or titles or just about anything you can record in microdata. So, there is actually no choice between RDA and microdata. Not even, I'd add, between MARC and microdata, for the latter is just much less granular, and certainly too much so for RDA stuff. OTOH, Jim's view about what standards we really need seems to be more radical... One might ask a very different question: Is it at all necessary that every catalog worker has full access to RDA? Just those, I suppose, who do sizeable amounts of original cataloging. And how many of those are there these days, anyway. And even then, the approach that Mac calls monkey see, monkey do should in many cases be good enough, considering there *are* already examples for just about everything in OCLC or other databases, and they are not too difficult to find. It might be a good idea to invent some special subject headings that could be added to fine examples to make them easily findable. And then copy-and-pasteable. Much faster than an RDA lookup, and no cost. Is this not what many have been doing for a long time already? When did you last look something up in AACR, and might that issue not have been settled with some help from proven examples, if only you found them? And for basics, Mac's cheat sheets will always do fine, plus some transliteration tables and stuff like that which is not under lock and key in the Toolkit. That should make access to RDA Toolkit a nice to have, not more. B.Eversberg
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
On 12/5/2013 9:03 AM, Bernhard Eversberg wrote: snip 04.12.2013 21:07, Laurence S. Creider: I think that the most we can hope for is for other content standards that we can make compatible to RDA so that data can be exchanged in the other format. We have to realize that schema.org, mentioned by Jim, is not a content standard but a markup standard. What you put under a microdata tag is up to you! There are no mentionable content rules for names or titles or just about anything you can record in microdata. So, there is actually no choice between RDA and microdata. Not even, I'd add, between MARC and microdata, for the latter is just much less granular, and certainly too much so for RDA stuff. OTOH, Jim's view about what standards we really need seems to be more radical... /snip This is true, and while Bernhard certainly knows the difference between a content standard and a markup standard--and how important that distinction is--and many others on this list understand as well, the vast majority of non-catalogers either do not understand the difference (and don't care) or they do not understand why it is important. For instance, an IT person would very possibly say that all you need to do is encode your information in schema.org, put it someplace where the Googles can ingest it, and then the *algorithms* will clear up any problems with content. The Googles do this all the time. I think there are lots of problems with that, but it doesn't mean the idea itself is entirely wrong either. Laurence's point is also telling: that other content standards can be made compatible to RDA. I ask: Why shouldn't it be the other way around: make RDA (or library-created records) compatible with other content standards? This would be the real change and, I think, is inevitable no matter what we do. Whether we like it or whether we don't, libraries are not the main places where people go to for their information needs. When was the last time you saw in a movie or TV show that when someone needed information, they were told: Go to a library and ask a librarian. No--it's always Google and they always find exactly what they need quickly and easily. That is the popular mind today. Even when people do come to a library for information and not just for a cup of coffee or to watch the latest internet meme, but when they come for information, lots of times it is to get access to search the web, or to get access to proprietary databases (e.g. proquest, ebsco, etc.) where they search full-text and/or *non-library* created records. Does Ebsco use RDA? Or AACR2? No. And I don't think there is a chance in h*** that they will--that is, unless someone can demonstrate otherwise to them, or can (pardon) make the business case. So, from the user's standpoint--which must take precedence (as we have always claimed but have rarely lived up to)--the number of places to get information is going up at an exponential pace, while the library-created information becomes an ever-diminishing fraction of the whole of that. Everybody knows this, but yet we are supposed to think that all of those information providers need and want to become compatible with *us*? Why? If we wait for that, we wait forever So, are there choices? *Of course* there are choices--there are always choices even though many try to deny that there are choices. The first step--I think--is to eliminate the mind-numbing fantasy that FRBR is some kind of ultimate solution. Finally, there seems to be a major push against it, as shown in this excellent paper I found by Amanda Cossham: Bibliographic records in an online environment, given at a conference in Copenhagen in August. http://www.informationr.net/ir/18-3/colis/paperC42.html#.Up8arieKJWF She also provides an excellent bibliography and has graciously included some of my thoughts, so this gives me a chance to pound my own chest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_nhiYOvICk The next step for catalogers is to deal seriously with the reality of keyword searching. Keyword searching was immediately popular with the users and it just as quickly destroyed the logical structure of the catalog. (Yes, there was one!) It shouldn't come as a surprise that the public, which was never enamored of our catalogs anyway, now finds our catalogs much less useful than ever. That has been the case for--what is it? Going on for a *quarter of a century* now?! What a librarian attitude! How much longer can we put it off? How can we make the traditional logical structures--that are still!--found in our catalogs but hidden away, useful for the searcher of today? And while we are at it, how could we make our records useful with a full-text search? Full-text searches do exist and people like myself like them. Could those full-text results be improved by using our records somehow? Wouldn't it be nice if they were improved, and we could demonstrate how important our work is, or at
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
I notice that Amazon is selling RDA for Kindle @$120, which seems to be within the range of college textbooks these days. To quote: This e-book contains the 2013 Revision of RDA: Resource Description and Access, and includes the July 2013 Update. This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA, but please note that this e-book does not have the full range of content or functionality provided by the subscription product RDA Toolkit. (I suppose this means there are no external links to AACR2 and the LC PCC Policy Statements; quoting again: This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA ... This, coupled with free access to the LC PCC Policy Statements and PCC documentation, should be enough to suit the needs of a small collection. Steven Arakawa Catalog Librarian for Training Documentation Catalog Metada Services Sterling Memorial Library. Yale University P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 (203) 432-8286 steven.arak...@yale.edu -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 2:54 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging John Hostage wrote: I think what he meant was, what use is it to have access to the PSs if you can't see the rules they annotate without paying an arm and a leg. The way Bernhard stated it gave the implication that there was something new in regard to accessing LC policy. But nothing has really changed: access to LC policy was free before (under AACR2), and it is still free now (under RDA). In both cases, there is also the need for separate access (not free) to the rules themselves. To be sure, the difference in cost between AACR2 and RDA is quite substantial, and I do think it's a very regrettable situation that the ALA budget seems to be so dependent upon the revenue from the cataloging rules. Hopefully more affordable ancillary products will crop up eventually. (And hopefully the economics of RDA will change--maybe what must have been horrific costs for the initial development of the RDA text and especially the Toolkit will be paid off, and substantially lower subscription prices will be able to support ongoing maintenance???) Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
Is this Kindle version updated? That may be what is meant by less than full range of content as the subscription product. If so, it would be equivalent in content to the print version -- which, interestingly enough is listed on ALA Editions as costing $150. So, you pay less for a version with searching and links. That is a good deal. Of course, like the print, the product will become outdated quite soon and a new purchase would need to be made every year or so. Still, spending $120 per year is cheaper than $195 per year for the subscription. Zora Breeding Vanderbilt -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Arakawa, Steven Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 3:42 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging I notice that Amazon is selling RDA for Kindle @$120, which seems to be within the range of college textbooks these days. To quote: This e-book contains the 2013 Revision of RDA: Resource Description and Access, and includes the July 2013 Update. This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA, but please note that this e-book does not have the full range of content or functionality provided by the subscription product RDA Toolkit. (I suppose this means there are no external links to AACR2 and the LC PCC Policy Statements; quoting again: This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA ... This, coupled with free access to the LC PCC Policy Statements and PCC documentation, should be enough to suit the needs of a small collection. Steven Arakawa Catalog Librarian for Training Documentation Catalog Metada Services Sterling Memorial Library. Yale University P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 (203) 432-8286 steven.arak...@yale.edu -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 2:54 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging John Hostage wrote: I think what he meant was, what use is it to have access to the PSs if you can't see the rules they annotate without paying an arm and a leg. The way Bernhard stated it gave the implication that there was something new in regard to accessing LC policy. But nothing has really changed: access to LC policy was free before (under AACR2), and it is still free now (under RDA). In both cases, there is also the need for separate access (not free) to the rules themselves. To be sure, the difference in cost between AACR2 and RDA is quite substantial, and I do think it's a very regrettable situation that the ALA budget seems to be so dependent upon the revenue from the cataloging rules. Hopefully more affordable ancillary products will crop up eventually. (And hopefully the economics of RDA will change--maybe what must have been horrific costs for the initial development of the RDA text and especially the Toolkit will be paid off, and substantially lower subscription prices will be able to support ongoing maintenance???) Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
Hello Folks, I thought we had posted about this a few weeks ago, but I was mistaken. Here's the information-- The RDA eBook is now available for purchase from many eBook vendors as well as Amazon.com. It is available in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats. Customers outside USA, Canada or Mexico can purchase through Facet Publishing. The eBook contains the 2013 Revision of RDA: Resource Description and Access and offers linked cross-references and search capability. The RDA eBook does not have the full range of content or functionality provided by the subscription product RDA Toolkit. Jamie James Hennelly Managing Editor ALA Digital Reference 1-800-545-2433, ext 5051, or 312-280-5051 jhenne...@ala.org -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Breeding, Zora Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 4:13 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging Is this Kindle version updated? That may be what is meant by less than full range of content as the subscription product. If so, it would be equivalent in content to the print version -- which, interestingly enough is listed on ALA Editions as costing $150. So, you pay less for a version with searching and links. That is a good deal. Of course, like the print, the product will become outdated quite soon and a new purchase would need to be made every year or so. Still, spending $120 per year is cheaper than $195 per year for the subscription. Zora Breeding Vanderbilt -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Arakawa, Steven Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 3:42 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging I notice that Amazon is selling RDA for Kindle @$120, which seems to be within the range of college textbooks these days. To quote: This e-book contains the 2013 Revision of RDA: Resource Description and Access, and includes the July 2013 Update. This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA, but please note that this e-book does not have the full range of content or functionality provided by the subscription product RDA Toolkit. (I suppose this means there are no external links to AACR2 and the LC PCC Policy Statements; quoting again: This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA ... This, coupled with free access to the LC PCC Policy Statements and PCC documentation, should be enough to suit the needs of a small collection. Steven Arakawa Catalog Librarian for Training Documentation Catalog Metada Services Sterling Memorial Library. Yale University P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 (203) 432-8286 steven.arak...@yale.edu -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 2:54 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging John Hostage wrote: I think what he meant was, what use is it to have access to the PSs if you can't see the rules they annotate without paying an arm and a leg. The way Bernhard stated it gave the implication that there was something new in regard to accessing LC policy. But nothing has really changed: access to LC policy was free before (under AACR2), and it is still free now (under RDA). In both cases, there is also the need for separate access (not free) to the rules themselves. To be sure, the difference in cost between AACR2 and RDA is quite substantial, and I do think it's a very regrettable situation that the ALA budget seems to be so dependent upon the revenue from the cataloging rules. Hopefully more affordable ancillary products will crop up eventually. (And hopefully the economics of RDA will change--maybe what must have been horrific costs for the initial development of the RDA text and especially the Toolkit will be paid off, and substantially lower subscription prices will be able to support ongoing maintenance???) Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging
I assumed it was not continuously updated, but I don't see that as a deal breaker for a small collection. I suspect many small collections did not attempt to purchase every update of AACR2, nor did they feel guilty about it; perfection can be the enemy of good enough, as the saying goes. Steven Arakawa Catalog Librarian for Training Documentation Catalog Metada Services Sterling Memorial Library. Yale University P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 (203) 432-8286 steven.arak...@yale.edu -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Breeding, Zora Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 5:13 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging Is this Kindle version updated? That may be what is meant by less than full range of content as the subscription product. If so, it would be equivalent in content to the print version -- which, interestingly enough is listed on ALA Editions as costing $150. So, you pay less for a version with searching and links. That is a good deal. Of course, like the print, the product will become outdated quite soon and a new purchase would need to be made every year or so. Still, spending $120 per year is cheaper than $195 per year for the subscription. Zora Breeding Vanderbilt -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Arakawa, Steven Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 3:42 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging I notice that Amazon is selling RDA for Kindle @$120, which seems to be within the range of college textbooks these days. To quote: This e-book contains the 2013 Revision of RDA: Resource Description and Access, and includes the July 2013 Update. This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA, but please note that this e-book does not have the full range of content or functionality provided by the subscription product RDA Toolkit. (I suppose this means there are no external links to AACR2 and the LC PCC Policy Statements; quoting again: This e-book offers links within the RDA text and the capability of running rudimentary searches of RDA ... This, coupled with free access to the LC PCC Policy Statements and PCC documentation, should be enough to suit the needs of a small collection. Steven Arakawa Catalog Librarian for Training Documentation Catalog Metada Services Sterling Memorial Library. Yale University P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240 (203) 432-8286 steven.arak...@yale.edu -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 2:54 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Access to the knowledge of cataloging John Hostage wrote: I think what he meant was, what use is it to have access to the PSs if you can't see the rules they annotate without paying an arm and a leg. The way Bernhard stated it gave the implication that there was something new in regard to accessing LC policy. But nothing has really changed: access to LC policy was free before (under AACR2), and it is still free now (under RDA). In both cases, there is also the need for separate access (not free) to the rules themselves. To be sure, the difference in cost between AACR2 and RDA is quite substantial, and I do think it's a very regrettable situation that the ALA budget seems to be so dependent upon the revenue from the cataloging rules. Hopefully more affordable ancillary products will crop up eventually. (And hopefully the economics of RDA will change--maybe what must have been horrific costs for the initial development of the RDA text and especially the Toolkit will be paid off, and substantially lower subscription prices will be able to support ongoing maintenance???) Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
