The Future of Bibliographic Control… and the pesky users and uses
As has been remarked in various other places, including the blogs of working group member Lorcan Dempsey and evidence-giver extraordinaire Andrew Pace, the US Library of Congress‘ rather grandly named ‘Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control‘ decamps to sunny Mountain View tomorrow for a consideration of ‘Users and Uses of Bibliographic Data‘
Having commented to the group just after it was formed, I was interested to read the supporting documentation [PDF] for this, their first public outing.
Sadly, I was disappointed… Apparently,
“The foreseeable uses of bibliographic data can be grouped into three areas: discovery and delivery, inventory management, and cross-compatibility with related data.”
Surely that presumes a worryingly narrow definition of both ‘user’ and ‘use’? And the whole ‘control’ thing in the group’s title sets my teeth on edge from the outset, reminding me of the whole “If only they would learn Dewey (or LCSH in this case, presumably), they’d be fine” mentality…
The paper also gushes on FRBR, which is a good enough idea, but insanely more complicated than is really required, and typically over-engineered? [Having said much the same thing at the recent RIN shindig on Union Catalogues, I was pleasantly surprised not only to survive, but also to have the (I thought!) heretical statement met by a wall of sagely nodding heads.]
Oh, and facets. We’ve got them, too. Indeed, Rob shows you how you can have them…
I look forward, though, to reading the flood of blog traffic from those heading to California for the day, and rely upon that nice Mr Pace to inject some of the pragmatism evident in his blog post into the proceedings.
Banish ‘control’ from the lexicon, and make sure there is at least one ‘user’ for every ‘librarian’ in the room. Then we might get somewhere.
Update: Advisory Group member Roy Tennant tells me he’ll be there. I rely upon him to fly the flag of sanity, along with Andrew, and expect a full and frank report.
Another update: Karen Coyle did exactly as she said she would, and blogged the proceedings [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Nice work, Karen, and I’m digesting…
