Hugh & All,
I'm not sure that I hear alarm bells but now that I have had a
chance to read the report (thanks to Jimmie & snail mail) I am
frankly glad I didn't have it before we began our work. l also think
the comments are valuable as we proceed. I think Ruta attempted
to address the problem of these questions by setting up the SACO
list. Unfortunately we haven't used it to brainstorm these things...
but I think it could be a good starting point for helping us discuss
problems. Perhaps if subject specialists at LC were brought into
SACO lists discussions of problem headings we wouldn't waste a
lot of time on proposals that won't "fly" and we could get advice on
what to do with certain types of headings?
AS to a: I don't think 20 headings is an extremely large number
and there is value in getting experience with the form. For b. If
some or most of those are the easy stuff, but it keeps PoCo
happy... I can live with it. Now that I see proposals in LC
Authorities I feel better about making them. At least I know that my
work is not being duplicated... or I'm duplicating someone else's
work.
c. Yes accuracy is a question but the proposals are now available
to see. It would be nice to get more feedback. One problem I have
is how to get typos corrected after using the Web form. NACO
provides a better option... I just wait a couple of days and do it
myself. That isn't an option in SACO.
Mary Charles
n 26 Mar 2003, at 8:17, Hugh Taylor wrote:
Do I hear the sound of alarm bells ringing in the distance?
We seem to be uneasy with the idea of "minimum" levels of contribution, on
the grounds that
(a) the number of headings one might need to propose each year is erratic
(b) it would encourage "easy" proposals to meet targets
(c) there's no evidence been put forward of a correlation betweeen levels of
contribution and "accuracy" (for want of a better word)
And this week we seem to be uneasy about all those proposals which need
discussion (with either Coop or SACO) and which aren't, perhaps, suitable
for "direct" entry via a utility.
Is that too simplistic? Are these the exceptions, the wrinkles, in a
strategy which could otherwise work quite happily? If so, then I think we
have to look to accommodate them outside the "core" strategy and not get too
hung up on them as weaknesses in the strategy. But if NOT - i.e., these are
issues fundamental to the whole way in which we thing the program should be
set up and operate - then we're in danger of having to contradict the
recommendations of the LC consultant, which formed the background to our
brief.
At the heart of this is the fact that we've no idea *why* the consultant's
report, on which PoCo based its brief, came up with the recommendations it
did.
Sorry to digress a little from this week's thread, and I generally agree
with most of the comments made, but I'm slightly concerned that we seem to
be coming to conclusions which could be viewed as contradicting the
assumptions on which our brief was based (as you can tell, I'm choosing my
words with atypical care...).
These are early days, of course.
Regards,
Hugh
--
Hugh Taylor
Head of Cataloguing, Cambridge University Library
West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR, England
email: [log in to unmask] fax: +44 (0)1223 333160
phone: +44 (0)1223 333069 (with voicemail) or
phone: +44 (0)1223 333000 (ask for pager 036)
Mary Charles Lasater
Authorities Coordinator
Vanderbilt University
21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37240
(615) 343-2085
|