No, it is not more of the same.  Shared catalogers in many institutions, 
such as mine, do not catalog using non-standard records and try not to use 
duplicates.  So when they find a record that has a level of blank or I, 
they will use it and expect the authority conflict and error detection 
programs to catch any authority problem.  At best that means more manual 
intervention for the individual doing the authority maintenance.  A more 
distressing idea is that of duplicate files for the same person.

If the test is putting materials into an existing database without 
attempts to reconcile the problems that result and if the test is not 
considering the effects of these changes on existing files, then the test 
is not doing everything it should be.

Finally,  why are we talking about implementing something that, regardless 
of its benefits, is so incomplete as RDA?

Laurence S. Creider
Special Collections Librarian
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM  88003
Work: 575-646-7227
Fax: 575-646-7477
[log in to unmask]

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010, Kevin M. Randall wrote:

> In all honesty, I don't see the effect of the RDA records being worse than
> the massive numbers of duplicate and/or nonstandard records being loaded
> into OCLC already.  Isn't it pretty much just more of the same?
>
> Kevin M. Randall
> Principal Serials Cataloger
> Bibliographic Services Dept.
> Northwestern University Library
> 1970 Campus Drive
> Evanston, IL  60208-2300
> email: [log in to unmask]
> phone: (847) 491-2939
> fax:   (847) 491-4345
>