Eric Miller's statements provoke a few more questions:
> ... the translation from MARC is only one of several of the factors
> that went into the BIBFRAME design. For BIBFRAME we tried to balance
> the following:
* Flexibility to accommodate future cataloguing domains, and
entirely new use scenarios and sources of information
A bold attempt, given that prediction is always difficult,
esp. about the future.
* The Web as an architectural model for expressing and connecting
decentralized information
Is this a useful characterization of the Web, given that only the
http protocol is the stable part of it while all else is software
with an ever-changing and evolving volatility, new paradigms
around any next corner. We may end up with just the wrong elements
or a wrong representation of content.
And do you think RDA is a giant leap for librarykind rather than,
as some are thinking, just a final step in the perfection of
the irrelevant, or of 19th century ideas (to be less impolite)?
* Social and technical adoption outside the Library community
Any signs of success here?
* Social and technical deployment within the Library community
That would mean winning comprehension and acceptance first for
the new concepts, but also a demonstration of workable new
models of cataloguer interfaces and catalog use paradigms.
In this regard, do you consider the ToolKit a promising approach?
How promising can a standard be, anyway, that is not freely and
openly accessible but whose use is globally monopolized and stiffly taxed?
* Previous efforts in expressing bibliographic material as Linked Data
Are any of these efforts of great significance?
* Application of machine technology for mechanical tasks while amply
accommodating the subject matter expert (the librarian)
as the explicit brain behind the mechanics.
While that sounds comforting, any approach not taking that into account
would be bound to crash.
* Previous efforts for modeling bibliographic information in the
library, publishing, archival and museum communities
Can all of these be improved at the same time and integrated into
a greater, better whole, and is there a commitment in these
communities to that end? And how eager are they to look at a
metadata standard that is not on open access?
* The robust and beneficial history and aspects of a common method of
bibliographic information transfer
Can this common method be phased out and over into a new and
common methodology without fragmenting the community that until
this day depends on the common method for their daily doings
as well as for their high level of cooperation?
B.Eversberg
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