Roy Tennant wrote:

"What happened in the past can inform, but it should not be allowed to limit,
our vision for the future."

That is wrong and misleading/confusing.

(1) Wrong -- The word "inform" is a technical term referring to a subordinate reporting to a superior, so that the superior will have adequate information when making decisions.   But what happened in the past is not a subordinate, and our vision for the future is not its superior.  What happened in the past is a co-worker with our vision for the future.  In fact, what happened in the past should be allowed to limit our vision for the future -- not to limit the vision itself, but to limit our execution of the vision.

Various bloodbaths have been caused by people not allowing what happened in the past to limit their vision for the future.  Of course, that's an emotional remark, but it's merely the most obvious category of incorrect results produced by people giving insufficient weight to experience when they make and carry out their plans for the future.

(2) Misleading/confusing -- The use of "our" in Roy's quoted sentence is misleading, or at least confusing.  Roy works for OCLC.  When he says "our vision for the future", I bet he means "OCLC's vision for the future."  I bet he doesn't mean "readers of the BibFrame listserv's vision for the future" or "the vision of the future shared by everybody professionally involved with bibliographic data."

Frank Newton
Catalog Librarian
Dover Memorial Library
Gardner-Webb University
P.O. Box 836
Boiling Springs, N.C.  28017-0836
USA

-----Previous Message-----
From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tennant,Roy
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 5:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] MARC Usage in WorldCat

On 3/7/13 3/7/13 € 1:32 PM, "J. McRee Elrod" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> What's the point of
> transferring an element from MARC to Bibframe (no matter how
> prelevant) if not utiliZed in ILSs?  Why consdider dropping an element
> (regardles of how rare) which is always utilized if present?

What happened in the past can inform, but it should not be allowed to limit,
our vision for the future. That isn't to say that knowing how the data has
been used (or not) in current systems wouldn't be interesting, but neither
is it a requirement for creating a new future. Knowing what data currently
exists is.
Roy 

-----Earlier message to which Roy was replying-----
From:	J. McRee Elrod <[log in to unmask]>
To:	[log in to unmask]
Sent:	Thu 3/7/2013 4:33 PM
Subject:   Re: [BIBFRAME] MARC Usage in WorldCat

Roy said:

>No, I mean "used". MARC fields can be created (and often are), but that
>doesn't mean they are used.
 
Yes, creation of a MARC record does not mean data has been entered
into it (assigned), nor that it has been applied by an ILS (utilized).

The word "used" is ambiguous; it can imply either applied or utilized.

It seems to me ILS utilization is far more relevant to Bibframe design
and crosswalk from MARC, than assignment.  What's the point of
transferring an element from MARC to Bibframe (no matter how
prelevant) if not utiliZed in ILSs?  Why consdider dropping an element
(regardles of how rare) which is always utilized if present?

   __       __   J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([log in to unmask])
  {__  |   /     Special Libraries Cataloguing   HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
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