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I receive messages off list from those who do not wish to suffer the
ridicule I receive onlist.  Having had cigarettes put out in my hair
during the civil rights sit-ins, and bomb threats due to a Black
house guest, my skin is thicker than most.

One correspondent (who does wish to be named) wrote:

> ...I share your misgivings.

"I also suspect that, as with RDA, the die is cast and there is too
much invested, and too many faces to be saved, to halt the runaway
train.

" ... I have seen nothing that could not be accommodated within MARC,
and better input/edit screens would facilitate it all.  (Not that our
system vendors help us, for the most part!)  And I suspect far too
fine granularity, for no good purpose I can imagine in many cases
("editor of work" for heaven's sake?! and that's the least).

"It may be labeled a consultative process, but it's not much more so
than the national budget: the 'government' has its plans, and
divergence is very small.

"The outcome is likely to be a management backlash and a retreat to
something like Dublin Core, I fear. 'Even if this is worthwhile, we
have to put our slender funds into resources, not ultra-detailed
cataloguing" is already heard (or worse). Administrators have less to
do with the resources  and the catalogue than the reference librarians
we're hearing freely criticized.

"I hope I'm largely wrong, of course. But I fear I'm fairly right."

My e-correspondence indicates that this disaffection is fairly common.  
Whether it is a silent majority or not I do not know, but there is a
considerable gap between the fancy new car engineers and many
prospective drivers.

The progression from the red/green books, to AACR, to AACR2, to RDA,
zx as well as adoption of MARC. all produced concern, but nothing to
compare with what I am hearing/reading now.

The new car engineers need to learn to communiaate in more accessible
language, and define acronymns at first use.  After the third unknown
acronym, most just tune out.




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