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--></style></head><body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">I will definitely seek out Jackie Dooley’s article in RBM. Nevertheless, I’m not convinced the archives example is applicable, nor I am sure that the “more product, less process” model has been widely embraced in the archives community.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Moreover, if we do “get over ourselves,” what are the implications of what we now do generally between the hours of 9 to 5? Are we to “get over” signature statements? Conflate editions? Skimp on access points?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">I’m not trying to be snarky here (well maybe just a tad). But I like to think what we do really matters and is appreciated … by someone, somewhere. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Best,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Will</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><u><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Will Evans</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Chief Rare Materials Catalog Librarian</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Library of the Boston Athenaeum</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">10 1/2 Beacon Street</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Boston, MA 02108</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Tel: 617-227-0270 ext. 224</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d">Fax: 617-227-5266 </span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"><a href="http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/">www.bostonathenaeum.org</a></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Bookman Old Style","serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> <a href="mailto:dcrm-l-bounces@lib.byu.edu">dcrm-l-bounces@lib.byu.edu</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:dcrm-l-bounces@lib.byu.edu">dcrm-l-bounces@lib.byu.edu</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Noble, Richard<br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, May 14, 2015 12:36 PM<br><b>To:</b> DCRM Users' Group<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [DCRM-L] OCLC's IR webinar (May 13)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">This does go some way back. As noted by Jackie Dooley, in "Ten commandments for special collections librarians in the digital age" in <i>RBM</i> in 2009:</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">"Karen Calhoun noted the need to 'get over item-level description' and get more serious about streamlining cataloging. Our generalist colleagues in libraries have</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">made massive strides in this regard over the past decade or more. Isn’t it time we do</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">the same? Archivists generally let go of item-level description at least 25 years ago</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">and have now widely embraced the Greene/Meissner mandate for 'more product,</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">less process.'"</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">As I recall that startlingly antagonistic address (at the 2008 Preconference), we were also told to "get over ourselves", and I think what we're hearing is that OCLC would rather get over us.* They are, in accordance with their business model, satisficing. However that therm is technically defined, we know that in our endeavor, this means that Excellent + Good = Good, Good + Good Enough = Good Enough, Good Enough + OK = OK, OK + Whatever = Whatever, and that the job is to persuade the customers that Whatever is the New Excellence.</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">*Granted, the report indicates that Calhoun was addressing the matter of archival cataloging, but my recollection of the address that it was rather more generally and sometimes offensively "disruptive".</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><br clear="all"></p><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New"">RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New"">BROWN UNIVERSITY :: PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912 :: 401-863-1187</span></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New""><</span><a href="mailto:RICHARD_NOBLE@BROWN.EDU" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"Courier New"">Richard_Noble@Br</span></a><span style="font-family:"Courier New""><a href="http://own.edu" target="_blank">own.edu</a>></span></p></div></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><div><p class="MsoNormal">On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Rouse, Lenore <<a href="mailto:rouse@cua.edu" target="_blank">rouse@cua.edu</a>> wrote:</p><div><p class="MsoNormal">Will et al.,<br><br>We ARE users but many of the people making decisions about our work are not. I see two similar trends which nobody has mentioned yet, which do or will obscure or obliterate bibliographical difference as badly as ditching those IRs. One is a tendency in large libraries or consortia to merge bib records for "the same" title. In the case of certain consortia, this will mean dispatching all local notes to the holdings record while merging all the stuff that belongs in the bib record. The devil will be in distinguishing the local from the general note. You all know it's not always possible to determine whether the cancel or other feature in your copy is present in every copy. Even if you can separate out the local info from the general (including 655s, 7xxs who is going to want to look at local notes for multiple holding institutions when they are parked in the holding record and not near related info in the bib record? Not my idea of user-friendly. How will the important information in the local notes even be searched if it is no longer part of the bib record? That should theoretically be possible, though it's not clear to me that the makers of the feudal business model are concerned with such minutiae. Some of them seem to believe fewer records are cheaper than more records; it's rumored to be a great cost-savings to copy catalogers. <br><br>Another aspect of this merge mentality just came to my notice last week. I discovered that WorldCat may stealthily merge all editions of a title without letting the user know. Example: my search was for <u>Loss and gain</u> by J. H. Newman, ed. by Sheridan Gilley. The search retrieved quite a slew of hits, including a local one I was not aware of. But next to the results is a disclaimer "Show libraries holding <u>just</u> this edition or narrow results by format" A click on this reduced my results to one library: the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (!). So, if I SEARCHED for <u>just</u> this edition, why is WorldCat's default presenting me with 4 screens of irrelevant nonsense? <br><br>Instead of "are we not users" maybe the question should be to the managers making these bizarre decisions "are you not librarians?" </p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>