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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hello Will and Richard and all:<br>
<br>
I could get snarky here too. But I will try and refrain from such
low behavior.<br>
Nevertheless I have a few points to add:<br>
<br>
1) We are a small community of people who care about item level
descriptions, as creators. I know that our patrons here at the
John Carter Brown Library are truly grateful for the full level
descriptions. But, let's face it, most people who don't use
special collections libraries simply don't care about such detail.
So, in that way, Richard's comment of "<span
style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">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" is particularly and very painfully true.<br>
<br>
2) We will most likely **not** be using LDB or the new program -
whose name escapes me at the moment, sorry - simply because the
information will only be available for viewing by the Brown
University system and by no one else. The local, full record in
the ILS will be better than anything LBD can offer. Perhaps at
large institutions such as Harvard who has numerous libraries
this will be a useful program as the larger Harvard community
will be able to see the local data issued by the various holding
libraries. But that is just speculation on my part.<br>
<br>
3) The ominous statement that OCLC issued about not having a
firm date for the death of the Connexion client was most
worrisome to us after the webinar. My gut feeling tells me that
Connexion will be killed off after BIBFRAME becomes the new
MARC. What worries me is that a program like Record Manager will
be the new form of display for ILS platforms. If that is the
case then we might be in for a very cruel shock. But this is
just me, unless any of the rest of you had the same feeling.<br>
<br>
4) A plethora of #5 500 fields will overcrowd the MARC record
and make it look terribly clunky!!! I rarely upgrade the master
record because we have always utilized IRs and besides in a
world filled with variants with poor master records without
citations how can one **really** upgrade a master record made by
someone else if they are unsure whether that master record is
that they truly have in hand??? <br>
<br>
5) I was the one that asked the questions about getting rid of
lesser quality records from the database in the very last
minutes of the presentation. And I meant it. If we are being
encouraged to streamline ourselves, I submit<br>
a quote to them from the gospel of Luke: "</span>Physician, <b
style="color:#2D4038">heal</b> thyself". And clean up your own
house before asking other people to streamline their own.<br>
<br>
I have worked at institutions where I have only been encouraged to
"get the books on the shelves". I have always done more. I refuse
to do mediocre work. Thankfully at my library my work IS
appreciated by staff and patrons. But in the wider world, sadly, I
am "Allosaurus", a big, plant-eating dinosaur. I have more years
worth of work ahead of me in this field (I hope) and I will roll
with and learn whatever follows MARC. I know that change is
inevitable. But, like Richard, I fear that "Whatever" is the new
"Excellent". <br>
<br>
Best for now,<br>
Allison <br>
<br>
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<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
********************************
"Outside of a dog,
a book is probably man's best friend,
and inside of a dog,
it's too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx"
Allison Rich
Rare Materials Cataloguer
ESTC and NACO Coordinator
John Carter Brown Library
Providence, Rhode Island
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Allison_Rich@brown.edu">Allison_Rich@brown.edu</a>
******************************** </pre>
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