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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?" <br>
<br>
Lenore<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Lenore M. Rouse
Curator, Rare Books and Special Collections
The Catholic University of America
Room 214, Mullen Library
620 Michigan Avenue N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20064
PHONE: 202 319-5090
E-MAIL: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:rouse@cua.edu">rouse@cua.edu</a>
RBSC BLOG: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ascendonica.blogspot.com/">http://ascendonica.blogspot.com/</a> </pre>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/14/2015 11:02 AM, Will Evans
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAMvfO7whfn852wmvV0mX9OCjr5CQ5y-FLBc2S6HdbZcRrpA0kg@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<div dir="ltr">
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<div>
<div>Are we not users? <br>
<br>
</div>
I am vexed by OCLC's attitude and more than a little
disheartened. Given our small numbers, data driven decisions
hold little promise for accommodating present and future
concerns of the rare materials community. <br>
<br>
</div>
While we are not an IR library, we frequently use the
information within those records to aid in identification,
when navigating a sea of inferior records.<br>
<br>
</div>
How did a feudal business model, where we create the product but
have no voice in how that product is maintained or delivered,
survive into the 21st century?<br>
<br>
<br>
<div>
<div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Will
Evans</span></b></font></div>
<div>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Chief
Rare Materials Catalog Librarian</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Library
of the Boston Athenaeum</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">10
1/2 Beacon Street</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Boston,
MA 02108</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt"> </span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Tel:
617-227-0270 ext. 224</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Fax:
617-227-5266 </span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/"
target="_blank"><span>www.bostonathenaeum.org</span></a></span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span
style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt"></span></b>
<br>
</p>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 10:27 AM,
Lapka, Francis <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:francis.lapka@yale.edu" target="_blank">francis.lapka@yale.edu</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
<div>
<p><span style="font-family:"Georgia",serif">Yesterday’s
webinar on the demise of Institutions Records and
the transition to Local Bibliographic Data was
primarily a Q-and-A. Compared to the discussion
that Yale catalogers had with an OCLC rep in
April, there seemed much less ambiguity that OCLC
has no plans to provide access to the local data
of any institution other than your own, no matter
how much we say that this is important to us.
Moderators held firm to the talking point: OCLC
data suggests that its users don’t care about IRs.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"Georgia",serif">It’s
tempting to think that the OCLC data is somehow
wrong, but I’m inclined to accept their conclusion
at face value: users who care about copy-specific
descriptions generally don’t see OCLC as a useful
discovery tool. So is there much point in
investing energy trying to make OCLC fulfill a
role for which it is ill-suited? If we want a
mechanism that enables searching of copy-specific
data across institutions, we should probably look
elsewhere.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"Georgia",serif">Francis</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span
style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Francis
Lapka · Catalog Librarian</span></p>
<p><span
style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Department
of Rare Books and Manuscripts</span></p>
<p><span
style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Yale
Center for British Art</span></p>
<p><span
style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:203.432.9672"
value="+12034329672" target="_blank">203.432.9672</a>
·
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:francis.lapka@yale.edu"
target="_blank">francis.lapka@yale.edu</a></span></p>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
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</blockquote>
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