[DCRB-L] WG4 - Position paper

[Jain Fletcher]

Hi, everyone,
   Deborah has kindly posted my WG4 draft on the Web for all to see 
and comment.  I just wanted to make a few preliminary comments about it.
   This was a very challenging assignment, because the more I thought 
about it, the more I felt that it should take the position that you 
will see when you read it.  I think you'll agree with me that this 
position represents somewhat of a "paradigm shift" in approaching these 
kinds of entities.  That's why there is so much explanation as to the 
parameters of the collections and in the rationale expressed.  So, I 
was aware while I wrote that this position may be controversial.  
Still, the more I thought about it, the more I continued to feel that 
this was a worthwhile stance to take.  
   This prompts me to request a few things as you read.  One, please 
read it through first just to see if my position is clear.  (I've asked 
a few people here to read it through and they said they got my points, 
so I hope that's covered.)  Second, if you find yourself feeling 
resistant, may I respectfully request that you try it out before giving 
up on it?  By this I mean: describing a collection of your own with the 
method given here. And by that I mean, one you own at home.  I think 
this is best, because it's likely you will be knowledgable enough about 
it to write the "scope and content" note and the "history/bibliography" 
note from your own knowledge, without even having to resort to 
reference books.  All you would have to do for this is make the 
descriptive portion of the record, as described in this paper. (You 
might also make a separate list of a few of the books in the 
collection, using the "high-end" way I suggest, just to get a feel for 
that.) Then take a look at the results. My feeling is that if you do 
this, you may just see why I find this method gives nicely informative 
(if not as detailed) results.

Finally, I realize already that there are places I would like to edit 
more in it, parts that could be made tighter and areas to expand on 
(for instance, the very last section).  But I decided to make it 
available to you as soon as I had finished the main points I wanted to 
make, rather than spending any more time on word-smithing.  So there 
are inevitable mistakes (the "worst" being the fact that, in my 
"Catalog version 2" record, I meant to put "$x History $v Sources" 
after my geographic heading, but you'll see I truncated that; please 
consider this to be an "errata" notice, which I've already fixed in my 
own version).  I assume we'll be catching more of these as discussion of
the paper goes on, so the next version will be cleaner, I'm sure.

The Word version:
http://www.folger.edu/bsc/dcrb/wg4collnlvl.doc

The Web version:
http://www.folger.edu/bsc/dcrb/wg4collnlvl.html

   Despite the late arrival of this paper (for this I would like to 
apologize profusely), I hope that people will still have time to read 
it and be able to send their comments in before the Conference.
					Thanks, Jain

Jain Fletcher 
Head, Technical Services Division
Dept. of Special Collections 
A1713 YRL
Research Library - UCLA
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA   90095-1575

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