[DCRM-L] Message from OCLC regarding Institution Records

[Allison Rich]

Hi Dick:

We were not notified either until I read about this on this list.
It seems that we all have the same experience here.
Why make such a claim when it is patently untrue?

While we still have the power to upgrade a master record, with the 
quality of some records
for handpress era in OCLC it's often impossible to really match without 
a 510 citation, a field which is not transferred to an LBD record.
So how can you upgrade that record when you really don't know what you 
have in front of you?
For special collections cataloguers that is a real issue.

I think what we are going to do is just to edit the record in Connexion, 
which will contain all the 5XX notes
and local fields but will not save in the master record, export those 
records from Connexion into our
local catalogue and then if that record needs to be edited again, there 
will have to be a copy and paste job done
from the record as it lives in the local catalogue to the newly 
re-edited master.

If the LBDs are as useless as Dick makes them sound and they are only 
available to view locally, then why even
subscribe to a Worldcat Metadata API or Worldcat Metadata Record 
Manager. It may just cause more work for something that
no one else really sees. And scholars will just have to consult the 
record in the institution's local catalogue.

It just seems to be **counter-intuitive** and, as Dick says, it is going 
backwards.
I know and can appreciate that change is a constant in life but I do not 
like being lied to or being ignored.
I think that many people on this list will appreciate that sentiment.

~Allison

> The LBD records are a poor substitute for IR records as they are not
> retrievable or viewable except locally. This seems to me to offer a false
> alternative that actually is going backwards. The IRs have enriched
> retrievals as they did in RLIN both due to additional entries and keywords
> and are particularly useful when comparing records for details that don't
> appear in the master record.  It is sad indeed that these neatly clustered
> records are being sacked with flimsy reasoning, when the myriad duplicate
> OCLC records found in almost any search will remain to clutter the results.
> Did OCLC actually do any study of how much access is being lost?  Retrieval
> will be lost and catalogers who go the extra mile will be discouraged, while
> OCLC searches will continue to produce results that are less than desirable.
>
> Our official notification was only this month with no opportunity for input.
> What a cooperative!
>
> Dick Miller
> Director for Resource Management
> Lane Medical Library
> Stanford University
>
>

-- 

********************************
"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
Allison_Rich at brown.edu

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