[DCRM-L] OCLC's IR webinar (May 13)

[Noble, Richard]

Ted Gemberling: "One point I made awhile back: can we expect this problem
to diminish over time? There are no more pre-1801 books being published. If
we concentrate on upgrading good records to DCMB(x), could we gradually get
to where we can just ignore non-DCRM(x) records?"

This is true, but then there's the 19th century, which requires equal
attention to detail and becomes ever more sneaky as its years go on (well
into the 20th century, in fact). If you take handset type apart you can't
put it together again *exactly* the same way, which is a boon to rare book
catalogers on the lookout for hidden editions: pre-1820 books (roughly
speaking) don't cover their tracks all that well. Once plates get into the
act, not only can changes be made that are not evident at that level of
variant spacing in every line, you can be fooled into thinking that a
manifestation is different when it fact it's mostly all same. I discovered
at Dartmouth that there are about eight basic setttings of Burns's works,
once you're into Plateland, that proliferate in every direction at all
levels of the market, as seen the long wall of Burns in our stacks (where I
also learned to date publishers' cloth).

But yes, the principle holds true: what we're trying to do is
archaeological, and a cumulative process of noticing things and marking
where they are and where they came from. This has always been a minority
enterprise, but then again, research institutions are minority enterprises
as well in their own way, and equally under siege.

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>
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