[EXLIBRIS:30342] Re: Catalog record of the future

[Anastasia Weigle <inabind.studio@verizon.net>]

Hi:

It sounds like Roy Tennant is talking about descriptive information like 
Marc Field 520 which is the summary field.
You could use this field to give a synopsis of the book.

I've often heard that library records should be more like amazon.com 
which gives you a picture of book, a sample of the table of
contents and maybe the first page and last page, etc, etc.

MARC records are so ingrained in the library profession, it would take a 
great number of forward thinking-outside-the-box
librarians to make such a unique and huge change in how we catalog. 
Makes for an interesting debate at ALA or other
such library conferences.

Warm regards,
Anastasia S. Weigle
Dyer Library/Saco Museum
Director, Library & Archives
371 Main Street
Saco, ME  04072

bkosovsky@nypl.org wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> Though I could post this to a e-mail list on cataloging, I've chosen to
> post it here, since this list has a unique viewpoint, and I'm interested in
> hearing subscribers' feedback.
>
> Recently, staff of The New York Public Library were treated to a talk by
> Roy Tennant, the very forward-thinking who is the User Service Architect of
> the California Digital Library.  He's also the author of a well-known
> article, the title of which is something like "MARC is dead."  You can see
> his websites (yes, he has several) at www.roytennant.com.
>
> He articulates many fascinating and provocative thoughts, one of which is
> the notion that for certain kinds of items, contextual description is
> sometimes (often?) more important than physical description.  (He bases
> this belief in part on how Google has changed user expectations of the
> search/find experience.)
>
> In thinking in practical terms of how this could be implemented, that would
> suggest that a bibliographic record should include more than just physical
> description.  Just like the record for an archival collection typically
> includes a biography or history, and discussion of provenance, or just like
> a dealer's catalog entry might have ample contextual description, Tennant's
> viewpoint suggest that we should be doing this for most individual volumes
> or items that come our way.
>
> How do you all feel about this?
>
> Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D., Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts
> Music Division -- The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
> Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
> My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions.
>
>
>
>
>