News Items for _Journal of Internet Cataloging_

[Chuck Bearden]

--- On Fri, 1 Nov 1996 14:41:00 -0800  Tom Tipsword <TOM at wilbur.db.erau.edu> 
wrote:

>Gerry McKiernan writes:
>
>>      As always, any and all suggestions, recommendations, or
>> candidates will be very much appreciated.
>
>My suggestion would be to scrap both the journal and the whole idea 
>of cataloging the Internet.   Even if the  concept of bibliographic 
>control of the ever changing Internet wasn't a close cousin of trying to 
>nail Jello (tm) to a tree, applying the constraints of the MARC format 
>and cataloging rules to all the infinitely varied things on the 'net 
>is so limiting it boggles the mind.

If those constraints permit patrons to browse Internet resource records 
with clickable URLs in the same web-based OPAC as our library materials, 
I'll wager that they will find it very useful, and that their opinion of 
the library and of the library profession, will be enhanced, not 
diminished, despite moved & changed resources.  In fact, a webbed OPAC 
may be better for Internet resources than it is for traditional library 
materials because it can link directly to the cataloged item.  

And there are also attempts to permit catalogs to keep up with 
changing URLs (e.g. OCLC's PURL server), though honestly I don't know 
how effective these have been.  

As for nailing jello, serials catalogers have been at that for a while.

>Come on folks, show a little imagination.   Melville Dewey is dead.  We 
>don't have to look at this brave and beautiful new electronic world with 
>his 19th century point of view.   

And what better way to incite the imagination than to take dead DDC, 
AACR2, LCSH, MARC, and apply them to the new world, noting what about 
them works and where they fall short?  And then to compare them with 
more "21st century points of view", to see what each can learn from 
the other?  Dewey may have a lesson to teach the search engines and 
intelligent agents of the future.  

In any case, the journal apparently allows for imaginative approaches 
to bibliographic control of electronic resources:

"JIC views the cataloging and classification of Net/Web resources 
broadly, recognizing that the digital environment provides both
opportunities for the use of traditional and conventional methods,
and the development and application of novel approaches for digital
management."  (from Gerry McKiernan's post) 

"In considering cataloging and classification broadly defined, JIC 
recognizes that in the digital environment these traditional fields 
may be applied in novel ways." (from JIC's own statement of scope at 
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/personal/rob/jic/jic.htm)

>
>Time for a paradigm shift!!

I am curious about the outlines of the paradigm shift you have in 
mind, and would be grateful for any elaboration.  

Chuck
-------------------------------------------------------------
Chuck Bearden			email: cbearden at hpl.lib.tx.us
Catalog Department		voice: 713/247-3499
Houston Public Library		fax:   713/247-3158
500 McKinney Ave.
Houston, TX  77002		-=> NOT SPEAKING FOR HPL <=-
-------------------------------------------------------------
      -=>HPL's Homepage: http://sparc.hpl.lib.tx.us<=-