[Web4lib] The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries Innovate?

Andrew Hankinson andrew.hankinson at gmail.com
Wed Jun 27 10:05:08 EDT 2007


MARC certainly is a well-designed product for what it needed to do  
when it was invented, namely provide an electronic surrogate of a  
physical item, similar to how a catalogue card provides a paper  
surrogate to a book.  However, the world has changed since then.

Where MARC can't compete is when the data becomes the record.  When  
we want to do full-text searching of a book, or even browse a  
hierarchy within an item.  MARC cannot do this, and it would be  
shortsighted to think that our tools will not need to provide this in  
the future.  We're seeing this problem with electronic journals now,  
but it is very quickly moving to electronic books.

I don't think the fact that MARC has survived this long simply  
because it's well designed.  It's lasted this long because it took a  
very long time to get everything into an electronic format.  Millions  
(Billions?) of MARC records have been created in the last 40 years,  
(one of the most focused and concerted large-scale projects in human  
history, I'm sure!) and that has a huge amount of momentum.  We are  
just now at the tail end of this conversion process.  To say it's  
lasted this long because of a design superiority is ignoring this  
momentum.  (Similar to "Windows is the dominant computer system  
because it's technically superior" when a better interpretation is  
that it WAS technically superior, but is now riding on historical  
momentum)

Sooner or later we'll have to realize that there won't be another  
MARC.  Its widespread use can be attributed to it being the only game  
in town when it was adopted.  Now, however, every person and their  
dog is publishing an XML schema for this or that. Where I'd like to  
see a lot of library research and development happen is in getting  
these diverse metadata to talk to each other.  Like Bill's statement  
before about there being a 'monolithic library world,' I think it's  
even more naive to think that there's a one-size-fits-all 'monolithic  
metadata world' out there.

Andrew

On 27-Jun-07, at 9:31 AM, e roel wrote:

> Like Bill, I respectfully disagree on the MARC record being  
> archaic.  The MARC
> record actually represents a minor triumph of design.  It is very  
> compact,
> migratable, defines the rules of its database format/organization  
> at its head,
> even at its most granular point. It is simply elegant in ways that  
> much of our
> technology today is not.
>
> I am open to alternatives, as there have been many along the way.   
> But, the
> fact that MARC has survived all this time could lend one to think  
> that its
> design has an advantage.
>
> I am someone who really loves good technology.  I define that  
> (roughly and,
> quickly here) as useful and usable stuff.  I don't define  
> technology as merely
> electron-based novelty.
>
> What I try to do in both my personal and professional lives is keep  
> what is
> good & adopt what is novel and good.  Leave what is bad behind & go  
> right past
> what is novel and bad.
>
> I think that there is a bit of a frenzy around innovation since we  
> are often
> quickly professionally rewarded for that. Conversely, there are strong
> disincentives for wanting to retain something old.)  And then we go  
> onward.
> Alot of that invention/innovation is left by the way side.  Why?  
> Possibly
> because it was too ahead of its time? Possibly because it just  
> didn't serve a
> need? Possibly because it is a design failure?
>
> I enthusiastically support the investigation of ideas. I always  
> hope most of
> us are better than just embracing the new without too much question  
> just
> because it is new (broadly done in society).
>
> e roel
>
> ------ original message ------
> date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:51:49 AM EDT
> from: "Bill Drew" <bill.drew at gmail.com>
> to: "Jesse Ephraim" <JEphraim at ci.southlake.tx.us>Cc:  
> web4lib at webjunction.org
> re: The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries Innovate?"
>
> One problem with this type of statement: "My biggest pet peeve with  
> library
> technology is MARC records - until the library world is ready to  
> move to a
> non-archaic form of data storage, I doubt that much will improve."
>
> It implies that there is one world wide monolithic group or  
> organization known
> as "the library world."  It is much more complicated than that.
>
>
> -- on 6/26/07, Jesse Ephraim <JEphraim at ci.southlake.tx.us> wrote:
>
> I'm also very interested in finding out how the "Ultimate Debate"  
> went. I was
> a professional programmer for almost a decade, so I tend to have  
> pretty strong
> feelings about the technical side of library innovation. My biggest  
> pet peeve
> with library technology is MARC records - until the library world  
> is ready to
> move to a non-archaic form of data storage, I doubt that much will  
> improve.
> If anyone went to the event, was that discussed?
>
> Jesse Ephraim
>
> Youth Services Librarian
> Southlake Public Library
> 1400 Main Street, Suite 130
> Southlake, TX  76092
> (817) 748-8248
> jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us
>
>
>
>
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