[Web4lib] The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries Innovate?

[Casey Durfee]

In order to tell the difference between an music LP and a music CD from the MARC record, you have to look at position 6 of the 007 field, which is the physical dimensions of the object.  MARC does fine for printed materials, but it's got some problems even for other physical materials. 
 
MARC is far from perfect, but it's not even close to being the main reason that libraries don't innovate more -- it's just a convenient scapegoat.  MARC bashing distracts from the real organizational, cultural and economic problems which stifle innovation in libraries.  Has anyone out there really had more projects impeded/killed/shelved indefinitely/committeed to death/failed due to MARC than due to non-technical issues?  
 
Can NCIP-bashing be the new MARC-bashing?
 
--Casey

>>> Larry Campbell <larry.campbell at ubc.ca> 6/27/2007 9:11 AM >>>

I think the MARC format still does pretty well, after all these years, 
in the context in which it was originally developed: physical 
repositories, containing physical items, in physical locations, that 
physically circulated. For virtual items, in ambiguous or multiple 
repositories, associated with complex digital rights and access 
requirements -- not even to mention the possibility of compound objects, 
with internal structures and mutable parts -- the MARC format is often 
woefully inadequate, and trying to cram such objects into it just a 
disservice. It's not necessary, in other words -- and it's not any 
longer advisable -- to center our institutions around one type of record 
or database. Once we can think of MARC as just one record format among 
the many available to us, and of its associated catalog as just one 
*kind* of database among many others that we can provide, then that 
alone will be a big step toward a greater openness to innovation in 
libraries.

Larry Campbell
Librarian
Information Systems and Technology
UBC Library
larry.campbell at ubc.ca