I agree. Were I to wear such a shirt, it would make catalogers think:
1) I don't respect them,
2) I haven't taken the time to try and learn what's in a MARC record,
and am not interested in doing so either.
Or rather, it will confirm their assumptions that these things are
already true. I am more interested in developing a better working
relationship with catalogers not based on these sorts of assumptions.
Jonathan
Daniel Chudnov wrote:
> On Jan 26, 2007, at 10:19 AM, Roy Tennant wrote:
>
>> Those of you (are there any?) who can't or don't want to login to see
>> berick's response should know that it is:
>>
>> aren't we all morons in the face of MARC?
>
> Why so negative toward a spec that's served our community for nigh
> unto forty years? I'd much rather see something fun or silly and not
> disparaging of anything and would vote against this if we were set up
> to vote against something. I mean, wouldn't you really then mean for
> it to say:
>
> "...in the face of MARC? By which, of course, we mean MARC with ISBD
> punctuation and AACR2 rules, the combination of which might make
> sense still to some members of our community but to us snarky geek
> types is really quite difficult to work with, so much so that we love
> dropping metaphorical bombs on it even while we don't really have a
> decent solution for replacing it quite yet hence the insecurity we
> share in great evidence by mocking it on a conference t-shirt."
>
> For good or ill, our profession is invested in MARC, and to parade
> around in clothes disparaging it (or in a shirt mocking any
> particular individual, which was, apparently, my first annual t-shirt
> suggestion objection, last year) seems like the wrong impression to
> give. Just because we blow off steam sometimes by acting like junior
> high schoolers on-channel doesn't mean we have to document similar
> behavior on clothing we'll all wear to other conferences.
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
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