 |
 |
MARC is a pain to work with; this is a truism which most of us should be familiar with. Blindly moving away from MARC is not the solution, indeed history suggests that path leads us back to an even more complex version of MARC. MARC is complex (and thus a pain) for three reasons: (a) the inherent complexity of the bibliographic content it deals with; (b) the fact that there are many MARC-using groups who have different sets of motivations and ideas as to what MARC is for; and (c) MARC's long and complicated history. Throwing out MARC doesn't solve any of these except the last, and then only if you throw away all your data and make no efforts to migrate it. Obtaining new data from a consortia or company almost certainly buys you not only MARC's history, but some tasty local decisions on top. ---- A far more productive discussion is to explore potential replacements for MARC. This, of course, is only productively conducted with a sound understanding of the causes of the complexity in MARC. I'll leave it to the reader to consider whether various proponents' arguments are persuasive on this point. cheers stuart -- Stuart Yeates Library Technology Services http://www.victoria.ac.nz/library/