1. Jacquie Samples Duke University Libraries MARC Formats Interest Group January 8, 2011 Will RDA Mean the Death of MARC?

2. Notes page for slide 1 2 No, if MARC is dying its because it no longer fulfills the needs of 21 st century data demands. If we want to more out of our data silos, if we’re going to start using data on-the-web, and not only that stored locally, if we’re going to move into our users spaces, then we need to move to new standards for data formatting and exchange that meet our complex needs.

3. Death of MARC? MARC Formats Interest Group, January 8, 2011 3 RDA is not an encoding syntax RDA is not a format standard RDA is not a data exchange standard.

4. Notes page for slide 2 4 MARC has been on its deathbed for many years now, but I am concerned that it’s been on its deathbed for far too long without an heir apparent, or heirs apparent, to take over all the roles that it once fulfilled, and in some cases still fulfills, satisfactorily. It feels like the king is very ill and all of his gentlemen and court are jockeying to be ready to take over, but none of them are ready, and few of them want to work together, in order to fulfill the duties of the king. MARC will need to evolve, or to be come dynastic, in order to meet 21 st century needs, but the trend toward simplification of encoding also does not truly meet our needs for complex data for complex issues, such as describing serials and seriality. Many of our “new” standards work well to solve some of the issues for data structures, but do not solve the more complex issues. RDA is not an encoding standard and should not made to behave as one, such as happened in the necessary alliance or conflation of MARC and AACR. Much of our library data is encoded for the managers of resources, not only for the users of these resources, the patrons. If we ever cataloged just for the patrons, then our data would have always been much less complex. The need for data to manage resources has only increased as our collections have become more and more electronic only. We can no longer simply go to the stacks or any physical space in order to find out what the collection is. Right now, expensive as it is, harvesting MARC records in some way (copy cataloging, MARC record services, vendor supplied data encoded in MARC) is the cheapest and most efficient manner to get the data for many of our resources. Standards meant to replace aspects of MARC are generally mean the simplification of our data which may work for resource discovery, but don’t also work well for resource management.

5. What will RDA do, if Not the Death of MARC? MARC Formats Interest Group, January 8, 2011 5 New model in which to conceive the description and enable the discovery of all types of resources. Enable evolution of new data models Enable the reduction of data duplication

6. Notes page for slide 3 6 RDA is based on a very theoretical model, but it goes a long way toward making FRBR concepts more attainable, more concrete. It works pretty well for some kinds of library data, but before it can handle some of the more complex resource types, it needs to mature. Conceptually, RDA standards may mean that we’ll finally be able to engage in a major way in the development of linked data systems, where references to storehouses of data are live links or on-the-fly lookups. This would mean that users of library interfaces would seamlessly also be users of authority data from LC, or IMBD data, or any other reliable, stable information store that has been referenced in the description of a resource. Referencing data stored outside each institution, rather than downloading authority files and coding data in each institutions’ ILS, such as subject headings or personal names, would reduce duplication of effort in resource description. Because RDA, unlike AACR, includes an entity relationship model which is based on FRBR, it should be possible to make our data truly relational across institutions, across resource types, across access points. The part that is not included in RDA, is how to encode that data for machine operability. In order to for RDA to be successful it will need to fulfill the needs of the special library and non-library communities, as well as handle the needs of resources in special formats

7. Coping with Loss MARC Formats Interest Group, January 8, 2011 7 Which MARC roles do we need to replace? Encoding standard role? Data exchange role? Lingua franca role?

8. Notes page for slide 4 8 Currently, MARC is pervasive throughout the library industry; publishers share metadata with vendors via MARC, vendors sell packages of resources that include MARC records, book jobbers process shelf-ready materials which can include MARC record services, libraries make use and participate in shared cataloging, and so on. Because MARC is so pervasive in all types of libraries, it will mean that changing away from MARC will be a culture shift as well as a shifting of standards. Until every institution, at every level, who now currently use MARC records in some way, have the financial and human resources to switch to a new system of technologies, then MARC still has a role in the library landscape. RDA is changing the descriptive framework, but not our methods of sharing or using our descriptions of resources. When a set of technologies come along which fills all of the roles MARC currently plays, and which RDA cannot fill, that will mean the death of MARC.