[Yulcat-l] Committee of Principals Response to LC Working Group Report

[Joan Swanekamp]

This came of the PCC list:  Cross-posted with permission.

 >>> Marjorie Bloss < marjorie_bloss at MSN.COM > 1/4/2008 10:32 AM >>>

Dear Colleagues:

The CoP has submitted the following response to the Library of 
Congress' Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control's report.

The CoP thanks the Library of Congress' Working Group on the Future 
of Bibliographic Control (WG) for this opportunity to comment on its 
draft report.

The sections of the report of greatest concern to us are found in 
3.2.1, recommendations regarding RDA and, related to that in 4.2.1, 
"Realization of FRBR".

Our biggest concern in the WG's report is the recommendation that 
work on RDA be suspended in order for further testing of the FRBR 
conceptual model to occur.

CoP and its units, including the Joint Steering Committee (JSC), 
entered into the development of RDA after considerable thought and 
analysis. We feel strongly that suspension of work on RDA development 
is counter-productive to providing future benefits to both the 
American and international library community from this product, and 
thus we will be continuing with the development of RDA. The Library 
of Congress has long been a valued partner in AACR and RDA. Loss of 
such valued input at this stage would be regrettable and we request 
that LC continue its involvement in the development of RDA as planned.

The CoP notes that RDA is testing the very application of FRBR that 
the WG is recommending. Collaboration with many international 
communities beyond the USA, committing considerable resources -- 
human effort, intelligent assessment and evaluation not to mention 
financial support -- have already been expended on the development of 
RDA. We fail to see the logic of LC suspending its participation in 
this work, only to create another group that would find itself 
undertaking similar activities (assuming financial resources could be 
found to support such work). This is not an efficient use of resources.

For example, the JSC has initiated discussions with ONIX, DCMI, and 
appropriate semantic Web technologies groups. An extremely productive 
meeting was held with representatives from the JSC and DCMI at the 
end of April/beginning of May 2007. Three recommendations for further 
work resulted from this meeting, yet identifying funding sources to 
move forward with them has not been forthcoming despite expressions 
of interest from several groups. This reiterates our concern on who 
would fund a new group to carry out the testing of FRBR as 
recommended by the WG.

The CoP welcomes any testing of the FRBR model. The recommendations 
found in 4.2.1 ("Develop Test Plan for FRBR") seems to imply proof of 
concept testing. However, testing of FRBR has already been carried 
out using existing data created according to existing standards (e.g. 
OCLC's work, Virtua, VisualCat, LibDB, Perseus Digital Library, 
RedLightGreen, FRBR Floater). Some projects have also tested FRBR in 
relation to newly created data consistent with FRBR (e.g. Austlit)
http://infoserv.inist.fr/wwsympa.fcgi/d_read/frbr/FRBR_bibliography.rtf 
. Without a substantial body of data created using the FRBR model 
(which is exactly what RDA will do), it is not clear what additional 
testing would cover, or what it might achieve. Until libraries begin 
to use RDA, it is an organic product that will develop with the 
experience of use, we will not have a substantial body of data to draw from.

The CoP, JSC, and the Co-Publishers are committed to using the first 
online release of RDA in early 2009. The withdrawal of LC's 
participation in this work at this point will negatively impact 
activity in the very area the WG recommends for further work to be done.

Instead of withdrawing from its development, the CoP strongly 
recommends that LC devote the full resources available to helping CoP 
move forward with the development of RDA. We invite LC to join others 
in using RDA to test the FRBR model as part of the planned schedule 
to release RDA in early 2009.

Sue Brown
Chair, The Committee of Principals for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules
(AACR) and Resource Description and Access (RDA)
15/12/2007

Marjorie E. Bloss, RDA Project Manager
2827 West Gregory Street
Chicago, IL 60625
USA
1-773-878-4008
1-773-519-4009 (mobile)
Marjorie_Bloss at msn.com