repositories for the rest of us

2007/04/11: b.o.o.k. & RDA

I've ranted about the notion of a book on Institutional Repositories. Since writing that rant, I've had some publishers contact me to elucidate the advantages of using a professional publisher, namely: a close read and suggestions for revisions, publicity, and experience with distribution.

Of course I'm not dissing publishers and editors. I recognize the value they bring to the publication process. The point of the rant is my opinion that literate people will need to radically reconceptualize our collective notion of the book in order to make full use of books of the future. For librarians, this should go hand in hand with our use of FRBR and RDA.

I've been procrastinating about reading the recent release of its draft chapter number three.

Even though I'm a trained cataloger, I still struggle with catalogerese. And it's not the most scintillating of reads after a long days work. I'm purposefully avoiding the RDA discussion list and the NextGenCatalog space, just so that I can form my own opinions while I read it.

I'm also beginning task force work for CC:DA on internal and external communication. It should be interesting in this time of flux to take another look at that.

For what its worth, I'm firmly in the Coyle/Hillman/Weiss train of thought when it comes to all things RDA. They state the issues far more eloquently than I could. Once I've got the draft chapter under my belt, I'll write out my thoughts.

Labels: book, metadata, RDA

posted by Laura @ 2:38 PM