Bibliographic Control: a myth or a reality?

One of my library friends today asked the question: Did you read the Final Report of the Bibliographic Control Working Group?
Well, yes, of course, I answer. It's quite similar to what they said on November 13. Then we started talking about RDA. Gulp.

There is so much cynicism related to RDA, its appalling. Awhile ago I was thinking about how we adapt technology to "traditional" cataloging practice. The webcast from this committee had just gone up a week before, so EVERYONE was clamoring about how RDA is going to die, blah blah. But the people in blog-o-land are saying that there's no way RDA is going to be shelved, because ALA and LC are dying for the revenues that will be generated by selling it to every cataloger from here to Bangkok. So people are speculating that it will continue forward, even though there's very little practice to back up FRBR. I think it's a straight-up mess. I also think that the powers-that-be are underestimating the ability of catalogers to totally ignore new standards. I think that if RDA sucks, people will just ignore it. Which I think is TERRIBLE, by the way, because it just entrenches AACRII even more, and AACR is horrible (cataloging based on CARDS?! Are you kidding me?).

One of our other library friends jumped into the mix, as well. She's a librarian, and she's in library school. Obviously, talking about the Working Group leads to talking about the state of cataloging education in the graduate schools. If you're wondering, the state is abysmal. While cataloging practice might be taught, cataloging theory is really not. As one of them pointed out, the Working Group says that we need more bibliographic control classes, but where are you going to find the faculty that will teach such a class?

In short, we all agreed we need to go get our PhDs and change the world.

SuperSymphony!

For anyone who isn't a Horizon customer who might read this blog, I feel like it's my duty to keep you informed on what's happening in SirsiDynix Land. And there are a couple new things to report.
First, SirsiDynix is having a SuperConference! This SuperConference! will have both Unicorn users and Horizon users. I assume they're doing this because the two groups have already been meeting together for some time, and SD must feel as least a little left out. Here's the skinny on the SuperConference!:

"SirsiDynix SuperConference 2008 will offer many unique opportunities for learning about current and future technologies, including SirsiDynix Unicorn and Symphony and a range of add-on solutions. There will be high-quality, informative user presentations, SirsiDynix presentations, and vendor exhibits.

Don't miss your chance to connect during meals, no-conflict breaks, and after hours with nearly 900 of your colleagues and the SirsiDynix team members you regularly interact with."

See? I think they want to get on the joint-meeting bandwagon.

Of course, meanwhile, at ALA midwinter, the two groups got together. They've been doing this for awhile now. Nothing too shocking came out of the ALA joint meeting, but I always think its good when people can subvert the "system" and make change on their own. One interesting thing is that the CODI group (the Horizon user group) will probably take over the hosting of the new Symphoney listserv in 2008.
And they want to start a mentoring program for people who want to move over to Symphony. I wonder if this will entail pairing people from Unicorn (mentor) with people from Horizon (mentee).
There was also a push to see if the products which worked with Horizon will continue to work with Symphony. There's apparently going to be a survey taken of users to see which products we use.
It's interesting, isn't it, that SD hasn't already told us which ones will work? I kind of wonder if none of them work--Horizon and Symphony seem to be very different products.

Cataloging Service Bulletin

I got the Cataloging Service Bulletin today. And I just have to ask, does anyone really read that thing? I get it, look at the table of contents on the front page, grow disheartened that there are 58 pages of LC rule interpretations and four pages of revised LCSH, and I just want to kind of hide myself and then hide this bulletin in a binder and never look at it again. It's as if the bulletin were made specifically to make me feel like a lax cataloger.

God, I bet there's a moral in here somewhere, isn't there? About putting off today what you can put into a basket with eggs in it tomorrow or something.

Although it is nice to see that rule 2.12-2.18 (early printed monographs) is going away, and LC is passing all the rules to the new Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (which is on order).

Client Care for SirsiDynix

I haven't talked about this, mostly because I hadn't visited the site yet, but the old Dynix "customer care" website is in the process of switching over to the Client Care Portal. This is a joint client care website for both Unicorn and Horizon. I assume it's in place to get ready for Symphony. But it has this great added benefit to any Horizon customer (and Unicorn customer, too, I imagine), which is that you get to see how Unicorn works (and thus how Horizon works). Unicorn uses "patch clusters" instead of what we just called "updates" in Horizon, and I can get overviews of various Unicorn modules and such. I can see known issues with Unicorn, read white papers about the modules, etc.
I mean, granted, its all basically marketing nonsense, or things that I could find out very easily if I solicited some brochures and whatnot, but since traditionally, Horizon and Unicorn users weren't allowed to connect at all through the company, its very nice to see the other side. I know, I know: I'm saying something nice about SirsiDynix! It feels weird to me, too.