Re: Research Drivers Issue 57 assigned to MacKenzie Smith

At 06:20 PM 4/28/2003 +0100, Butler, Mark wrote:
>Action for: MacKenzie Smith
>
>MacKenzie, please can you answer this question?
>[ 057. ]
>Summary: Section 2.1.1 what do we mean by research methods
>Raised By: David Hunyh
>Status: open
>Description:
>In supporting information retrieval activities libraries
>have evolved from isolated and eccentric modes of describing their
>collections and the providing access to them towards international
>standards that support the broad portability of research methods
>[what do you mean by research methods?] across libraries and collections.

Hi Mark, that isn't my language, and I'm not sure was intended either...
How about:

"In supporting information retrieval activities, libraries have long promoted
the use of international standards, e.g. MARC (ISO 2709) and LCSH
(ISO 2788). However, use of one-size-fits-all international standards,
while aiding in cross-library searching, conflicts with the desire of
authors and communities of practice to describe their works with
rich, discipline-specific schemas and vocabularies. There is growing
pressure on libraries to accommodate these community standards
for metadata while still supporting cross-collection and cross-library
discovery."

MacKenzie/


MacKenzie Smith
Associate Director for Technology
MIT Libraries
Building 14S-208
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139
(617)253-8184
kenzie@mit.edu

Received on Wednesday, 30 April 2003 08:21:00 UTC