Communication Failure

There is a very large and very old book on my desk. It appears to be coming out of its binding. It has no documentation whatsoever to let me know who placed it on my desk, or how it got here. For all I know, it could have trundled in on its own (hee hee, like that old book could possibly jump onto my desk--maybe if it were 25 cm instead of 40).

I submit these kinds of happenings as the most annoying thing that happens to catalogers/archivists. The Mystery Thing. It will take me at least 20 minutes just to figure out who put it on my desk and why, and probably it will take even longer. And there are no guarantees that I'm even the person to have this book! Over my years as an archivist and librarian, this has happened to me a LOT. The best time ever, though (read: worst time ever) was when I walked into my office and found two huge paintings blocking my way to my desk. PAINTINGS. Which were almost as tall as I. Forty-five minutes later, I learned that someone "donated" them on the weekend, on the advice of my boss (who was not a librarian or archivist), who apparently stated "No problem! Our librarian will take care of them!" Even though we had a policy in place that we did not accept donations of artwork. Nor did we have proper storage for them. That was super-fun. I guess this book currently on my desk isn't nearly as bad as that, so maybe I shouldn't complain so much.

At any rate, I get really tired of these kinds of things. I like a mystery and all, but I have post-it notes on my desk. And pencils and pens. And I have an email address if you do not like writing with pens and pencils.

Last one, I Promise

I've been hard on RDA in the past week or so (Sorry, RDA. I know you're doing your best). However, I just had to post this picture. Backstory: I told my boss, as I was leaving the library, that the new RDA print manual was on my desk, and if he was so inclined, he should take a look. This is what I walked into the next day:

My Continued Intellectual Wrestling Match with RDA

When I first read through the drafts of RDA, I didn't think it felt very different from AACRII, and I seem to remember telling someone that at the time. It set them at ease, which was nice I suppose. It made me very uneasy. Because there are only two paths from there: either I am an idiot incapable of understanding how fundamentally this is changing everything (terrifying), or there's not that much change yet an extra 500 pages of material (unlikely?). I really hoped that it was the former.

Then someone posted in the comments a few days ago that they didn't think that RDA changed much in the way that we catalog, day-to-day (they were apparently part of a testing site). I don't like that, because if it doesn't, does that mean we didn't need RDA in the first place, but rather a reinterpretation of the rules of AACRII? Or does it mean that once we get something more flexible and attuned to RDA than MARC, the whole game will change again and we'll need to reinterpret RDA again? Either way that comment made me uncomfortable because it just reinforced what I already felt.

I really want RDA to be different. I want it to do all the things that the visionaries want it to do. But I also have this feeling that we're all so entrenched in the traditions of cataloging that we're almost incapable of making fundamental changes to our rules. Maybe we should start an Ender's Game-esque school for kids, where they do whatever they want, without foreknowledge of the rules, and teach us all a lot about military strategy cataloging.

A Shoutout on RDA

I got a whole bunch of hits on my post yesterday about how terrifying RDA is. I'm really, really interested in what people are thinking about RDA. I've been to the webinars, I've talked to people, but honestly, if you have an opinion on RDA, could you please post it in the comments of this post or the last? I have very mixed feelings, but I'm not gonna be at any focus groups anytime soon, so I'd like to hear what you all are thinking.