Re: arsclist record archive

[<stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Premise Checker" <checker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: arsclist record archive


> I can supply a temporary password to this database to anyone who sends me
> an e-mail. Book librarians do a mediocre job catalog sound recordings.
As do the programs they use, which are designed by and for the cataloging
of books, not records! In fact (ARSC-ites please note) I've often noticed
this in conversations, digital or real-time, with librarians and the like,
when
discussing how they or their library keep track of their phonorecord
holdings (and this goes back to the days when "card catalogs" were exactly,
and physically, that!)
> For records that have several works, you'll find that each
> work gets a separate entry, that some works don't make it at all, that
> it's impossible to find who performed what work, and so on. (I used a
> CD-ROM version, actually, not the online version.) The coverage is spotty
> and I'd never use it to find the run of all Westminster WLs, for example.
>
> One problem is that each library does its own entering, resulting in
> little standardization. I use this resource only to see if a work has been
> very recenly recorded, as a last resort, or to touch up some other work.
Plus, as I understand it (and this created problems with RDI), the data
entry
is usually considered a bottom-level task, and often farmed out to student
or intern help...who don't know from matrix numbers vs. control or
catalog numbers, or artists from composers (not always clear on the
labels, either)! This will, in fact, create major problems when/if the
final "ultimate discographic archive" is created...if my MS Access table
calls the person on the record "Artist" in a 35-byte character field
and your WordPerfect Table uses a variable-length "PERFORMER"
entry (or, worse yet, your proprietary-format file uses a numeric
entry to connect relationally to a table of names), trying to compile
a useful database may be a problem!
> But it's great for books and you can find out which libraries contain
> _The Metaphysics of Liberty_ (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic, 1989),
> by me, for example.
Exactly. And the problem is that we expect phonorecords...which are,
after all, man-made and "published" objects, just like books...to fit
neatly into the same database. Kinda like entering my kitchen table...
which, after all, has a wheel at each corner...into a database of trucks...
> Frank
...stevenc

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