Todd Carpenter

Few things are more central to the entire library community than the bibliographic record format, MARC. Developed by Henriette Avram at the Library of Congress in the 1960s, it is widely used today as the basis for most OPAC systems and as a method for exchanging bibliographic information in the library community. Over the decades, MARC has become a lynchpin of cataloging, of library resource management, and the bibliographic description of items in a collection.
The fact that MARC remains the cornerstone for so much is amazing considering how much has changed over the past 40+ years in computer technology since MARC's release. This speaks highly of the strength of the vision of Avram, but unfortunately also speaks to the difficulty (and relative unwillingness) of the library community to adapt to change. ... how can our metadata records be so far behind the current state of the art?
The basic question of what is the data structure for description, discovery, and patron service for the coming decades remains an open one. ... speaking about the pace of this transition: "We want change with stability." But can we really have both when we're looking at radical change? This conundrum often leads us to inaction.
Wouldn't the process be better served by utilizing the existing and open standards development processes already in place that have served our community so well in so many areas? Understanding that this process will take time, but will engage all of the various community members in an open and consensus-based approach will help to ensure buy-in to the final outcome, as well as to help foster adoption once work is completed.
In the end, the goal of everyone involved is to improve our bibliographic structures in such a way that they are easier to use, less expensive, easier to understand and manage, and connect our community into the larger Internet information community.