This is something I’ve been to write about for ages, but someone else has provoked me into at least a brief version of it: Priscilla Caplan, writing in Library Journal, has proposed a single standards body for libraries (via Catalogablog). An excerpt:
As a community we’re investing heavily in library systems, information systems, and repository systems that require appropriate and robust standards. At the same time, our standards development processes have become increasingly ad hoc, sponsorship is scattered, and mechanisms for ongoing maintenance are often informal and unfunded.
I’ve thought about this mostly in terms of cataloguing where for instance the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is maintained by IFLA; the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, which are based on the ISBDs (at least for now) are maintained by the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of Anglo American Cataloguing Rules; and MARC21, which is used to encode AACR2 for computer catalogues is maintained by the Library of Congress. This leads to all kinds of fun and games, as changes to one are now extremely difficult without changing the others, which can’t really happen because the governing bodies are all different.
These differences obviously exist for historical reasons. E.g. MARC21 used to be USMARC and was the US counterpart to many MARCs, such as UKMARC, although most UK (at least academic) libraries now use MARC21. Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are now very widely used, although still, understandably, under LC’s control as they were primarily intended for internal use. The corresponding LC authority files have in fact been opened to wider control, under the NACO scheme (the SACO scheme does something similar for subjects, but LC still has control, as I understand it). The LC does handle a lot because it started a lot and it has the money to keep it going (unlike the British Library, for instance, who once had their own version of MARC and several attempts at subject description schemes). However, one wonders what should happen when this gets past a certain point and international use becomes more prevalent than local use. This is a situation analogous to the present situation with governance of the Internet.
What worries me more are the large amount of organisations who seem to be adding to standards a la Microsoft and version 4 browsers. LC has long had Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRIs) which deal with policies and ambiguities with AACR2. And these are understable as many ambiguities and room for interpretation exist. However, what seems wrong is that many libraries treat these as the ‘rules’ too when they are only really one library’s policies. Similar versions exist elsewhere, notably Canada. Cataloguers on mailing lists not infrequently refer to OCLC MARC as though it were the MARC21 standard itself. Both RLG and OCLC have their own input standards, many of which are not compatible with ‘standard’ practice. An example that I like to bang on about is ebook cataloguing, where netLibrary, a subsidiary of OCLC, lobbied LC to introduce an LCRI to significant change the ‘rules’ so that ebooks are not catalogued as electronic resources as stipulated by AACR2, but as books, with a note added to explain that the book in is fact an ebook.
One thing I find distinctly odd is Priscilla Caplan’s seeming assumption that the problem is not necessarily international. She does define the situation as international at the beginning and asks whether a standards body should be international at the end but the bulk of her discussion is concerned with the shortcomings of the (U.S.) National Information Standards Organization and library membership thereof. With the web and the way computer catalogues work now, standards have to be international: one country cannot make all the changes and arrogantly assume others will follow suit; similarly one country cannot go it alone. I don’t know enough about the W3C, but its stewardship of a range of Web standards seems a good model to follow. On a related note, I find it incredible that AARC3, or RDA as it is now called, is still being approached an as anglophone rather than international enterprise.
So, yes, an international (not US or UK, or anglophone) standards body for description, subject description (even if we break off from LCSH), and MARC (or something better) that involved libraries, system vendors, and others involved in the book and information trade.