Letters & responses

摘要

This article was a most interesting read, giving lots of food for thought. I was reminded of S.R. Ranganathan’sFive laws of library science throughout, which, to my mind at least, are concerned with the greater good of thelibrary, by satisfying the user in their search and retrieval. This linking with Ranganathan was particularly strongfor me in section 5, Consistency and Perfection?, where Caddy discusses the cataloguing practices of lockingdown a record as soon as it is created. If a mistake is made, or a more appropriate access term becomesavailable, then my advice would be to use both terms in newer records, allowing the user to conduct their owncross-reference searching. If this doesn’t satisfy the rule about the library being a growing organism, I don’tknow what does! Consistency can be static, and doesn’t allow for growth and change; be adaptable (even themost consistent of cataloguers need room to grow). Caddy started with a Pixar quote; I’ll finish with a slightlydifferent film (which, at the heart of it, is also about ethics): Life [or metadata] finds a way…. (Jurassic Park,1993).