Posting to RDA-L
Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
They could use the MARCXML records right away? You’re sure about that? Has this assumption been tested with users who know nothing about MARC?
Of course, they cannot use ISO-wrapped records. But even to use MARCXML records, you still have to have quite a lot of MARC insight the records do not carry with them.
You already supplied the same answer I would have: with MARCXML people *can*, i.e. it is possible, while with ISO2709, they *cannot*, i.e. it is impossible (practically).
But yes, you have to know a lot about MARC. Still, I don’t see why the general populace would want an entire record, and they could take what they want, e.g. the ISBD information (simple enough to take), the headings, especially if the links were there, ISBN, etc. Librarians could supply those types of style sheets and people could play with them for their own purposes.
Perhaps someone could make an XSLT-generator that would let people choose what information they wanted, and they could choose titles, authors, Dewey, etc. Although this would be difficult for me, creating something like this would probably be child’s play for someone out there.
Once you have XML, there are possibilities. Without it, there are none at all.