Future
The future of the MARC formats is a matter of some debate among libraries. On the one hand, the storage formats are quite complex and are based on outdated technology. On the other, there is no alternative bibliographic format with an equivalent degree of granularity. The billions of MARC records in tens of thousands of individual libraries (including over 50,000,000 belonging to the OCLC consortium alone) create inertia.
Read more about this topic: MARC Standards
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to anotherand always into a better setthings might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the oceanthere is nothing there. It will be what men and circumstances make it.”
—Alexander Herzen (18121870)
“The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.”
—Thornton Wilder (18971975)