Karen Coyle writes about the Library of Congress and their follow-up to the lcsh.info shuttering last fall. In LC discovers infinity, she points out that at ALA Midwinter they not only stated that they recognized the value of the service, but that they were planning on re-releasing it as “Library of Congress Subject Headings” within 6-8 weeks.
Then she points out that 9 weeks have passed, with no changes on the website, nor updates as to the progress being made.
Any project, including re-implementing a service that was fully functional, can run into complications. We have all experienced this. The key is keeping people informed, and being realistic about solving problems.
LC should not have shut down lcsh.info in the manner they did; they should have implemented their version first, then allowed for an overlap (6 months, for instance) to give those who had integrated the service into their systems time to switch over. What we have is a mess, and the pressure is on the Library of Congress to clean it up.
