*Title:* “MARC Must Die” 15 Years On *Author:* Roy Tennant *URL:* https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2020/05/marc-must-die-15-years-on.html *Note:* This article was originally published in the OCLC research blog Hanging Together¹ on October 15, 2017. It is being republished here with permission from the author. *Excerpt:* Fifteen years ago to the day I declared that “MARC Must Die” in Library Journal. It sparked a firestorm of criticism, mostly from the cataloging community, and several invitations to speak. Over the years many would misquote the title or misunderstand my point, and claim that I said “MARC is dead”. I didn’t, and there is a key difference. I simply knew that MARC remained a sacred cow in libraryland and I was intent to blow it up (how’s that for mixing metaphors?) I wanted librarianship to wake up to the fact that our foundational standard was no longer serving us like it should. Unfortunately, some seemed to take it as a blow directed against catalogers, not the standard that they were accustomed to working with. One AUTOCAT-L subscriber even wrote a parody of my piece titled “Why web services departments must die” (I was a web manager at the time). I wasn’t calling for catalogers to go away. I just wanted something better for them to work with... ... ... (read the complete article on the link provided above). Regards, Salman Haider Librarian (Cataloging)