Cataloging Futures

Faviki: a controlled vocabulary tagging tool

Yesterday, a cataloger friend of mine mentioned this tagging tool: Faviki, which according to its blog is:

A social bookmarking tool that allows you to tag webpages you want to remember using Wikipedia terms. This means that everybody uses the same names for tags from the world's largest collection of knowledge. [emphasis added]

What Faviki calls "common tagging" is a move away from free tagging to the use of a common vocabulary. Looks like the web is turning us all into catalogers :)

More on Google metadata

I'm convinced that the future of library cataloging and metadata creation will look something like what Google is doing now with their metadata for Google Books.

So, I was keenly interested in Eric Hellman's new post: Google Exposes Book Metadata Privates at ALA Forum. This is the most detailed description of Google's metadata workflow to date.

ALA TechSource to focus on library metadata

The ALA TechSource blog will be starting the year focusing on library metadata. Karen Coyle has authored both the January and February issues of their Library Technology Reports.

Here's an excerpt from the February report: RDA Vocabularies for a Twenty-First-Century Data Environment.

Why teach cataloging and classification?

Some good cataloging reading to start the new year!

Today (using Google Scholar) I found this interesting essay by Michael Gorman from 2002: A matter of opinion: Why teach cataloguing and classification?

It can be found in this book: Education for cataloging and the organization of information edited by Janet Swan Hill.

Cataloging and metadata: A year in review

Some important topics, reports, and new services for library cataloging and metadata in 2009 were:

• OCLC record use policy
• Google Books metadata problems
• Cooperative Cataloging Rules wiki
• Linked data LCSH
• The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)
• RDA publication delayed until 2010
• biblios.net 
• SkyRiver
• OCLC's Expert Community Experiment
• R2 Consulting's report for LC on the MARC marketplace
• Announcement of 2010 the year of cataloging research
• Thomas Mann's report on the distinctiveness of the Library of Congress
• Automatic metadata generation
• Second draft issued: Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD) 
• Judy Luther's NISO/OCLC report on streamlining book metadata workflow

New FRBR book

I'll be reading this one in the New Year: Implementing FRBR in Libraries: Key Issues and Future Directions? by Yin Zhang and Athena Salaba.

Whether you pronounce it "FRBR" or "F-R-B-R" this conceptual model remains a hot topic and I would argue is now a full-fledged library standard. There are now several books written about FRBR. My go-to source is still the original text itself. (Yes, I'm an unapologetic cataloging/metadata geek.)

h/t The FRBR Blog

Cataloging Futures' choice: blogs to read in 2010

I read a lot of blogs and I've got more than a list of ten that are favorites.

Thought some of you all might be interested in the list I sent off to Blake Carver at LISNews for the call for "10 Blogs To Read in 2010":

1. The FRBR Blog
2. Bibliographic Wilderness
3. Seeing the picture
4. go to hellman
5. Metadata Matters
6. From the catalogs of babes
7. Thingology
8. hangingtogether.org
9. Everybody's libraries
10. Panlibus

What all these blogs have in common is that over the past year they've contributed to the conversation as to where libraries are headed with regard to the future of catalogs, cataloging, and metadata. I've benefited from their interesting, thoughtful, and challenging blog writing in 2009 and look forward to more in 2010!

Why we still need classification in the age of Google

Life has trumped blogging for me lately. Just thought you might be interested in what's at the top of my reading pile: a new post on the VocabControl blog titled "Google is not perfect."

Perhaps I am starting to suffer from “deformation professionelle”, but I am constantly surprised by how often I am still asked “Why do we need classification now we have free text search and Google?”. This post is designed to answer the question. If you are an info pro, it won’t tell you anything you don’t already know, but as always I’d appreciate suggestions and additions.

The question seems to me a bit like asking “Why do we need scalpels now we have invented scissors?”. Scissors are a brilliant invention and they do many wonderful things - just like Google - they make all sorts of cutting quick and easy, but there are also many situations when they are not the right tool for the job. I don’t want a surgeon cutting me open with scissors except in a real emergency.

RDA to be published June 2010

Just posted to the RDA-L list:

RDA: Resource Description and Access will be published in June 2010. While we regret this delay in release of RDA, the transition from publication of AACR2 as a printed manual to release of RDA as a web based toolkit is a complex process with many interdependencies.

The updated text of RDA incorporates recommendations from constituencies and other stakeholders approved at the JSC meeting earlier this year. The revised text has been successfully loaded into the RDA database. The product is currently undergoing thorough quality review and testing in preparation for release.

We recognize that customers and prospective users of RDA need reliable and timely information for planning and budgeting. We are confident that this revised deadline is a realistic target for publication of RDA.

Pricing and purchasing information will be introduced at the time of the ALA Midwinter Meeting, 15-18 January 2010.

Mary Ghikas, Chair Committee of Principals
Alan Danskin, Chair Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA
Don Chatham, Chair Co-publishers

Library of Congress Metadata for Digital Content Group

Interesting metadata work going on at LC. Here's a good overview of the The Metadata for Digital Content group.

Consistent and rich metadata are needed in order to improve search of the Library’s collections and provide web services that users have come to expect.

The MDC group members include catalogers, programmers and digital project managers, and represent different service units of the Library concerned with digital content. All are united by the common need for more effective descriptive metadata, which is of increasing importance for the burgeoning amounts of new digital material added to the Library’s website every day. In studying the question of "what are users looking for, and can they find it?," the group determined that the overall quality of the online bibliographic records plays a big part in success or failure. So, how can the records be structured to help users discover relevant resources when they search? [emphasis added]

Jane Mandelbaum, manager in the Library’s Information Technology directorate and a founder of the group, said the group is focusing on "how we build standardized metadata that works across the spectrum of digital objects."

The group has made considerable progress through the creation of a master list of standardized metadata elements used to map existing digital collection records to a single XML metadata scheme. The XML metadata uses the Metadata Object Description Schema.

h/t ResourceShelf