Cataloging Futures

Let's Get Rid of the Urgency

I'm like a dog with a bone. I just can't let this one go. Maybe it's the title, The Catalog's Last Stand. Is it really?

I'm not convinced that libraries, library catalogs, and cataloging are "in peril." I don't think we're standing at the edge of a precipice looking down. And there's not necessarily tension between the desires of users and the direction libraries are going in. These future of library memes haven't rung true for me for awhile. But I'm not a traditionalist at all.

Here's an academic librarian, Wayne Bivens-Tatum, whose asking the same questions in a post titled, Are the Users Ahead of Us?

This brings me in a very roundabout way to the question in my title. I often read library blogs that argue we should be adopting new information technologies because that’s where our users are at. I’m not so sure. I think that those librarians are ahead of their users in this respect, as I believe I’m ahead of most of my users. As a reason to change, catching up with the users might not be a very good one, because I suspect most of the users might not be caught up with us.

Does this mean we shouldn’t play around with new modes of communication and information technology? Certainly not. It just means that some of the urgency of calls to change ring hollow for me. We must change QUICKLY and NOW! But that urgency doesn’t seem to fit the facts.

Catalogs/Cataloging Memes

Yesterday, after reading The Catalog's Last Stand [PDF] as well as an email from a colleague, I wanted to look at two memes circulating these debates. A couple of things I find odd, if not downright perplexing:

1. At a time of increased importance of metadata creation and the Semantic Web, we're "trying to get rid of catalog librarians." The librarians who've been creating metadata all along. Rather than encourage catalogers to expand their skills as digital projects come along, I keep hearing about how administrators want to "get rid of cataloging and catalogers."
2. There's a meme going around that catalogers are obsessed with "descriptive cataloging." That our main focus is bibliographic description. When the reality is good catalogers have always emphasized access over description. Providing access to library materials for users has always been our main focus. Catalogers are user-centric.

By the way, we ignore bibliographic description to our own peril. It's primary purpose is the identification of library materials and isn't "identify" one of the FRBR user tasks?

So, that's my two cents. I find the focus of the discuss short-sighted. I think these administrators lack real vision about the catalog's future. Most of all I think they lack good will. They don't really value the work that catalogers have done over the years. People go on and on how wonderful OCLC WorldCat is, what a great resource. But recognizing that it's the cataloging community that built that resource--Why doesn't somebody write an article about that?

Via LISNews

Cataloging, Training, and Self-learning

You'll want to read Training-wheels culture over on the Caveat Lector blog. Dorothea Salo weighs in on an issue important to the future of cataloging and metadata education. She writes about librarians who are resistant to self-learning--that is, learning by doing.

I emailed Dorothea to let her know that a lot of catalogers responded to Nicole's survey (it was announced on AUTOCAT). So she might have taken a slightly different take if she knew that at the time of writing.

However, her main point is an important one.

Interesting Cataloging Links - 9-15 September 2007

• Another new cataloging blog: The Serials Cataloger. Last week's posts are reviews of articles from the latest issue of the Serials Librarian. (I'm secretly a serials cataloger at heart, so finding this new blog makes me very happy!)
• Minerva's post, The first thing we do, ..., takes a look at Peter Brantley's vision of the future library. He advocates the elimination of local copy cataloging and a reduction in cataloging staff. (I hope to take a closer look at his argument in a future post.)
  
• An excellent post on an RLG metadata survey can be found at hangingtogether.org. Some interesting data on descriptive metadata practices in libraries, archives, and museums. A must read.
• Over on What I Learned Today... Nicole Engard posted the MARC record we created for her blog and input into OCLC WorldCat. Take a look.
  

Anecdote or Evidence in the Future of Cataloging/Catalogs Debate?

Over most of the Labor Day weekend, I didn't have access to a computer. But I did make a few blog notes. Here's one:

How we think about [the future of] cataloging needs to be based on evidence.

So, I was intrigued to find Lorcan Dempsey's post, An evidence base?:

In all the discussion about bibliographic data and catalogs, and about their advantages or disadvantages when compared to other approaches, it is striking how little appeal there is to actual evidence. Evidence about value. Evidence about cost.

I found it worrisome that someone so high on the bibliographic food chain was saying this. My first thought was--isn't this what the Ph.D.s in LIS programs are providing for us "working librarians" who don't have the time or resources to do research? Tom's comments in, No evidence on bibliographic issues, makes a similar point:

I expect the framers of RDA are using a wealth of such research data diligently compiled by the researchers at our library schools to compile the rules. With this much academic research behind us, Amazoogle doesn't stand a chance!

However, back in July, Mark Lindner's post titled Library & Information Anecdotes echoes Lorcan Dempsey's thoughts:

Having watched a fair amount of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control’s 3rd meeting via live webcast yesterday, along with attending the 2nd one in Chicago, toss in a few other odd reports and such here and there, and one should quickly notice that we have pretty much nothing but anecdote. Not a damn shred of actual evidence for anything anywhere. Just a lot of talking heads talking about what they think is wanted by users or about what systems and data we need to supply that to them.

So, what are we basing these future of cataloging and catalog decisions on? Any thoughts?

ALA 2007: David Bade's Paper

David Bade delivered this paper, I Know Where I Am Going, Do You?, at the 2007 American Library Association Annual Conference for an ALCTS forum on continuing resources (a.k.a., serials). Some quotes:

"While it may seem evident enough that there is only one way to describe such things as pagination in a book, the key issue is rather that both what information one includes or excludes (e.g. pagination) and the form in which that information is recorded are always dependent upon the purposes for which it is recorded. In an environment of automated data exchange, either we have to be satisfied with whatever we do and do not get, no matter for whom or for what purposes it was created, or we have to have a human being examine, evaluate and adapt that information to our particular purposes."

"Should continuing resources cataloging standards change to accommodate greater use of non-library data? Again, the wrong question. Let us ask instead: What is the best way in which we can use non-library data to accomplish our goals? The problem with the original question is that the assumption is that non-library data fits the library's needs and purposes and it is the library that needs to change, not the data."

Interesting Cataloging Links - 2-8 September 2007

• A brand new cataloging blog, Sarahisacataloger's Weblog, takes a look a the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control in her first post, The Economics of Cataloging. Great start.
• Thom Hickey shares his thoughts on how to improve the MARC 21 format in Changing MARC.
• David Bigwood reports that the 2007 Proceedings of the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications is available online. (The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's international conference, DC - 2007, was just held in Singapore last month.)
• Some creative thinking about FRBR group 1 entities can be found on Bradley P. Allen's blog (these innovative non-catalogers types are putting us to shame!)
• Sara provides a good summary of the controversy swirling around Level 3 Records in WorldCat over on the Blog About Technical Services.
• Grasshopper must learn from Master: David Bigwood never fails to unearth something I had no clue was out there. On September 4th, he reports that there is a electronic discussion list, PERSNAME-L, that deals with issues about personal names in bibliographic and authority records. (Turns out it was announced on AUTOCAT in July, but somehow got buried. Gee, I wonder how that happened.)
• Over on Metalogger, Neil Godfrey points out some criticisms of the MODS schema. I'm particularly interested in MODS right now because we're considering using it where I work.

Scanning, Metadata, and the Google Books Project

You'll want to read this article, Inheritance and loss? A brief survey of Google Books, by Paul Duguid. It illustrates what happens when the nature of books and their accompanying metadata are ignored when scanning and digitizing.

Duguid's main argument focuses on the quality of the scanning. But he also demonstrates how the lack of sufficient metadata--something as basic as volume numbers for multivolume works--can cause problems when searching. This gets to the heart of the "digital fundamentalist" argument that search algorithms will eliminate the necessity for structured metadata. As my source mentions it's "an eye-opening read."

Via Bradley P. Allen