Cataloging Futures

Martha Yee's new article - cataloging et al.

Martha Yee has a new article available at the UC eScholarship repository, Cataloging, Compared to Descriptive Bibliography, Abstracting and Indexing Services and Metadata.

Cataloging is compared to descriptive bibliography, to enumerative bibliography and abstracting and indexing services as well as to metadata created by Web search engines or by nonprofessionals at sites such as Amazon.com. These four types of metadata are compared with regard to object of the description, functions, scope, number of copies examined, collective vs. individual creation, standardization, authority control, evidence, amount of descriptive detail, degression, time span the data is intended to last, and degree of evaluation.

New book: Metadata for digital resources

Jenn Riley's new book that she co-authored with Muriel Foulonneau is now available in both hardcover and paperback. (I have dropped it into my husband's Amazon shopping cart!)

Metadata for Digital Resources is intended to be a practical handbook for those embarking on digitization projects or implementing a metadata program in a cultural heritage institution. It goes beyond introductory explanations of various metadata standards to cover issues of their practical implementation and in-depth discussion of the role of metadata in the larger information environment. We believe this book will be useful for those preparing to begin their first project involving non-MARC metadata, and for those looking to take the next step from one-off metadata projects to a more systematic and strategic approach.

New metadata schema - textMD

From the LC website:

textMD is a XML Schema that details technical metadata for text-based digital objects. It most commonly serves as an extension schema used within the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Schema (METS) administrative metadata section. However, it could also exist as a standalone document. In the future textMD can be used within the PREMIS element, additionalTechnicalCharacteristics, an extension for format-specific metadata within the PREMIS preservation metadata Object XML Schema version 2.0.

Essential reading: Metadata for digital libraries

The heart of our digital library at work is the METS standard. So, it's hard for me not to like this report which is very pro-METS. Richard Gartner's Metadata for digital libraries: state of the art and future directions [pdf] is a clarion call for integrated standards and agreed upon best practices in the future library metadata landscape.

Gartner stresses the importance of standards with XML as the common platform. He goes over the top contenders for integrated standards, such as METS, Dublin Core, MODS, MIX, etc. This report is written in a clear style and could function as a good introductory overview of descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata. A very good read for administrators, LIS students, as well as the experienced professional.

Via DigitalKoans

Interesting cataloging/metadata links

Back when I was a kid, Alvin Toffler's Future Shock was the book to read. One of the concepts he wrote about was "overchoice." This seems to have come true with the Web. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed with the amount of information out there concerning library issues. I hope this blog continues to help focus in on some of the important cataloging/metadata blog posts, papers, articles, etc. as I start a 2nd year of blogging (yesterday was the blog's 1st birthday!).

Here's some things I've found interesting lately:

• Karen Coyle's presentation from the recent Code4Lib Conference, R&D: RDA in RDF, or: Can Resource Description Become Rigorous Data? [PDF]. Slides annotated with notes. This is excellent.
• Lorcan Dempsey points out an article, Can Social Bookmarking Improve Web Search? [PDF] One intriguing conclusion from this study of user assigned tags: "It may be more efficient to train librarians to label domains than to ask users to tag." Hmm.
• On one of my very favorite blogs, repositories for the rest of us, Laura Smart mentions Diane Hillmann's trainer screencasts for the LC workshop she developed Metadata Standards and Applications. Slides with voice-over from Diane Hillmann.

New book on tagging

A few weeks ago I bought Gene Smith's book, Tagging: People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web. This looks like it's going to be a great read!

Reading Thomas Mann's response

In his response to the LC Working Group report, Thomas Mann insists that the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are still a useful, essential tool in the serious scholar's arsenal of information-seeking resources. I don't agree with Mann on every point. And I'm a lot more sanguine about LCSH as a discovery tool on the Web. But, we're in basic agreement that the LC subject headings can and will provide valuable subject-rich metadata in the future.

If the Library of Congress doesn't want to continue LCSH management, development, and maintenance (this is still not clear), they should open up this work to the library community. Just morph the subject authority records into XML (or some other Web-friendly format) and mount them on the Web as an open-source tool.

I think it's interest that there's no clamour to stop using other controlled vocabularies, like the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT). So, is this a debate/conversation about the value of subject-rich metadata or about where the Library of Congress wants to allocate taxpayers' dollars, as Mann suggests?

Dublin Core type vocabulary - any thoughts?

I've been blogging in fits and starts the last 2 months due to my new job. For example, I've read Thomas Mann's response to the LC Working Group report, but just haven't had time to throw in my two cents.

I'm going to try something new on the blog. I'd like to share some of my day-to-day metadata issues and see if the "wisdom of the crowd" can help me out.

So, at work we're considering what controlled vocabulary to use for the Dublin Core element "type." We've decided we want something more that the DCMI Type Vocabulary. I think we're going to use DCT2: Dublin Core Type Vocabulary: Subtypes Working Draft.

It seems the work has stopped on DCT2, but I think it would really work for our bibliographic, text-based resources that make up the bulk of our digital collections. Any thoughts? I'd be interested in suggestions of other controlled vocabularies out there.