Cataloging Futures

Barbara Tillett's RDA webcasts

I always blog about "essential reading," well here's some essential watching.

Barbara Tillett, Chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress, speaks about RDA in these two new webcasts:

Resource Description and Access: Background / Overview

RDA (Resource Description and Access), the next generation cataloging code designed for the digital environment, is under development. This presentation provides background on its development and a general overview of the conceptual models, international principles, and structure of this new code.

Cataloging Principles and RDA: Resource Description and Access

The second in a series on RDA: Resource Description and Access, the next generation cataloging code designed for the digital environment. This presentation deals with the cataloging principles that have influenced the development of RDA; the challenges they present to the international sharing of bibliographic and authority data; and the challenges they present to the developers of RDA.

Cataloging conversations in Canada

I'm in Ottawa for the American Theological Library Association Annual Conference. The theme of our technical services discussion last night was--Why be a cataloger? We focused on the personal and professional rewards of cataloging in a period of rapid change and "vocational angst."

One of my ATLA colleague, Blake Walter, did a nice write up of this discussion over on his blog, Views on Theological Librarianship. Check it out.

Future of Library of Congress Subject Headings

I guess the days of the "red books" are over. Want to see what the future of LCSH might look like? Take a look at lcsh.info:

This is an experimental service that makes the Library of Congress Subject Headings available as linked-data using the SKOS vocabulary. The goal of lcsh.info is to encourage experimentation and use of LCSH on the web with the hopes of informing a similar effort at the Library of Congress to make a continually updated version available. More information about the Linked Data effort can be found on the W3C Wiki. [emphasis mine]

Nathan, thanks for reminding me about this a month ago :) Talk about slow blogging!

Karen Calhoun's new cataloging and metadata blog

Exciting news. Karen Calhoun, Vice President of WorldCat and Metadata Services at OCLC, has just started blogging at Metalogue: New Directions in Cataloguing and Metadata from around the World.

Metalogue is a forum for sharing thoughts on all things related to knowledge organization by and for libraries, hosted by Karen Calhoun, Vice President, WorldCat and Metadata Services for OCLC. Karen is joined often by friends and colleagues from all over the globe, who contribute perspectives and experiences about the current and future state of cataloguing and metadata.

Via Lorcan Dempsey's weblog

PALINET future of cataloging symposium presentations now available

All presentations from the PALINET Future of Cataloging Symposium, held on Thursday May 29, 2008, are now available for download. This includes all slide presentations and audio recordings from each presenter.

I can't believe I actually sound coherent! Enjoy. It was a fun day and I'm looking forward to listening to the presentations I missed. (There were 4 afternoon speakers in 2 time slots, so we had to choose.)

Via PALINET

Code4Lib Journal extends deadline for proposals

** Deadline Extended 1 Week -- Now June 20 **

The Code4Lib Journal [ http://journal.code4lib.org/ ] is accepting proposals for articles, book & software reviews, code snippets & algorithms, conference reports, opinion pieces, etc., for its September issue. The Code4Lib Journal strives to fill a communication niche above simple description of software implementations but below pure theoretical digital library investigation. The editorial committee is looking for content that is practical, demonstrates how to exploit technology to create digital library collections and services, or offers insight and forethought regarding the use of computers in any type of library setting.

While articles in the journal should be of a high quality, they need not follow any formal structure or guidelines. Writers should aim for the middle ground between, on the one hand, blog or mailing-list posts, and, on the other hand, articles in traditional journals. We want publishing in the journal to be easy and painless, helping the community to share timely, relevant information that is currently shared all too rarely.

The Journal welcomes submissions at any time on a rolling acceptance basis. We publish quarterly in March, June, September, and December. Proposals received by Friday, June 20, 2008, will receive consideration for publication in issue 4, late September 2008. Upon provisional acceptance, authors will be given an article deadline, typically 6-8 weeks before journal publication. Proposals are typically abstracts sent in the body of an email to c4lj-articles@googlegroups.com

Send in a submission. Your peers would like to hear what you are doing.

Ken Varnum
Coordinating Editor, Issue 4
Code4Lib Journal

Catalogers' futures - still a conundrum

So, the current state of affairs seems to be that catalogers are still getting mixed messages. On the one hand, we're told that there's exciting and interesting things happening on the Web and that all librarians need to embrace this change and adapt. On the other hand, we're told that cataloging is obsolete. And let's be clear about this, the message we're hearing is that AACR2/ISBD, the MARC format, Library of Congress Subject Headings, and Library of Congress Classification (Dewey also?)--all our structures and standards-- are obsolete and in major need of an overhaul.

This is a hard thing to hear when you've developed your professional skills over a number of years. It's also tough because we thought we were providing a service to the users who rely on us for access to library resources. Most of the catalogers I know have a deep commitment to and passion for their work. In my local catalogers' interest group we've never run out of things to talk about--for years!

I feel like over the last several months I've been rather negative about the cataloging community. I am mostly addressing these criticisms to myself first. I am a traditional cataloger who has great respect for our work. In fact, I am very much a cataloging standards geek. But now working almost exclusively with digital collections and non-MARC metadata I'm being stretched to think and work differently. It's really interesting, but in many ways non-MARC metadata creation and the issues involved are more complex than traditional cataloging. We are trading one set of complexities for another. Now more than ever we need to respect professional catalogers and the contribution they are making and will continue to make to libraries' metadata future.

Demystifying library standards: a NISO/ALCTS webinar

Demystifying Library Standards: a NISO/ALCTS webinar

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 from 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. (EDT)

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) has announced the first in a series of webinars on standards in the library environment. “Demystifying Library Standards,” will focus on placing standards in context. It will be presented by Trisha Davis, Ohio State University, Julia Gammon, University of Akron, Karen Wetzel, NISO, and Pamela Bluh, University of Maryland Law School and current ALCTS President.

The speakers will address why standards are important to libraries and not just in the traditional technical services areas. As libraries are changing and evolving in an increasingly digital world, so are standards. This webinar will explain how standards are critical to the developments in such areas as e resources, user access, description and metadata, licensing and preservation. Some specific standards, both published and forthcoming, will be touched on as examples. Future webinars in the series will discuss those and other standards in more depth. Participants will learn how they can become actively involved in standards development.

If you want to learn how standards can provide benefits to organizations, their users, and yourself and are involved with library technical services, the acquisition and management of e-resources, library systems implementation including ILS, ERMS, link resolvers, and Web interfaces, cooperative electronic arrangements with other libraries, consortia, content providers or long-term preservation activities, then this webinar is for you.

Cost: $20 for NISO and ALCTS members; $25 for non-members.

To register online go to: http://www.regonline.com/ALCTS08.

For questions, email nisohq@niso.org.

More future of cataloging conversation...

An interesting future of cataloging conversation continued last week over at LIS News. And they picked up on some themes I haven't written about (yet):

• David Weinberger's book Everything is Miscellaneous
• Clay Shirky's Ontology is Overrated
• Cloud computing

Stay tuned.

Deanna Marcum's response to the LC working group report

The moment of truth is here. Deanna Marcum has just responded [pdf] to On the Record: Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control.