Cataloging Futures

Cataloging Futures takes a new direction

Those of you who've been reading this blog know that it's focus has been the future of cataloging and metadata in libraries. I started the blog in April 2007 when this was a "hot topic" and also a personal passion. At the time I was the head cataloger of a small cataloging department with a strong background in cataloging and RDA. When I first started Cataloging Futures there weren't many catalogers blogging (that's really changed!), so it seemed to fill a much-needed niche.

For the past four years, I've been the metadata librarian on our gradually growing digital collections team. And last month I started a new job: XML Database Administrator. Our team works with a production mindset in a agile environment. We work in focused two-week sprints. Both work and learning my new job don't afford me the luxury of keep up with the trends and issues of cataloging and metadata with the intensity that blogging requires.

So, while the blog is still called "Cataloging Futures," the focus with now be primarily using XQuery (and MarkLogic Server) for digital collections development in libraries. I hope that some of my current readers stay on board, but totally understand in the busy work-a-day world of cataloging that you might have other things to focus on. I am truly grateful for all the Cataloging Futures readers who've encouraged and challenged me over the last several years. Thank you!

From catalogers to information ninjas?

Here's a thought-provoking summary of a presentation from this year's CLA conference: Goodbye Librarians, Hello Information Ninjas! Many of the ideas address a movement away from tradtional cataloging activities. Some excerpts:

Models that define information roles and information services based on content type distinctions are becoming less relevant – more likely than not, we will begin seeing overlaps and complementary domains developing.

The great challenge of this “digital age” we find ourselves in will be ensuring we do what we do (the collection, preservation and management of information) in a way that ensures it is accessible in the future. No matter its format or content, we are really all about the information at the end of the day – and what’s it worth if we can’t access it?

So what are the biggest foundational pieces of what will be required of our new role as Information Ninja?

• Figuring out the best way to manage and access resources, wherever they are located and in whatever system and format they are stored.
• Moving away from traditional records file and library classification systems and making innovative use of more consumable methods of classification such as metadata and social tagging.
• Focusing on establishing common classification and management practices, applicable to any information resource, across systems and formats.
• Recognizing and building the necessary skills: becoming tech savvy; building knowledge of search; understanding structured and unstructured content; learning about retention and preservation requirements, just to name a few.

Transitioning from the MARC format (it might really happen!)

It's not too often that opening your email becomes a transformational moment, a "Wow" moment. Well, that was yesterday for me when the announcement came down from LC: Transforming our Bibliographic Framework: A Statement from the Libraray of Congress. I sort of though a movement away from MARC was never going to happen (at least not in my work-lifetime). This statement is the direction a lot of us have been waiting for.

As the REM song goes, this really could be "the end of the world as we know it."

A website has been set up for all the activity surrounding this initiative: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative. I will keep an eye on it with cataloger-like, detail-oriented intensity. So, we'll see what this brings, but it sure does seem like a postive step forward.

Update: See also John Mark Ockerbloom's interesting take from an open data perspective.

Revisiting MARC must die

The "MARC must die" meme has resurfaced in several places lately. It refers to Roy Tennant's prescient article by the same title from 2002.

So, over the weekend I printed it off to re-read it and then discovered, self-described library-geek, Sally Chambers will be presenting a workshop next week (at ELAG 2011) entitled: MARC must die? Developing a shared vision for the future of bibliographic metadata.

Sally also gives a preview of her workshop on her blog: Will MARC survive ELAG 2011?

Any thoughts, predictions? Any worthy MARC replacements?

Update: See also: Roy Tennant's article, A bibliographic metadata infrastructure for the twenty-first century, 2004.

The role of the cataloguer in the 21st century

Here's something that picks up on one of my favorite themes--what catalogers need to do to adjust to the changing information landscape. . . .

Over on the High Visibility Cataloguing blog is a guest post worth reading. It links to Lynne Dyer's article, The role of the cataloguer in the 21st century, and includes a follow-up by Lynne with some additional new resources.

New book: Conversations with Catalogers in the 21st Century

2010 had been heralded as the year of cataloging research. But I think it was actually the year of cataloging conversation. Whether on discussion lists such as OCLC-CAT and, the mother-of-all-lists, AUTOCAT or the social media vehicles, Twitter and blogs, in 2010 there was a lot of catalogers talking about the pressing issues in our profession. With RDA, the new cataloging code, being the topic du jour for most of the year.

This new book, Conversations with Catalogers in the 21st Century, published by Libraries Unlimited and edited by Elaine Sanchez picks up on this trend. Elaine was kind enough to approach me to write an essay for this book. So, I am grateful to her for the opportunity to get off the Web and actually write something a little more substantial and in print.

If you get a chance to read my brief essay: Changing Mind-Set, Changing Skill Set: Transitioning from Cataloger to Metadata Librarian, please let me know what you think.

I am excited to dig in and read the other essays in this book, not so much a book of cataloging experts, but rather a group of catalogers who write and think with passion and verve on these discussion lists and blogs, the cataloging conversationalists among us.

RDA angst and the future of library metadata

I find myself reluctantly in the RDA fan club. There's a lot of things I wish RDA was (or wasn't) and if someone made me cataloging queen-for-a-day, I'd definitely make some changes to RDA. It'd be a leaner, meaner, simpler cataloging code for one.

But, I can honestly say--I'm for RDA. I'd like to see it become the foundation for future library metadata: implemented, revised, and improved.

A recent outburst among catalogers on a discussion list got me thinking. The unhappiness with RDA is bringing to light just the type of dysfunction found in traditional cataloging that we need to get away from: it's rigid, inflexible, and overly complex. To move metadata to the web we need the opposite: agility, flexibility, and, where possible, simplification. In the complex world of library metadata, we should not underestimate this task. But we need to accept it and stop kicking against the goads of digital technology.

My hunch is that within 10 years you won't even recognize library cataloging it will have changed so much. Maybe not the fundamental purpose--to organize and provide access to library resources--but who creates metadata and how it's created will be very different.

If you look at the metadata workflows of digital repositories/collections the picture emerges of metadata created by authors, users, outsourcers, computer algorithms, you name it, fill in the blank. You see metadata partially created or generated and later refined or enhanced by metadata specialists (i.e., former catalogers).

You also see metadata worked on in large batches: hacked, harvested, mined, analyzed, linked together, etc. Working on metadata is (and will be) done in a world of links and relationships on the web. In the future, we'll be using new tools (that we often develop ourselves) and implementing technologies that haven't yet been thought of.

If it remains, traditional library cataloging--the fine art of crafting an individual record--will be reserved for the most precious of resources, a niche area in our profession, and seldom the preferred method for metadata creation.

It's taken me a long time to fully embrace this new type of cataloging, but there's no doubt this is the direction our work is taking. Those librarians out in the digital realm creatively trying new things (and sometimes failing) are paving the way for everyone else. And one of those new things is RDA. So, yeah, I'm a cheerleader for RDA, for FRBR, and the digital future of libraries.

h/t I borrow this blog title from a cataloging Twitter friend (hope she doesn't mine :) )

The case for catalogers

Again found via Twitter: A cogent argument for why we still need professional catalogers. Database Librarian, Esther Arens writes this guest post at the Voices for the Library blog: Guest post: Do we need cataloguers?

Lots of good points. Well worth reading (comments too).

LYRASIS future of cataloging summit paper

Recently released future of cataloging paper from LYRASIS:

LYRASIS convened a Summit Meeting in Atlanta with some of our leading academic library directors to discuss issues of strategic importance regarding the future of the library catalog and of the cataloging process. This paper summarizes the comments of the group and some potential actions LYRASIS might take to move these ideas forward.

Library Director Summit on the Future of Cataloging [pdf]

A few random observations:

• There was a lot of talk about cooperation, but no mention of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC).
• One comment sets up a false dichotomy between accepting "good enough" records and investing in "record perfection." There are other options. How about finding creative ways, both programmatic and human, to create good, accurate metadata?
• These directors want more accurate data to measure cataloging costs. Okay, but how about changing the focus to how cataloging and metadata creation is done. Are they encouraging their catalogers to try new things and experiment? If you focus too much on costs, then there's no time to innovate, because catalogers are always going to feel pressure to stay-on-task.
• OCLC is the "elephant in the room": The directors seem to be referring to OCLC in several places without actually mentioning it (WorldCat, however, is listed once as one of many discovery paths).
• Not enough focus on moving library metadata discovery to the web. No mention of linked data at all.
• One smart library: "recently ... hired two new catalogers because it believes it is still valuable to have cataloging-articulate perspective and voice within the library."

h/t ADR Direct

Progressive Bibliography: Catalogers, Curators, and Crowdsourcing

Interesting article: “Progressing Toward Bibliography, or, Organic Growth in the Bibliographic Record,” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 10I, 2 (Fall, 2009): 95-110.

It will be the focus of today's discussion session at the 51st Annual RBMS Preconference. Here's a description from the EXLIBRIS-L list:

Hello Conference Bound, or not, Librarians:

Jennifer Schaffner and I are hosting a discussion session in Philadelphia on Wednesday, June 23rd at 4 pm, about issues in progressive description, cataloging, curating, and crowdsourcing. We want to talk about such broad questions as: Who is allowed to describe our cultural heritage? Should we let outside scholars add to the catalog? And How do we collaborate with users to create better descriptions to serve outreach and research needs?

As part of this exercise, we've created a parallel blog for comments. If you attend, or would like to follow along, point your browser at http://progressivebibliography.org/

I look forward to seeing you in person or having the conversation virtually.

Best,
-James P. Ascher

James Phillip Ascher
Assistant Professor and Rare Book Cataloger
Univ. of Colorado at Boulder Libraries

Thanks to one of my RB librarian friends for pointing this out!