Cataloging Futures

No catalogers, or, The chickens have come home to roost

I've been wanting to blog an alternative title for awhile.

I think a library school professor said this (can't find the reference) and a certain notorious Reverend has used it recently :) The chickens have come home to roost. According to Karen Calhoun at the recent Palinet symposium there are not enough fledgling catalogers coming out of library school to replace those retiring.

The library professor's point had to do with the LIS curriculum. If you remove cataloging from the curriculum this is what you get. A generation of catalogers retiring and no replacements waiting in the wings.

I'm a little skeptical about this because I personally know some twenty-somethings who actually think that cataloging is a pretty cool job.

So what do we do? My career long MO has been to encourage, mentor, and train new catalogers. I am an enthusiastic cataloging geek--I can't help it. One needs to have a positive response to such a negative prognosis. Any thoughts?

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

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.

Palinet symposium on the future of cataloging

You'll want to read John Ockerbloom's excellent summary of yesterday's The Future of Cataloging: A Palinet Symposium. It was a great day, I learned a lot and got to show off the blog a little bit, so that was nice.

Future of cataloging debate - any thoughts?

So after 3-4 years of talking about the future of cataloging--Where are we? That's the question I'm asking myself before next week's Palinet symposium on the future of cataloging. Have we moved further along in this conversation? Are we any wiser about the numerous issues and decisions that lay ahead (or are already present)?

I've been stewing on some ideas that I'll post next week after the symposium. But I'd love to hear what you think before my 15 minutes of fame!

Testimony to the LC Working Group now available!

Over on the website for the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control they've posted the testimony submitted by institutions and individuals. Should make for some interesting reading as we patiently wait for LC's official response to the Working Group's recommendations.

Testimony Submitted to the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control (December 15, 2007)

Part I - Organizational and Institutional Submissions [PDF, 638 KB]

Part II - Submissions by Individuals [PDF, 725 KB]

Future of cataloging: act globally, think locally

Just thinking out loud:

Lots of furious conversations on the future of cataloging happened this week on the AUTOCAT list. I read through these conversations last night. They were sparked by Thomas Mann's response to the LC working group report, On the Record.

There use to be a slogan, "Think globally, act locally." I think we need to turn this slogan around. The cataloging community needs to "act globally, think locally." We need shared, free bibliographic data on the Web and we need to move away from repetitive local silos (thanks, Karen).

But also on the Internet everyone has a niche (market). And guess what, on the Web libraries need a niche too. It's no surprise that special, unique collections are now the focus of many digital libraries. It's what's unique in our collections that will draw readers/users/ patrons to us on the Web.

The future of cataloging is intrinsically tied to the future of libraries. And the future of libraries is what we can offer to readers that is added value beyond the full-text resources that will continue to proliferate the Web.

The future of cataloging: a Palinet symposium

I've been invited to be on the response panel for The Future of Cataloging: A Palinet Symposium that will be held at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia on May 29th. The keynote speaker will be Karen Calhoun. I'm really excited about attending this symposium and participating in the conversation in a different context (outside the comfort of the blog). Here's more information:

The Future of Cataloging: A PALINET Symposium
Thursday, May 29, 2008, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

[Update: the link for registration.]

Program Agenda

Keynote Address

• Karen Calhoun, Vice President, OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services, will present an overview of the current state of cataloging and the future direction of bibliographic control.

Response to Keynote Address Panel Discussion

• Beth Picknally Camden, Goldstein Director of Information Processing, University of Pennsylvania
• Diane Hillman, Research Librarian, Cornell University and Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)/Resource Description and Access (RDA) Task Group
• Christine Schwartz, Metadata Librarian, Princeton Theological Seminary

Hot Topics - featured presentations from cataloging practitioners

• Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Current Development and Implementation Plans for Resource Description and Access (RDA)--John Attig, Monograph Cataloging Librarian, Penn State University
• The Significance of the Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control--Nancy Fallgren, University of Maryland Libraries Digital Access/Metadata Librarian, Johns Hopkins University and Consultant to Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control
• The Impact of Cataloging Developments on Hidden Collections--Christine Di Bella, Archivist and Project Director, PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
• The Role of Integrated Library Systems (ILS) and Next Generation Catalogs--John Ockerbloom, IT Senior Project Leader, University of Pennsylvania

Break-out discussion groups with the featured speakers will follow each presentation.

Summary and Closing Remarks

• M. Dina Giambi, President-Elect, Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association and Assistant Director for Library Technical Services University of Delaware Library

Thomas Mann's response to the LC working group report

Thomas Mann responses to the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control report in his new paper: "On the Record" but Off the Track [pdf]. This 38-page paper is a must-read for the future of cataloging debate.