Cataloging Futures

Future of MARC - maybe it really doesn't matter?

In Who needs MARC? Lukas Koster argues that the MARC format isn't really that crucial. 

The thing is: it really does not matter how you store bibliographic metadata in your database, as long as you can present and exchange the data in any format requested, be it MARC or Dublin Core or anything else.

OCLC symposium on publishing and library metadata

OCLC just held a symposium last month on publishing and library metadata. Interesting stuff. Here's some of the outcomes:

* Libraries and library metadata not necessarily on publisher's radar and vice versa.

* How MARC and ONIX represent misalignment of libraries and publishers.

* Structure of formats is inhibiting mutual understanding and ability to work together.

* Authors and users are important inputs to the metadata debate.

* We need to influence the ILS industry to accommodate data flexibility.

* We should view ONIX and MARC as communication mechanisms not as standards to support systems.

* Look at motivation as a way to understand who will or can do what.

* Leverage intellectual work for everyone—figure out how to use it.

* Proposals are a good way to vet ideas. Keep the conversation moving.

* Identify small chunks of problem areas where we can accomplish change. The CIP process and ISNI are good place to start.

LC's MARC record production study: surveys now available

The surveys are now available for LC's bibliographic record production study:

... we have begun to collect information about the creation and distribution of MARC records in North America. Online surveys will be open for your input through Friday, May 22. Your participation is vital. [emphasis mine]

Please find links to both surveys at: http://bibrecords.ning.com/

Thanks in advance for your interest in this important project!

Visit Bibliographic Record Production at: http://bibrecords.ning.com

Let's mashup MARC metadata before moving to the Cloud!

You young, tech savvy librarians may not remember this article. But back in 1994 Nicholson Baker wrote an essay in The New Yorker titled "Discards." He argued that we were losing valuable data from our card catalogs as we pursued the "holy grail" of efficiency: the online catalog.

I thinks he was right. Well, now we have no excuse. It's not the card catalog this time. The local online catalog is now the dinosaur and we're being encouraged to pursue the next holy grail: the Web, that is, moving our integrated library systems (ILS) to the Cloud. Now we're being offered WorldCat Local.

This time there's no reason we need to lose valuable local cataloging data. We can merge our local records. As long as we put in the effort locally and there is a willingness from OCLC to do this. We will probably learn more from OCLC as time goes on. For now, check out the WorldCat Local FAQs [pdf].

So, before moving your ILS to the Web think about the added value that catalogers put into those local MARC records. You could be abandoning these records for the less-full master records in WorldCat. Think hard about this because if there's one thing we're learning about today's users: they want more information about resources, not less.

Rick J. Block's presentation on RDA and MARC

I loved Rick Block's recent presentation: RDA: Boondoggle or Boon? And What About MARC? [pdf]. You may recall that Rick Block won Library Journal's LJ Teaching Award for 2008.

Block, both a teacher and practitioner of cataloging, doesn't fall into either the traditionalist or modernist camp with regard to RDA and MARC.

I think this is the best recent overview of these two important future of cataloging issues. It lays out where we are right now with RDA and MARC and raises some interesting questions.

Library of Congress MARC => RDF/RDA/FRBR

Rob Styles and Bill Denton have already pointed this out: Alistair Miles has converted Library of Congress MARC data to RDF using RDA/FRBR schemas. It's interesting to see RDA come alive, so to speak, in an actual RDF metadata structure.

MARC--Controversial literature

I don't really agree with this post: Radiohead and the death of MARC cataloging, but I'm always on the lookout for librarians weighing in on the future (or non-future) of the MARC format.

A year and a half ago - without any librarians seeming to notice - the MARC cataloging standard officially became obsolete. For years now librarians have noted that MARC is great for describing books but not other media types. The problem lies largely in the fact that MARC and AACR2 are geared to describing single, owned, and published material (i.e. monographs). Moreover, most libraries still focus almost exclusively on purchasing books. But the internet, the abundance of multimedia formats, and their meteoric expansion have slowly eaten away at our old-steady reading partner....

I’m not saying that it will be easy to fix this problem. Providing access to a digital resource requires specific tools and specific technological skills. Fixing or replacing MARC is even more problematic! Nonetheless, librarians don’t have a much of a choice about what to do. Digital resources aren’t going anywhere soon and the good old days are gone for sure. An airbag may have saved Thom Yorke’s life once but he’s shown that unless libraries get their act together we all may be dead.

Want to chat with a cataloging expert?

Jennifer Bowen poses this question concerning repurposing MARC metadata over on the ITALica blog:

What opportunities and challenges can we anticipate as we start working with (e.g. manipulating, searching, augmenting, cleaning up, transforming) MARC metadata from an ILS (or from another MARC-based system) outside of that system?

How can we ensure that reusing MARC data is a worthwhile undertaking, and convince those outside the library world of this, if necessary?

RDA/MARC working group established

Lots of interesting cataloging news this week. I was able to glimpse it going by as I looked up from full-immersion in METS and Dublin Core (that "other planet" that the non-MARC metadata folk live on). First up, some MARC news.

Yesterday on the MARC and RDA discussion lists, Marjorie E. Bloss, RDA Project Manager, announced the establishment of the RDA/MARC Working Group:

Under the auspices of the British Library, the Library and Archives Canada, and the Library of Congress, an RDA/MARC Working Group has been established to collaborate on the development of proposals for changes to the MARC 21 formats to accommodate the encoding of RDA data. With the implementation of RDA anticipated for late 2009, the Working Group will be drafting proposals for review and discussion by the MARC community in June 2008.

Although the MARC 21 formats support the encoding of descriptions created according to a wide range of content standards, the close relationship between AACR and MARC 21 has contributed to the efficient exchange of information among libraries for decades. The RDA/MARC Working Group will identify what changes are required to MARC 21 to support compatibility with RDA and ensure effective data exchange into the future.

Members of the RDA/MARC Working Group are:

• Everett Allgood (New York University and CC:DA Liaison to MARBI)
• Corine Deliot (British Library)
• Rebecca Guenther (Library of Congress)
• Bill Leonard (Library and Archives Canada)
• Sally McCallum (Library of Congress)
• Marg Stewart (JSC Liaison to the RDA/MARC Working Group)
• Martha Yee (UCLA Film and Television Archive)

The Future of MARC, XML, and Interfaces

A couple of bloggers have picked up and continued the conversation about the future of MARC. I think it's a conversation worth having. It would be great to have some kind of vision statement from MARBI or the MARC Standards Office as to where they see MARC headed. In the meantime, we'll just have to speculate.

Anyhow, Carlos Lopez observes that we're not using unadulterated MARC (a scary thought) but instead MARC parsed in a human readable template. He continues:

There are alternatives to MARC, some even built from MARC (MARC-XML come to mind). But what many cataloguers imagine when they look at MARC-XML (and the anti-Marc lobby haven't exactly disabused them of this), is that they'd have to work on records at the XML level. Why? We do not work directly on MARC now, why would we have to work directly with XML in the future? that's what interface designers do; they design applications that allow us to work on the records without ever seeing what they really look like!

Actually XML is a lot more human readable than raw MARC, but he makes a good point. In the future we'll be working as we do now--using an application that makes whatever schema we end up with more user-friendly.