Cataloging Futures

Interoperable metadata - How do we get there?

Interoperability is a buzzword in the library community. In the past we had pretty much one system of standards with regard to metadata creation. Now we're grappling with diverse forms of metadata. Here's a document, Harmonization of Metadata Standards [pdf], that nicely lays out the issues involved.

Via DigitalKoans

RDA development: An iterative process

The cataloging discussion lists were all a buzz last week with opinions about the future cataloging code, Resource Description and Access (RDA). This was spurred on by the perfect storm: the LC working group's recommendation to halt work on RDA; Martha Yee's new cataloging rules, an alternative to RDA; and Michael Gorman's scathing criticism of RDA in his new, yet to be published article.

It seems the defenders of RDA are in the minority, but if I had to weigh in I'm with them. The RDA drafts do have problems. But I agree with Shawne Miksa, who said on AUTOCAT:

How about a reality check? RDA is not scheduled to be released until 2009. It is not going to be released tomorrow and it certainly is not going to be implemented tomorrow. The library community doesn't seem to be ready for a lot of things, but a lot of things happen regardless. If we don't actually take a step forward, then we don't actually move forward.

And I think Laura Smart has it right also:

All I really know is that RDA will be an imperfect work-in-progress for quite a long time. We all have to accept that we will have a release-refine-release cycle and that we won't get perfection the first time out. Otherwise we'll wait forever.

Diane Hillmann thinks we should look at RDA development as an iterative process:

I think that, should the RDA process stumble along and a few checkbooks open to provide some money for the DCMI/RDA work to get started soon, what we'll end up with is something that is a decent first iteration of what we want to do. If you think, as I do, that we MUST move to a process of iterative development and experimentation (and then back around again) in order to move sufficiently swiftly to play in a world with Google, Amazon and that mob, then what we end up with at the end of the process (rocky as it is) has to be good enough to start with, and we'll work on it to make it better. Because, frankly, we don't have the time to go through something more ponderous and stately to come up with a perfect standard. It's no longer that kind of world. To some extent, it never has been--those with long memories will recall how long it took to get AACR2 off the launching pad, and what we have now is quite a bit different than what we started with.

So, here's my two cents. A lot of work has go into RDA to develop a cataloging code that will provide us with a standard for a digital and print collections in a Web environment. That is where we need to be because that's where our users are. So, let's trust the process, roll up our sleeves, and continue on with the tedious, but essential task of studying and commenting on the RDA drafts.

Where I Find My Inspiration These Days

You'd have to be living in a cave not to know that there's a lot of negative prognosis about the future of our profession (at least for cataloging). These days I tend to find inspiration for the future of libraries, cataloging, and metadata creation from either grassroots library movements or visionaries outside our field. And one area in particular is the Open Source community.

Here's a post written by Michael Tiemann, president of the Open Source Initiative. Great title--Metadata for the Common Man (or Woman). He looks at the commonalities of the LIS community and the Open Source community: a commitment to sharing knowledge and a concern for standards. Some selections:

In July I was honored to be appointed Visiting Scholar at SILS, the School of Information and Library Science and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Information and Library Science community and the Open Source community share many common passions, especially the belief that sharing knowledge is important and good work. And increasingly I see a shared fate for both communities...

Yet for all of Google's searching power, and for all the power of our own brains, terabytes of data are becoming wasted assets because there was never any concept of information or library science to consider when first the data was being generated.

But increasingly data is being produced without tags, and this lack of tagging makes it difficult or impossible to do intelligent aggregate and selective searches. Folksonomies and taxonomies have become powerful tools in the right hands, but too much data is created without any thoughts or any science about how that data will be maintained or re-purposed in the longer term.

We need to get a lot more serious about metadata definitions and workflows. Fortunately, open source tools make it much easier to reward the metadata creator with an accepting and acceptable workflow. By this I mean an open source desktop can facilitate metadata tagging from the desktop. Open source tools that interface with databases can pass metadata to and from the database.  Editors (even 2d paint, 2d illustration and 3d editors) can become part of the metadata workflow. Thus, open source can enable the standards that the information and library scientists can help define.

Catalogers Answer to Higher Powers

In a couple of other posts I've argued that catalogers, in general, are user-centered. What I'm talking about is a mindset or attitude. How we think about our work and the users we serve. Continuing the conversation, Thomas and Nicole, made the point that even with a user-centered focus, we're encumbered with cataloging rules, standards, and tools that restrict and over complicate.

So, I left out a point earlier that I should have left in--cataloging, as a process, is a highly standardized set of rules and structures that working catalogers apply, but don't design. RDA development is a good case in point. If memory serves me, when it got started as "AACR3" the drafts were not available for public review. That changed along the way.

So, as catalogers we answer to higher powers: LC, OCLC, ALA, etc. We're trained to follow these standards for good reasons--sharing records, consistency, etc. My problem is--lately, those in charge, the standard developers, "the higher powers" are now criticizing catalogers and the work we do. I don't see how blaming those librarians applying the rules is going to move us forward.

ALA 2007: Metadata Presentations

Over on the LITA Blog, Rebecca Guenther provides information about an ALA Annual 2007 program that was sponsored by the LITA Standards Interest Group, Using Metadata Standards in Digital Libraries: implementing METS, MODS, PREMIS and MIX:

• Rebecca Guenther, Library of Congress: Using Metadata Standards in Digital Libraries: Introduction to METS, MODS, PREMIS and MIX
• Morgan Cundiff, Library of Congress: Using <METS> and <MODS> to Create XML Standards-based Digital Library Applications
• Nathan Trail, Library of Congress: How to Build, Display and Find METS Objects
• Brian Tingle, California Digital Library: Use of METS in CDL Digital Special Collections
• Sarah Shreeves, University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign: Creating Rich Shareable Metadata: the DLF Aquifer MODS implementation guidelines
• Tom Habing, University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign: METS, MODS and PREMIS, Oh My! : Integrating Digital Library Standards for Interoperability and Preservation
• Tod Olson, University of Chicago: MODS as Data Hub

RDA/DC/MARC: "It's All About the Structure"

I ended up not going to ALA, because I was committed to another conference in June. So, this weekend was spent focused on RDA updates at home. I listened to an excellent Talis podcast interview with Diane Hillmann and read Karen Schneider's lengthy post "Out of the Secret Garden: The RDA/DC Initiative". Two very different voices: Karen Schneider's tone is sarcastic until you get about half way into her post. Diane Hillmann is calm and knowledgeable. Their subject matter is the same: the future of library cataloging and metadata standards.

I'll put the gist of some of this in my own words. Library cataloging standards, MARC and AACR2, have served us well in the past, but will not in the future. Computer technology has changed dramatically since MARC was developed 40 years ago. AACR2 was based on a model of libraries when we had card catalogs. In order for library metadata to be useable by communities outside the library (and on the Web) things have to change. Our standards have to be machine-manipulable. This is true of our metadata framework (MARC or whatever replaces it) as well as our content standard (soon to be RDA) and vocabularies. This is the task that must be addressed now for libraries to move forward. It can't wait for future revisions of RDA.

Karen Schneider obscures these issues by criticizing the library community for not having our cataloging standards, e.g., AACR2, in machine readable form, but instead in a text based form. But let's put this into some kind of sane context: the last editon of AACR2 was published in 2002 while in May 2001 the W3C had only just published the XML Schema. Maybe in 2007, If we don't move forward now, then we're to blame. But up until now it's all been too new.

I took 7 1/2 pages of notes listening to the Diane Hillmann interview, so I'm not going to try to cover all the issues discussed. If you're a cataloger suffering through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief about the anticipated changes in cataloging, you'll want to spend some quality time listening to this interview. It's good to know what the Dublin Core community is working on.

Here's what I struggle with: the question that never gets addressed in all these cataloging articles, etc. is the future of MARC. I ask this question at workshops and presentations and no one seems to know. So my question for the library blogosphere is: What's the future of the MARC format? You know it's not just our bibliographic records that are stored in MARC, it's also the Library of Congress name and subject authority files and most libraries' holdings are in the MARC Format for Holdings Data. So, we've made this huge investment to a metadata framework that is, according to some, hopelessly out of date.

Or is it? I've recently found two slide presentations via the Dewey blog "MARC Futures" and "MARC 21 Support System" by Sally McCallum of the Library of Congress. Being slides, they're a bit sketchy. But they seem to hold some promise that MARC will be developed rather than discarded. If MARC 21 is gradually going to move to an XML framework, the changes ahead may not be as radical as some suggest. Any thoughts?

(By the way, the title quote is from Diane Hillmann's interview.)

Big RDA News!

Just when you thought there was no cataloging/metadata news ... An RDA Data Model meeting held at the British Library (April 30-May 1) announced the decision that RDA and DCMI will work together on a RDA DC Application Profile.

The announcement from the British Library.

Recommendations:

The meeting participants agreed that RDA and DCMI should work together to build on the existing work of both communities.

The participants recommend that the RDA Committee of Principals and DCMI seek funding for work to develop an RDA Application Profile -- specifically that the following activities be undertaken:

• development of an RDA Element Vocabulary
• development of an RDA DC Application Profile based on FRBR and FRAD
• disclosure of RDA Value Vocabularies using RDF/RDFS/SKOS

Outcomes:

The benefits of this activity will be that:

• the library community gets a metadata standard that is compatible with the Web Architecture and that is fully interoperable with other Semantic Web initiatives
• the DCMI community gets a libraries application profile firmly based on the DCAM and FRBR (which will be a high profile exemplar for others to follow)
• the Semantic Web community get a significant pool of well thought-out metadata terms to re-use
• there is wider uptake of RDA

Also, Karen Coyle's interview with Diane Hillmann concerning the implications of this news.

Via Repositories for the rest of us, Z666.7.L364 (www.jenniferlang.net)

An IT Guy Looks at Cataloging Standards

Here's a thoughtful post by Eli Jacobowitz, Manager of Digital Technology in Academic Computing at Sarah Lawrence College. It's titled The Virtues and Limits of Cataloging.

He looks at traditional library cataloging within the context of the ascent of Google, Web 2.0, tagging, etc. But rather than being dismissive, he highlights some of the strong points of traditional library standards. He also asks the question who will catalog all the digital resources being produced, i.e., pointing out the limits of traditional cataloging. These are the limits we're all struggling with as libraries attempt to organize and provide access to digital resources as well as print materials.

Here's an excerpt:

"The bottom line is, you need a degree in Library Science to do this right. Where does that leave the vast amount of digital information that is piling up? Early projections are speculative, but according to this study, the amount of information in the world doubled in roughly three years. It is a serious and valid question whether it will be humanly possible to catalog even the fraction of information that we find worth keeping.

This limitation, combined with the competition of amateur, democratic, rough-and-ready categorization, means that professional cataloging must adapt or die. The good news is that the information technology community is finally ready to hear what the librarians have been saying. The brute force, flat data approach doesn't scale." (Emphasis mine)

Via librarian.net

Metadata Standards Play Well With Others

Yesterday on the LITA Blog, Diane Hillmann posted some recommended reading from NISO Newsline.  Here's an article worth looking at: “Metadata for All: Descriptive Standards and Metadata Sharing Across Libraries, Archives and Museums”. Some excerpts from the conclusion:

"As the historic overview and the outline of trends clearly shows, visual resources, museums, libraries and archives in the past have inhabited parallel worlds dominated by similar issues and desires. While each of the different domains has developed its own suite of standards, at the end of this article it is important to point out that the wheel did not get reinvented in doing so. The historic record shows that communities often experimented extensively with each other’s specifications, only to find them wanting. What emerges is not a picture of libraries, archives and museums promulgating different standards to describe the same materials, but a rich toolset of descriptive practices which are uniquely adapted to the particular material type they have been originally designed to characterize." (Emphasis mine)

"The successful integration of digital images of material culture from library, archive and museum collections hinges on the emergence of a more homogenous practice in describing like-materials in different institutions. While data structures can be mapped with relative ease, data content variance still effectively prohibits economic plug-and-play aggregation of collections. Data content standards such as CCO emerge as the linchpin in a cross–community strategy to make descriptions versatile, shareable and readily integrated into union resources."