Cataloging Futures

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.

Letter from Deanna Marcum on RDA

A letter from Deanna Marcum was just posted to the AUTOCAT list. It provides the joint statement of the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Agricultural Library on Resource Description and Access. Some excerpts:

The three national libraries agreed on the following approach: First, we jointly commit to further development and completion of RDA. Second, following its completion, a decision to implement the rules will be based upon the positive evaluation of RDA's utility within the library and information environment, and criteria reflecting the technical, operational, and financial implications of the new code. This will include an articulation of the business case for RDA, including benefits to libraries and end users and cost analyses for retraining staff and re-engineering cataloging processes.

Together, we will:

• Jointly develop milestones for evaluating how we will implement RDA
• Conduct tests of RDA that determine if each milestone has been reached; paying particular attention to the benefits and costs of implementation
• Widely distribute analyses of benefits and costs for review by the U.S. library community
• Consult with the vendor and bibliographic utility communities to address their concerns about RDA

Included among the tests that will be developed to assist in formulating implementation decisions:

• Usability testing with cataloging staff, i.e. librarians and technicians, experienced and newer staff from the three national libraries in consultation with representatives from the U.S. library community (including OCLC and library vendors) about its participation in the process
• Testing of records for a broad array of materials created during usability studies to determine compatibility with existing record sets and ensuring records are usable and understandable for our end users
• Testing the feasibility of integrating this new cataloging standard into all relevant technology systems

The three institutions agreed that these steps will be followed and, if there is a decision to implement RDA, that the implementation would not occur before the end of 2009.

UPDATE: Letter and joint statement [pdf] now available on the LC Working Group website.

Reading Thomas Mann's response

In his response to the LC Working Group report, Thomas Mann insists that the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are still a useful, essential tool in the serious scholar's arsenal of information-seeking resources. I don't agree with Mann on every point. And I'm a lot more sanguine about LCSH as a discovery tool on the Web. But, we're in basic agreement that the LC subject headings can and will provide valuable subject-rich metadata in the future.

If the Library of Congress doesn't want to continue LCSH management, development, and maintenance (this is still not clear), they should open up this work to the library community. Just morph the subject authority records into XML (or some other Web-friendly format) and mount them on the Web as an open-source tool.

I think it's interest that there's no clamour to stop using other controlled vocabularies, like the Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT). So, is this a debate/conversation about the value of subject-rich metadata or about where the Library of Congress wants to allocate taxpayers' dollars, as Mann suggests?

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]

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.

LC working group report: an insider's view

I'm still on the lookout for blogging coming out of last month's ALA Midwinter conference. Here's one you'll definitely want to read: Anthony R. D. Franks shares the text of his presentation at the ALCTS Cataloging Management Discussion Group. The topic was the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control's final report. Franks is the Team Leader, Cooperative Cataloging Team at the Library of Congress.

Two of the many buzzwords flying about are "sustainable" and "unsustainable" The way we have done things at LC is unsustainable. Either we now no longer have the staff, or soon we will not have the staff, to support our habitual labor-intensive workflow for cataloging, training, review, and editorial functions. We will no longer be given the staff and the funding to go on as we have done.

I don’t think that I’m shocking anybody who does not work at LC by saying that there are things others do better than we do. So, let’s let everybody do what they do best, accept the communal results, and move on. This is not a burden. It is what each of us is already doing. We simply must find a way to share the products of this labor.

ALA Midwinter: Library of Congress Working Group Report

ALCTS Cataloging and Classification Section Forum
Library of Congress Working Group Report
January 13, 2008

Speakers: Diane Dates Casey, Bob Wolven, Mary Catherine Little, Mary Charles Lasater

Having just been released a few days before, the LC working group's report, On the Record [pdf], was a hot topic at the conference. Rather that walk through this session point by point. I'll try to pull out some of the highlights of this highly anticipated forum.

Changes between the draft and final report

According to the working group members present these are some significant changes:

• Suspending work on RDA is a stronger recommendation
• FAST removed so that the recommendation would not be specific [to one system]
• Recommendation 5 is improved [evidence base and LIS education]
• FRBR recommendations more concrete

Diane Dates Casey

Diane Dates Casey, 1 of 3 ALA representatives to the Working Group, was the first speaker. She challenged the library community to work on implementation of the report's recommendation. This work will be a collaborative endeavor with many involved. Diane walked us through the first part of the report: sections  1, 2, and 3.

Bob Wolven

Bob Wolven, the PCC representative to the Working Group, went through the second half of the report. At least that was the plan. But he decided to revisit the earliest part of the report with some additional ideas--an excursus of sorts. He discussed redefining the principles of bibliographic control. We have a wide array of resources that need good metadata and will not always use AACR2/MARC to describe them. People are coming at libraries in more ways. Resources not managed by librarians, e.g., Google Book Search. WorldCat.org is mixing books and articles. So, there is no one standard that will cover everything. We need to think about our standards as modular standards applied selectively. Relationships will be managed via identifiers, not uniform description. He emphasized that there was no more safe haven and that we need to stop thinking of designing for one place.

After walking us through sections 3, 4, and 5, Bob Wolven, asked us to consider the rationale of the report's recommendations with regard to its guiding principles. Do the recommendations follow the guiding principles?

Beacher Wiggins

During the question and answer period, Beacher Wiggins, Director of the ABA Directorate at the Library of Congress, gave a rundown of LC's plans. They have not made any decisions concerning the report. Three diverse groups have been formed at the Library of Congress. There will be a broad review within LC and they will react to the recommendations point by point. They will also continue to work with the working group. LC does not have a timeline, but it should be late winter or early spring.

Diane Hillmann

Diane Hillmann spoke during the Q & A session. She announced that enough funding had been received to start the DCMI/RDA work announced last May.

Mary Charles Lasater

Mary Charles Lasater gave an ALCTS update concerning the working group report. They will prepare a response to the report in the next 3-4 months. ALCTS intends to take a leadership role in the dialogue about the report.

LC working group (final) final report now available!

The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control's final report is now available [pdf].

Over on the AUTOCAT list, one of the working group members, Janet Swan Hill, writes:

Both arising from comments, and arising from the continuation of work we had already contemplated, the final report will contain some substantive changes from the draft, including some additional recommendations, and some modified recommendations. [emphais mine]

So, I'm going to give it a careful read and I'm sure you will to. I'll try to weigh in soon!

Karen Schneider on the cataloging establishment

Karen Schneider challenges the cataloging establishment in a post she wrote recently on the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control (or what is now fondly known as WoGroFuBiCo, Bill Denton's stylish acronym). I think it's worth listening to what she says:

I read LC’s report as comfort food: yes, yes, we should do many things… real soon now… but since there’s no plan or timeline attached to any of this, rest assured you can just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s all part of the task force pyramid scheme, in which one report begets many more.

I like that Roy keyed in on the word, “control.” Every time I hear someone talking about “controlling” bibliographic data, I chuckle, a low throaty laugh intended to convey my disbelief that anyone thinks we will still be controlling anything in fifty years. Thirty. Ten. Five. Now, will the Big O yield some of that control itself?

Many of us in LibraryLand worry that we’re just one black swan away from “game over,” but not the muckety-mucks of cataloging. They remind me of Bush on global warming: needily grounded in beliefs and practices the rest of us see as not only foolish and outdated, but pernicious.

I have to disagree with Karen. I actually think the picture for the future of cataloging is one of a new type of order and data control based on Web developments, like the Semantic Web. How we do things may be very different, but much of what we value now: shared standards, controlled vocabularies, unique identifiers, etc. is exactly what leaders in the Web community are working on also. If you don't believe me just start reading a little about the Semantic Web initiatives to see that they're goals are similar to our traditional library goals.

Also, please don't take this as an attack on uncontrolled data, e.g, tags. Surely, in the future there will be room for both.

OCLC, Talis, and the future of cataloging debate

I know I'm supposed to be baking Christmas cookies or something, but this latest development in the future of cataloging debate is way too interesting.

Last weekend, Lorcan Dempsey posted a letter from Karen Calhoun, OCLC's official response to the LC working group final draft report. It's really essential reading--a succinct summary of OCLC's thoughts on these issues, their own plans for the future, and the role they can play as a collaborative partner with the Library of Congress and others.

And then yesterday, Rob Styles of Talis posts his response to Calhoun and OCLC. He looks at OCLC's business model in relation to the concept of the starfish and the spider--taken from a book with that title. It's an interesting book (I just started reading it) on decentralizing organizations.

Rob argues that OCLC is in the postion to step in where LC use to reign, as the leader for library metadata services. He goes to suggest that OCLC needs to "let go of control" on several fronts--adoptingsuggesting a more decentralized business model. That is--becoming a starfish rather than staying a spider.