Cataloging Futures

Cataloging Futures: change of focus a misstep

Back in January (almost five months ago) I thought I was going to take this blog in a new direction. But, you know what, I made a mistake.

I realized that the future of cataloging and metadata in libraries is a topic I'm still involved with, beguiled by, and enmeshed. My work in digital collections has me going back to my roots in cataloging frequently, practically daily. And MARC is now just MARCXML.

So, I'm back to the original focus of this blog and hopefully can make a worthy contribution to the ongoing discussion.

Now time to catch up.....

Another metadata-focused blog

Lately, I've really enjoyed reading a relatively new blog, Mod Librarian. Author, Tracy Guza, writes quite a bit on metadata issues in an interesting, engaging style.

Since I've been thinking about core metadata elements lately, this post from Tracy's blog fits in nicely: On Content, Conciseness and Metadata.

Another cataloging blog: Scarlettlibrarian's Blog

I've really enjoyed reading the recents blog posts at Scarlettlibrarian's Blog. Two in particular are worth reading:

• I am Metadata Management. What can I do for Subject Librarians?
• What will happen to cataloguing and catalogers?

I think the author accurately describes the kind of changes that are happening in our field.

Cataloging and metadata blogs in 2010

Later today I'm giving a presentation on cataloging and metadata blogs for my SEPTLA colleagues (we have a long-standing Catalogers' Interest Group). So, thought I'd share this list on the blog also. It represents English language blogs only and is not comprehensive, but rather a selection described in the next paragraph. I apologize if I missed a cool, active cataloging blog. Please add to the comments if you think of one.

This is a list of 31 cataloging and metadata blogs that have been currently active in 2010. The frequency of content varies depending on the author’s approach to blogging. This list also represents focused blogs whose content is cataloging, metadata, and related issues, rather than those that cover a variety of topics or are diary-like personal accounts. Just a reminder—the best way to keep up with blogs is to use an RSS feed reader such as Google Reader or the feed subscription function built into most web browsers, such as Internet Explorer.

• Planet Cataloging: http://planetcataloging.org/ “Planet Cataloging is an automatically-generated aggregation of blogs related to cataloging and metadata designed and maintained by Jennifer W. Baxmeyer and Kevin S. Clarke.”
• All things cataloged: http://allthingscataloged.wordpress.com/ Author, Saskia is a library cataloger currently based in Vienna, Austria, following stints in Stuttgart, Leipzig and London. This is a new blog, just started in August 2010.
• Bibliographic Wilderness: http://bibwild.wordpress.com/ Author, Jonathan Rochkind, is the Digital Services Software Engineer at Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.
• Catalogablog: http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/ Author, David Bigwood, is the Cataloging Librarian at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas.
• Cataloging Futures: http://www.catalogingfutures.com/ Author, Christine Schwartz, is the Metadata Librarian at Princeton Theological Seminary Library, Princeton, New Jersey. The focus of her blog is the future of cataloging and metadata in libraries.
• Cataloguing Aids: http://cataids.wordpress.com/ Author, Lynne LeGrow, is a cataloguer at the Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia, Canada.
• Celeripedean: http://celeripedean.wordpress.com/ Author, Jennifer Eustis, is a Cataloguing & Metadata Librarian, at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.
• Cooperative Cataloging Rules Blog: http://coopcatwiki.blogspot.com/ Author, James Weinheimer, is the Director of Library and Information Services at the American University of Rome. This blog accompanies the Cooperative Cataloging Wiki.
• Coyle’s InFormation: http://kcoyle.blogspot.com/ Author, Karen Coyle, is a “librarian with over thirty years of experience with library technology. She now consults in a variety of areas relating to digital libraries.” (http://www.kcoyle.net/reach.html)
• First thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ Author, James Weinheimer, is the Director of Library and Information Services at the American University of Rome. He is an active contributor to cataloging discussion lists such as AUTOCAT.
• From the catalogs of babes: http://catalogsofbabes.wordpress.com/ Author, Rachel “Ivy” Clarke, was a cataloger at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising Library in Los Angeles, California during the time she wrote this blog. She recently left this position to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Washington’s iSchool in Seattle, WA. She recently stopped writing this blog in September 2010.
• Inquiring Librarian: http://inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com/ Author, Jenn Riley, is a Metadata Librarian in the Digital Library Program at Indiana University. She just accepted a new position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to be Head of the Carolina Digital Library and Archives.
• Learning About RDA: http://learningaboutrda.wordpress.com/ Diane Hillmann’s blog for a class she taught on RDA in the spring of 2010. See more about Diane Hillmann at her blog, Metadata Matters, described below.
• Local Weather: http://mlbeacom.blogspot.com/ Author, Matthew Beacom, is a Metadata Librarian at Yale University.
• Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog: http://orweblog.oclc.org/ Author, Lorcan Dempsey “is currently working for OCLC as Vice President, OCLC Research and Chief Strategist.”
• Metadata Blog: http://www.alcts.ala.org/metadatablog/ “The official blog of the Metadata Interest Group (MIG), a discussion group of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services division of the American Library Association.”
• Metadata, cataloging, & various librarian-like stuff: http://carolslib.wordpress.com/ Author, Carol, a full-time cataloging trainer writes this "semi-anonymous" blog.
• Metadata Matters: http://managemetadata.org/blog Author, Diane Hillmann, is “currently Director of Metadata Initiatives for the Information Institute of Syracuse (formerly Research Librarian, Cornell University Library and Director of Library Services and Operations of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL))” (http://managemetadata.org/about.php).
• Metadata: How a Cataloger Views and Interprets the World: http://metadata.posterous.com/ Author, Jeffery Beall, is “a Metadata Librarian at the University of Colorado Denver in Denver, Colorado. [He mentions on his blog] I research the strengths of metadata-enabled search systems and the weaknesses of full-text searching. An example of a weakness of full-text searching is the synonym problem: when you search for "leprosy," you miss all the resources that refer to the disease only as "Hansen's disease."
• Metalogger: http://metalogger.wordpress.com/ Author, Neil Godfrey, is a metadata specialist who is currently a bibliographic consultant with the Singapore National Library Board.
• Metalogue: http://community.oclc.org/metalogue/ “Metalogue is a forum for sharing thoughts on all things related to knowledge organization by and for libraries, hosted by Karen Calhoun, Vice President, WorldCat and Metadata Services for OCLC. “ As of October 15, 2010, this blog is being retired and readers are directed to the OCLC Cooperative Blog: http://community.oclc.org/cooperative/.
• Panlibus: http://blogs.talis.com/panlibus/ This is a multi-author blog written by the staff of the Talis library systems company. They do a lot of work in the area of the semantic web--cutting edge stuff.
• Quiescit anima libris: http://latinlibrarian.blogspot.com/ Author writes anonymously under the pseudonym “Scribe.”
• The Bib Blog: York University Libraries Bibliographic Services: http://www.yorku.ca/yul/bibserv/blog/ Author, F. Tim Knight, is Head of Technical Services at Osgoode Hall Law School Library, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• The Cataloguing Librarian: http://laureltarulli.wordpress.com/ Author, Laurel Tarulli, is the Collections Access Librarian at Halifax Public Libraries. Laurel is currently researching the social aspects of next-generation catalogs.
• The FRBR Blog: http://www.frbr.org/ Author, William Denton, is the Web Librarian at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• The Serials Cataloger: http://serialscataloger.blogspot.com/ Author, Lori Terrill, is the Principal Serials Cataloger at the University of Wyoming.
• Three Catalogers Walk Into a Blog: http://3catalogers.wordpress.com/ A multi-author blog. Richard Stewart, Jennifer B. Young, and Joy Anhalt focus on resources to help catalogers in their everyday work.
• TSLL TechScans: http://tslltechscans.blogspot.com/Blog for Technical Services Law Librarians.
• WadingIn: http://wadeatmac.wordpress.com/ Author, Wade Wyckoff, is the Associate University Librarian, Collections at McMaster University Library in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
• What’s the point?: http://www.pointsmean.blogspot.com/ An anonymous cataloger working in the U.K. Here from the first post:”Suffice it to say that I am a cataloguer (and have been for many many years - too many years, probably) and that I work in the United Kingdom. Although it hasn't always been the case, at the moment I am working in a public library. It's a fairly precarious position nowadays, and one of the things I want to explore through this blog is why this is so - why cataloguing is so little respected and valued. There will be lots of other things to say as well.”

New blog: Cataloger in Transition

Those of you who enjoyed reading Dodie Gaudet's Quick T.S. blog may want to follow her journey as an unemployed cataloger at Cataloger in Transition. It's very much a memoir, sort of cataloger-does-eat, pray, love without the exotic travel!

So far, the blog offers some good, positive advice for those catalogers who love what they do, but have lost their jobs due to restructuring, downsizing, or outsourcing.

New blog: all things cataloged

Just found a promising new blog: all things cataloged. Check out the latest post, Cataloging in the age of discovery systems. Words of wisdom for all those in LibraryLand de-emphasizing the importance of cataloging:

Discovery tools with search engine functionality are increasingly being introduced to replace traditional library OPACs. What does this mean for those creating or managing metadata, the catalogers? The role of catalogers gets more important, because however nifty the frond-end is, the underlying data has to be accurate to be useful and to enable findability, and this is even more true now than it was in the days of the OPAC. Catalogers thus have greater responsibility towards the user. Fill in fields correctly or not at all, but not carelessly – data has to be as reliable as possible for machine processing and for the display generated from it. Fields that seem insignificant today may be essential for tomorrow’s technology. We don’t create metadata just for current systems or tools, we also want it to be usable in the future that may yield possibilities we can’t yet foresee.

Insights from a cataloging trainer

Well, it's back-to-school and back-to-blog....

Note to self: never try to do a blog series. You may recall way back in July and August I was recommending some new cataloging blogs written by anonymous authors. Here's the last of this series: Metadata, cataloging, & various librarian-like stuff.

I guess this is really a semi-anonymous blog who's author is Carol. She's been writing the longest of the three since January 2010.

Carol mentions in her first post that as a full-time trainer she has the luxury to keep up on trends in the cataloging world during her work hours. Good for all us worker bees! So far, I've enjoyed reading her blog and look forward to more.

Diane Hillmann's RDA class blog

Another interesting cataloging blog to follow: Diane Hillmann just started a blog for her online RDA class, Learning About RDA. In the very first post she describes where she falls on the RDA continuum:

I have been an outspoken critic of the initial phases of RDA development, as outlined in the DLib article that Karen Coyle and I wrote in January 2007, which is on your reading list. When we talk about the major threads of criticism that have followed RDA since it’s inception, you’ll see that the article falls into the “not enough change” camp. I can honestly say that I still feel that way about the guidance instruction (or textual rules, whichever you prefer). But, shortly after that article hit the streets, I became the co-chair of the DCMI/RDA Task Group (which I’ll talk about more as we continue), and I’ve been working through the issues of RDA-as-data ever since then. What this means in practice is that I don’t worry much about the textual rules–I let other people worry about that–so I’ll have very little to say about the text except as it relates to the data. That relationship is a complicated one, and is likely to change over time as RDA is rolled out and used (or not). But I do worry (literally) about the data–the element sets and value vocabularies specifically, and how they’re expressed. So we’ll be talking about this pretty extensively over the next ten weeks, and I hope you’ll find the journey worthwhile.

Cataloging Futures' choice: blogs to read in 2010

I read a lot of blogs and I've got more than a list of ten that are favorites.

Thought some of you all might be interested in the list I sent off to Blake Carver at LISNews for the call for "10 Blogs To Read in 2010":

1. The FRBR Blog
2. Bibliographic Wilderness
3. Seeing the picture
4. go to hellman
5. Metadata Matters
6. From the catalogs of babes
7. Thingology
8. hangingtogether.org
9. Everybody's libraries
10. Panlibus

What all these blogs have in common is that over the past year they've contributed to the conversation as to where libraries are headed with regard to the future of catalogs, cataloging, and metadata. I've benefited from their interesting, thoughtful, and challenging blog writing in 2009 and look forward to more in 2010!

James Weinheimer's catalog and cataloging blog

One of the most prolific and interesting voices on the electronic discussion lists is James Weinheimer (I'm sure you know that already). So, I was glad to find that James is using a blog as a brain dump for his AUTOCAT and NGC4LIB listserv posts.

From the first post of his First thus blog:

I have posted so many messages to listservs that I thought I might try a blog. We'll see how long it lasts. So, I shall occasionally forward my listserv messages to this blog and slightly rework them when appropriate.

I am very interested in metadata and the future of the library profession (that is, if there is to be one) and how librarians--especially catalogers--can try to control their own futures.

A worth cause and a worth blog!