Cataloging Futures

Essential listening: Calhoun and Tennant on OCLC's policy

In this Talis podcast, Karen Calhoun and Roy Tennant discuss and explain the reasoning behind and goals of the newly revised Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.

Both Calhoun and Tennant were part of the study group that developed the new policy. The earlier policy dates back to 1987--ancient history in Web years.

Richard Wallis does a great job in this interview. He pulls together questions from emails he received. Many of the questions posed in the library blogoshpere on this policy change are addressed.

If you work at an OCLC member library (or you're considering membership) you will want to listen to this podcast.

My take: Having asked for and gotten permission to use the new WorldCat Search API to extract and overlay WorldCat records for one of our digital library project at work, I am sympathetic to OCLC's goal of wanting to enable their members to use WorldCat in new and innovative ways.

Also, I do think that OCLC has certain rights over the database with all the transformation that goes on (at OCLC) with the records created and submitted by member libraries. OCLC doesn't just stockpile our records. However, the issues are complex. I'm also very sympathetic to an open data paradigm. I'm going to keep reading and thinking about the pros and cons. One thing for sure: this is a very significant issue for all OCLC member libraries to contemplate as we all move toward using the Web to communicate with our users.

Karen Calhoun's new cataloging and metadata blog

Exciting news. Karen Calhoun, Vice President of WorldCat and Metadata Services at OCLC, has just started blogging at Metalogue: New Directions in Cataloguing and Metadata from around the World.

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. Karen is joined often by friends and colleagues from all over the globe, who contribute perspectives and experiences about the current and future state of cataloguing and metadata.

Via Lorcan Dempsey's weblog

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