Cataloging Futures

Cataloging rule changes of the past

Cataloging hall of famers: Michael Gorman, Janet Swan Hill, and Arlene Taylor discuss what it was like to live through cataloging rule changes in the past in this ALISE 2010 program: Technical Services: Past, Present, Future. Don't let this boring title fool you. This audio discussion of how libraries transitioned from the ALA-LC cataloging rules to AACR1 and AACR1 to AACR2 is fascinating and well-worth listening to. The panel also shares their thoughts (and strong opinions) on RDA and its possible future as a new cataloging code.

Why teach cataloging and classification?

Some good cataloging reading to start the new year!

Today (using Google Scholar) I found this interesting essay by Michael Gorman from 2002: A matter of opinion: Why teach cataloguing and classification?

It can be found in this book: Education for cataloging and the organization of information edited by Janet Swan Hill.

Michael Gorman vindicated

One of the great things about focusing on a library topic that is supposedly out-of-date--you can find cheap books on the subject at Amazon.com. So, last week I read an essay written by Michael Gorman circa 1979, Cataloging and the New Technologies. In it he presciently describes a bibliographic model very similar to the new, "future" RDA scenario #1.

Those of you familiar with the development of Resource Development and Access (RDA) will know that scenario #1 describes entity records connected by links.

Anyway, Michael Gorman often gets a bad rap out here in the library blogosphere, but in this essay he proves to be very forward-thinking indeed.

(This essay can be found in: Foundations of Cataloging: A Sourcebook.)

Michael Gorman on RDA

Okay, I haven't read this yet, but I know you all will want to. Thanks to Mac Elrod for posting this article by Michael Gorman, RDA: The Coming Cataloguing Debacle [pdf].

Michael Gorman's Presentation Available on CD

Michael Gorman spoke on the future of cataloging last summer at the American Association for Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting & Conference 2007. The audio CD for his presentation, The Future of Cataloging, is now available for purchase from the AALL website for both members and non-members.