The Future of Cataloging

1
The Future of Cataloging

• Lecture 14
• Libr 248
• Daniel Stuhlman

2
Work, Edition, or Copy?

• What is the difference between a work, edition,
  and copy?
• How are they represented in a catalog?
• To best help the bibliographer, scholar, or
  ordinary reader should they be represented in a
  catalog?

3
For example

• The work William Shakespeares Romeo and
  Juliet. The King library has over 334 matches
  including 191 matches for Shakespeares play to
  Romeo and Juliet
• A particular edition of Shakespeares Romeo and
  Juliet
• Romeo and Juliet a tragedy in five acts / by
  William Shakespeare as arranged for the stage
  by Henry Irving.
• 1882. London Chiswick Press.
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Romeo and
  Juliet / edited by Brian Gibbons. London New
  York Methuen, 1980.
• A specific copy of a particular edition of
  Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet.
• King Reserves 1st floor

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Associated works

• Diamond, David, 1915-
• Music for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
  Revised version. London New York, Boosey
  Hawkes 1955
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.
• Romeo and Juliet / edited and rendered into
  modern English by Alan Durband. Woodbury, N.Y.
  Barron's, 1985, c1984.
• Halio, Jay L.
• Romeo and Juliet a guide to the play / Jay
  L. Halio. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press,
  1998
• Romeo Juliet video recording / Twentieth
  Century Fox presents a Bazmark production
  produced by Gabriella Martinelli and Baz Luhrmann
  directed by Baz Luhrmann.
• Beverly Hills, CA Twentieth Century Fox Home
  Entertainment, c2002.

5
Text versus image

• Text versus image, sound, video, interactive
  simulation
• Moving toward a world where content is digital
• What can bibliographic control practices uniquely
  contribute?
• Where, when, and how does this contribution
  matter most?
• Therefore, we need to understand the changing
  context, and economics, capabilities and
  limitations of the alternatives.

6
James LeBlanc

• James LeBlanc Cataloging in the 1990s managing
  the crisis (mentality) LRTS Oct. 1993 v.37,
  no.4 pp.423.

one of the functions of the library, whether it
be an old-fashioned card catalog-type facility or
the high-tech virtual library that is on the
horizon, is still to provide users with the kind
of bibliographic information outlined by Cutter
in 1904 at the very least.
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Cutters ideas

• Remember Cutters ideas on cataloging that we
  considered in the beginning of the term? Cutter
  said that there are three goals for the catalog
  find a known book by author or title, show what
  the library has, and assist in the selection of a
  book on a given topic.
• Therefore one can say that the purpose of the
  library catalog is grounded in ACCESS. This
  access is a two part process
• 1st find the citation for the item you want
• 2nd get your hands on the item.
• This represents two kinds of access
  bibliographic and physical. The current role of
  the catalog is most often limited to
  bibliographic access to the librarys holdings
  except in the case of full text journal articles
  and books that have been up-loaded onto the
  librarys system.

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Bibliographic Access

• The users bibliographic access can be limited or
  non-existent if the items are not cataloged
  according to the aims outlined by Cutter.
• The users physical access to an item can be
  limited if the item is not processed in a timely
  manner. If the backlog begins to grow faster than
  the items can be cataloged and processed then
  both bibliographic access and physical access is
  limited.

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Perennial Battle

• This leads to the battle of quality versus
  quantity in cataloging.
• How much quality should be sacrificed to increase
  productivity?
• Should we sacrifice some bibliographic access for
  greater physical access?
• Do we need to make these choices?

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Bibliographic Cooperation

• One side says that uniformity and consistency
  attained through the use of a rule-based
  cataloging code will lead not only to an
  enhancement of the catalogs quality but also to
  a rise in productivity.
• This uniformity and predictability is essential
  to facilitate bibliographic cooperation among
  libraries. Quality control is essential to the
  sharing of resources and thus contributes to
  reducing the overall cost of cataloging and
  bibliographic control.

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Some access is better than none

• Some say that the title-page transcription of
  author, title, and shelf-mark may be all that are
  absolutely necessary.
• Subject headings and classified shelf-marks are
  luxuries of service provided to the patron who,
  in most cases, could consult subject
  bibliographies and indexes for this kind of
  information. Even collocation of an authors
  work under one authoritative form of name can be
  dispensed with because variations of a name
  should present no problem for the assiduous,
  knowledgeable person.

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Minimum level cataloging

• Core record
• Fields 1XX, 245, 260 brief, 300 brief, no
  4XX, 500 maybe, no 6XX, no 7XX
• MLC accelerates the cataloging process. It
  delivers more materials to the shelves in a
  shorter period and reduces the ever-increasing
  costs of cataloging. This may help some
  libraries that are running out of space for their
  backlogs.
• However, the works cataloged this way may be
  extremely difficult to find because of their lack
  of subject and added entry tracings on the
  catalog record. The known items will be easy to
  find, but those items that are not known will
  languish in bibliographic darkness.

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Need to Balance

• Increasing physical access without jeopardizing
  our commitment to the attainment of Cutters
  objectives requires
• 1. Wider, use of member-contributed catalog
  copy.
• 2. Train staff for better original cataloging
• 3. Strive to catalog a title once, fully and
  well, and then share that record with any
  institution acquiring the same item. As we
  accomplish then point number one will be easier
  to implement.
• 4. Implementation ? Careful and timely reading
  of original records, peer discussion groups to
  discuss details of tricky aspects of cataloging,
  keep administration aware that original
  cataloging is not easy and is a skill that needs
  to be continuously developed and honed.
• 5. Transform the backlog into an uncataloged
  in-process collection.
• 6. Put the acquisition department on the
  cataloging teams. Put acquisitions and order
  records in the public catalog.

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Need to Balance 2

• 7. Collaborate with publishers and vendors to
  share the work and tasks of cataloging and
  processing.
• 8. Use of the ever-expanding, ever more
  sophisticated, technology, hardware and software
  to reduce the tedium and increase the accuracy of
  the cataloging process.
• 9. Use artificial intelligence schemes to
  automate description and access to digital
  resources.

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Cataloging as an art

• Cataloging as librarians of my age learned and
  practiced may be a dying art but bibliographic
  access is likely to remain one of the
  cornerstones of the librarys mission. For those
  of us who are in the business of providing this
  access, learning and adaptation to change will
  never end. Those who seek to provide increased
  bibliographic access will have a vocation as long
  as people are reading, writing and disseminating
  data and information.

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Challenge to Catalogers

• Barbara Tillet The challenge to catalogers is
  to communicate the organizational principles that
  catalogers have refined to the designers of new
  electronic resources. This effort will help to
  ensure the future compatibility of information
  systems and ease of movement along information
  paths. In ALCTS newsletter vol.6, no.4, 1995
• The explosion of information of the Internet has
  increased rather than decreased the need for
  experts in the description and organization of
  digital objects. The corporate and commercial
  world also has realized the benefits of
  describing and organizing internal and unique
  information into the digital environment. The
  many metadata standards indicate not only a lack
  of understanding concerning the expertise of
  information professionals but also a duplication
  of effort where others have already devised
  solutions and systems.
• The proliferation of interest in the development
  of digitization and digital projects has
  increased the need for those who know how to
  describe and organize information.

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Metadata

• As the library profession evolves in response to
  changes brought about by the developments in
  information technology, we librarians must not
  forget our roots, and more importantly the
  established principles of information
  classification which have developed into
  standards that govern the work of this profession
  until today, and for the foreseeable future.
• Magda El-Sherbini, Metadata and the future of
  cataloging. In Library ReviewVolume 50 Number
  1 2001 pp. 16-27