Swings and Roundabouts

1
Swings and Roundabouts

• Fitting cat class into
• the LIS curriculum
• Kathleen Whalen Moss
• CIG Annual Conference 2006
• kwhalen.incline_at_virgin.net

2
Teaching Cat Class

• Is it the baby we threw out
• with the bathwater ?
• Or are we seeing a renaissance?

3
What do the experts say?

• The findings from semi-structured interviews,
• a web survey
• and telephone interviews
• conducted July-September 2005 provided material
  for an MA dissertation for Manchester
  Metropolitan University

4
Where is it taught?

• from
• Were one of the few places that teach cat
  class as a core element in postgraduate studies.
• to
• We couldnt be offering much less
• and all stops in between

5
Finding Cat Class in the curriculum

• Organising Knowledge
• Information Retrieval
• Organisation Retrieval of Information
• Organisation of Bibliographic Data
• Cataloguing Classification

6
Why teach cat class

• I think if you dont understand
  how a catalogue is constructed
  you cant interpret it to people
  who are using it.
• Its what makes us different

7
What do the students want?

• Its one of the small considerations
  why they come here.
• Our students expect to learn cat class.
• Its an inappropriate use of resources,
  pandering to a nervousness on
  the part of some students.

8
Who is teaching cat class?

• We are going to increasingly
  have people teaching on our programmes who have
  not had practical experience themselves.

9

• How is it taught?
• A problem in some respects is the pace of the
  course, because we get some students who pick it
  up quickly, some who have experience,
  and some without any library
  background at all.

10

• Theory vs Practice?
• I think the students can take a certain amount
  of being told about things, but they actually
  like to do a lot what they do is more
  enjoyable and it stays with them longer.

11
Will metadata provide a cat
class makeover?

• Metadata is an increasingly hot topic in a way
  Dublin Core, though wildly imperfect, has taught
  a lot of people to understand how you need this
  kind of thing.

12
The bad news

• RAE pressures and falling student numbers help
  diminish traditional LIS instruction
• Departments are unwilling to find money for
  working materials such as Dewey and AACR2
• There is a worrying shortage of educators able to
  teach cataloguing classification
• Modularization reduces class time for instruction

13
The good news

• Cat class instruction is increasing in the
  curriculum
• Post-professional tuition, often at universities,
  keeps cat class alive
• CILIP is seen to support cat class in the
  curriculum
• Metadata initiatives lend credence to cat class
• Cooperative schemes may help fill gaps in tuition

14
In conclusion

• In the mid-80s we thought the emergent
  technology would cause cat class to disappear.
  That was wrong --
• a) the profession still want it,
• and b) it is still needed.

15
Further Reading

• BOWMAN, J. H., 2006. Education and training for
  cataloguing and classification in the British
  Isles. Cataloguing classification quarterly
  online. 41 (3/4) cited 15 August 2006
  http//catalogingandclassificationquarterly.com/cc
  q41nr3-4.html
• BROUGHTON, V., 2004. Classification come back
  all is forgiven. Library information gazette,
  17 December, p. 1.
• BRUNT, R.M., 2004. The education of cataloguers.
  Catalogue and index, 153 (Autumn) pp. 1-7.
• HILL, J.S., ed., 2002. Education for cataloging
  and the organization of information pitfalls and
  the pendulum. Binghamton, NY Haworth Information
  Press.
• POULTER, A., 2003. Metaviews metadata research
  and teaching in the UK and Ireland. Journal of
  Internet cataloguing online. 6 (3) cited 11
  January 2004 http//www.cis.strath.ac.uk/research
  /publications.php
• RUPP, N. and BURKE, D., 2004. From catalogers to
  ontologists changing roles and opportunities for
  technical services librarians. The serials
  librarian 46 (3/4) pp. 221-226.
• TRICKEY, K., 2004. Revive the lost art or weve
  only ourselves to blame. Library information
  gazette, 26 March, p. 1-2.