Immaculate%20catalogues

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Immaculate catalogues

• Taxonomy, metadata and resource-discovery in the
  21st Century

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Introduction

• As to persons who see no difficulties, who speak
  of immaculate catalogues, who laugh at rules, at
  method, at principles, at accuracy, at
  consistency, and at such other bibliographic
  follies, they are not worth listening toany more
  than a blind man when he descants on the faults
  of a painting or the art of colouring in
  general.
• A. Panizzi
• Letter to the Earl of Ellesmere, 29th January,
  1848

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• /

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The challenge confronting cataloguing

• Market for traditional publications continues to
  expand
• New kinds of information resource
• Competition from other mediation services
• Perception of high cost/low value for money
• Fiscal constraints
• Declining workforce

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Expanding market

• UK publishing
• The number of new monograph titles/new editions
  has more than doubled since 1996. 1
• The rate of increase is accelerating.

1 Sources Whitaker Information Services
(1996-2002) Nielsen Bookscan (2005)
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Expanding Market

• World Monograph Publishing
• Expectation is that volume of publishing will
  continue to increase in mature economies.
• The chart shows growth trends over 3 years.
• Volume of research level publication is also
  expected to increase at a slower rate.

Source British Librarys content strategy
Meeting the knowledge needs of the nation
http//www.bl.uk/about/strategic/pdf/contentstrate
gy.pdf
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Expanding Market

• World Monograph Publishing
• Expectation is that volume of publishing will
  increase in emerging economies.
• Supported by growth trends over last 3 years
• Volume of research level publication is also
  expected to increase, but from a relatively low
  base.

Source British Librarys content strategy
Meeting the knowledge needs of the nation
http//www.bl.uk/about/strategic/pdf/contentstrate
gy.pdf
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Fiscal constraints

• 2001-4 UK monographs market grew by approximately
  18 per annum
• 2001-4 BL Grant-in-Aid increase by 0.75 over the
  same period
• Do more with less.

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New kinds of information resource
Traditional Media
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New mediation services / value for money
..our bibliographic systems have not kept pace
with this changing environmentOur users expect
simplicity and immediate reward and Amazon,
Google, and iTuenes are the standards against
which we are judged. Our current systems pale
beside them. Rethinking how we provide
bibliographic services for the University of
California final report, December 2005 /
Bibliographic Services Task Force. The
University of California Libraries
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The current Library catalog is poorly designed
for the tasks of finding, discovering, and
selecting the growing set of resources available
in our libraries. It is best at locating and
obtaining a known item.We offer a fragmented set
of tools to search for published information
(catalogs, AI databases, full text journal
sites, institutional repositories, etc.).for the
user these distinctions are arbitrary.
Rethinking how we provide bibliographic services
for the University of California final report,
December 2005 / Bibliographic Services Task
Force. The University of California Libraries
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Rising Costs / Declining numbers

• US Technical Services 239m FY2004
• Library of Congress - 44m per annum
• British Library - 5.8m (11m) FY 2005/6

• 33 of US cataloguers will retire by 2010
• Aging faculty
• Declining student numbers
• LIS Syllabus threatened
• Leysen, Joan M. and Boydston, Jeanne M. K..
  Supply and demand for cataloguers present and
  future. LRTS 49(4) pp.250-265.

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What is to be done?

• Is cataloguing relevant in the web environment?
• Short medium term
• Medium long term
• If so, how should cataloguing change to meet
  those challenges?

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Is cataloguing relevant in the web
environment?Short-Medium Term

• YES!
• Print still major (and growing) medium
• for communicating information
• for recording knowledge
• for entertainment

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Is cataloguing relevant in the web
environment?Long Term

• YES!
• But, the answer is complicated
• Technological obsolescence
• i-book
• Self describing resources
• Key words rule

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Is cataloguing relevant in the web
environment?Long Term

• Non-textual resources are not self describing
• Legacy collections are not self describing
• Mass digitization
• How do you search the worlds knowledge?
• Relevance ranking keywords not enough
• Google Microsoft reuse existing catalogue
  records

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Is cataloguing relevant in the web
environment?Long Term
Work 2
Work 3

• Cataloguing is not just description
• Establishes context for a resource
• Answers real world questions
• What else has this author written?
• What is there on this subject?
• Is there a suitable version for ME?

Person 1
Person 2
Work 1
Expression 1.2
Expression 1.1
Manifestation 1.1.1
Institution
Person 3
Item 1.1.1.1
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Is cataloguing relevant in the web
environment?Long Term
Work 2
Work 3

• Cataloguers have created a map of
• recorded knowledge
• Humanitys intellectual activity
• Consider navigating all this with just a
  gazetteer of names and locations

Person 1
Person 2
Work 1
Expression 1.2
Expression 1.1
Manifestation 1.1.1
Institution
Person 3
Item 1.1.1.1
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Change to survive use metadata more effectively

• The OPAC has a limited life expectancy
• Failure to exploit metadata for navigation
• Use web technologies to integrate
• Presentational strengths of printed catalogues
• Range of access points from on-line catalogues
• Power of web to express relationships

R.I.P
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Change to survive sell the value to end user

• Cataloguing saves time and money of end users
• Cataloguing is a public good
• Public goods are difficult to quantify
• Research demonstrates fourfold return on
  investment in British Library
• Measuring our value results of an independent
  economic impact study commissioned by the British
  Library to measure the Librarys direct and
  indirect value to the UK economy.
  http//www.bl.uk/about/valueconf/pdf/value.pdf

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Change to survive put Web resources in context

• Not monolithic
• Selection
• Filtering

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Change to survive put Web resources in context

• Not monolithic
• Selection
• Filtering

Archival structure
Simplified / derived metadata
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Change to survive Collaboration

• Well supported within the library sector
• Common content standards
• Formats and schema for interoperability
• Closer engagement with other sectors
• Archives and museums
• Book trade
• Rights management
• Bibliographic continuum reuse of metadata
  through the supply chain

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Change to survive Scalability

• Move from craft to manufacture
• Transfer production from library to commerce
• Automation of metadata extraction
• Unambiguous identification
• ISTC / ISPI
• More accessible documentation
• RDA
• Focus on creating infrastructure and adding value

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Conclusions

• We need clarity about our values
• There is hope
• Online retailing catalogue driven
• Internet Movie Database based on bibliographic
  concepts
• Underlying logic of the semantic web is that one
  day everyone will be a cataloguer.

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Conclusions

• deeply impressed as I am myself with the
  difficulties often alluded to, I am still more
  impressed with the difficulty of communicating to
  others and equal sense of these difficulties.
• In attempting to do so, I must enter into
  minutiae and details, not only apparently
  insignificant, but also not very easy to make
  plain in writing
• Sir Anthony Panizzi

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Questions
alan.danskin_at_bl.uk