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On Competition for Catalogers

• What They Dont Teach in Library School
• An ALA Preconference
• Sponsored by ALCTS/ALISE/LC/Libraries Unlimited
• June 22, 2007
• Karen Calhoun

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What Changed in the US with Hurricane Katrina
was the feeling that we have entered a period of
consequences Al Gore
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How Much Stress is Too Much?
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My Report to the Library of Congress

• Calhoun, Karen. The Changing Nature of the
  Catalog and Its Integration with Other Discovery
  Tools
• Washington, DC Library of Congress, March 17
  2006
• http//www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf

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My Thesis We Need to Rethink the Catalog in
Light of a Changed World

• Users are not getting what they need from online
  libraries and catalogs
• Content has changed
• Users have changed
• The library service model must change
• The catalog must change
• Catalogers must change

WHO? WHAT? HOW? WHERE?
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Library Catalogs, Cataloging, and Catalogers
Save the time of the reader. --S.R.
Ranganathan, 1931

• MARC, AACR, and LC
• Cooperative cataloging
• Affordability and scalability
• More than descriptive metadata
• Metadata is a strategic issue for libraries

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The Way We Worked
Books Journals Newspapers Gov docs Maps Scores AV
Dissertations
Library catalogs
Special collections Manuscripts Papers Univ
records
Archives
Journal articles Conference proceedings Etc.
Abstracting Indexing services
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Being a 21st Century Librarian
Librarianship There are few professions
which contribute so much to the saving of time
and to the progress of science. Library
Journal, 1890

• Starting points
• Technology-driven research, teaching and learning
• Disintermediation (decrease in guided access to
  content)
• Global infosphere
• Accelerating shift in information seekers
  preferences for Web-based information and
  multimedia formats

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Geocentric/ Aristotelian view The local catalog
is the sun
Heliocentric/ Copernican view The local
catalog is a planet
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Full Text Digital Repositories and Interactive
Learning
http//valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
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Second Life
http//secondlife.com/ 5,853,971 residents
(April 21 2007)

• Second Life Library
• and Info Island

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A New Kind of Cataloger

• Examine assumptions
• Be involved with information objects of all types
• Move to next generation systems and services
• Make information (including, but not limited to
  library collections) more visible and easier to
  use
• Metadata and beyond

http//vivo.library.cornell.edu/
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Crisis or Opportunity?
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Opportunities for New Age Catalogers

• Metadata recycling and reuse

• Workflow analysis and
• quality improvement

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The Continuing Importance of Books

• Books and serials are not dead, and they are not
  yet digital
• ARL libraries spent the lions share of US665
  million on books and serials in 2004

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Digitization Projects
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A New Way to Work
Instead of being a hoarder of containers,
the library must become the facilitator of
retrieval and dissemination.William Wulf, 2003

Blakeley, Daniel H. Cornell Center for Materials
Research Facility Staff page
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Making Library Collections and Services Visible
2 ½ cheers for Google. --Paul Duguid, May 5
2003, Cornell University

• Library must be where the users eyes are
• Interconnections, interoperability, and
  information delivery
• Offsite storage and the challenge to browsing
• Partnerships, partnerships, partnerships
• Much more robust and interconnected discovery and
  content delivery systems

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Table 1 Challenges Facing Traditional Cataloging
Affordability and Scalability Expense of cataloging Rapid growth of Web resources and digital assets Need more than descriptive metadata Interoperability issues
Competition for Resources to Develop New Library Services Shrinking tech services departments Streamlining tech services workflows Increasing use of external sources of data automated cataloging methods
Changes in Information-Seeking Behavior Preference for online information Reliance on simple keyword search Decline of subject searching Expectation of seamless linking
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Table 1, Continued Challenges Facing
Traditional Cataloging
Availability of Catalog Librarians LIS schools not teaching cataloging LIS grads not choosing cataloging Graying of the library profession (demographics)
Significance of the Catalog Catalog is one part of a much larger infosphere Many new types of scholarly information objects not covered by catalog
Future of Individual Library Catalogs Less emphasis on one catalog per library Shift toward multiple catalogs appearing as one catalog shared catalogs cataloging or indexing interwoven into the Web (e.g., Google Scholar, Open WorldCat, worldcat.org)
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Table 2 Forecasts and Implications for Metadata
Specialists
Increasing investment in access systems Help build new kinds of systems for IR and delivery many new kinds of metadata emphasis on re-use, interconnections, interoperability
Active participation in the university community Blurring of lines between what has been public services and technical services project and team-based workplaces involvement in campus projects and digital asset management consulting work decreasing involvement in traditional cataloging duties
Technology-driven research, teaching and learning Need for IT fluency, esp. metadata specialists increasing involvement in large-scale digital library research, development, and production projects
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Table 2 Continued Forecasts and Implications for
Metadata Specialists
Disintermediation and user self-sufficiency Catalog librarians have always served those who want to work autonomously metadata specialists will also enhance ease of use through expertise in indexing, data organization and management, access vocabularies, taxonomies, ontologies, etc. Rising need for understanding of visualization and other techniques to support browsing Increasing use of metadata for linking of wide array of information objects
Global infosphere, Web-based information, and multimedia Metadata specialists will develop/lobby for standards and best practices, but proliferation of systems and object types will continue continued need for integrating frameworks and interoperability tools
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Thank You!

• Being a Librarian Metadata and Metadata
  Specialists in the Twenty-first Century
• Forthcoming in Library Hi Tech, v25 n2 (Summer
  2007)
• Preprint 17 December 2004
• http//dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/2231