On the Record

1. On the Record Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future ofBibliographic Control Diane Boehr Head of Cataloging, NLM boehrd@mail.nlm.nih.gov For MLA Annual Meeting May 20, 2008

2. Background • The Working Group was charged to: • Present findings on how bibliographic control and other descriptive practices can effectively support management of and access to library materials in the evolving information and technology environment; • Recommend ways in which the library community can collectively move toward achieving this vision; • Advise the Library of Congress on its role and priorities.

3. The Process • Three public hearings, March–July 2007: • Users and uses of bibliographic data (held at Google headquarters, San Jose) • Structures and standards for bibliographic control (held at ALA headquarters, Chicago) • Economics and organization of bibliographic control (held at LC, Washington, DC) • Draft report issued Nov. 30, 2007 • Two weeks for public comments • Final report issued Jan. 9, 2008

4. The Audience for the Report • LC • Current and potential participants in the bibliographic sphere • Policy makers and decision makers who influence the scope of operations and constraints upon participating organizations.

5. The Working Group’s Vision of the Future • The future of bibliographic control will be collaborative, decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based

6. Working Group’s Guiding Principles • Redefine bibliographic control • Redefine the bibliographic universe • Redefine the role of the Library of Congress

7. High level recommendations • Increase the Efficiency of Bibliographic Record Production and Maintenance • Enhance Access to Rare, Unique, and Other Special Hidden Materials • Position our Technology for the Future • Position our Community for the Future • Strengthen the Library and Information Science Profession

8. Detailed Recommendations

9. 1. Increase efficiencies • Eliminate Redundancies • Make use of bibliographic data available earlier in the supply chain • Re-purpose existing metadata for greater efficiency • Fully automate the CIP process

10. 1. Increase efficiencies (con’t.) • Distribute responsibility • Share responsibility for creating and maintaining bibliographic records • Collaborate on authority record creation and maintenance • Increase re-use of assigned authoritative headings among various communities • Internationalize authority files

11. 1. Increase efficiencies (con’t.) • Economics • Re-examine current economic model for data sharing in the networked environment • Increase incentives for sharing bibliographic records

12. 2. Enhance Access to Hidden Collections • Make the discovery of rare & unique materials a high priority • Provide some level of access to all material, rather than comprehensive access to some material and no access at all to other material • Encourage digitization to allow broad access • Share access to unique materials

13. 3. Position Technology for the Future • Web as Infrastructure • Develop a more flexible, extensible metadata carrier • Express library standards as well as library data in machine- readable and machine-actionable formats • Extend use of standard identifiers

14. 3. Position Technology for the Future (con’t) • Standards Development • Improve the standards development process • Develop standards with a focus on return of investment • Incorporate testing and implementation plans as integral parts of the development process

15. 3. Position Technology for the Future (con’t.) • Suspend further new work on RDA • The promised benefits of RDA are not discernable in the drafts seen to date • Business case for moving to RDA has not been made satisfactorily, particularly given the potential costs of adoption • More real-world testing of the FRBR model, on which RDA is based, is needed

16. 4. Position our Community for the Future • Design for the future • Integrate user-contributed data, while maintaining the integrity of the library-created data • Provide links to appropriate external data • More research into use of computationally derived data • Clarify and further explore the use of the FRBR model in the Web environment

17. 4. Position our Community for the Future (con’t.) • LCSH • Evolve & transform LCSH • Pursue de-coupling of subject strings • Encourage application of & cross-referencing with other controlled subject vocabularies • Recognize the potential of computational indexing in the practice of subject analysis

18. 5. Strengthen the Profession • Build an evidence base • Encourage ongoing qualitative and quantitative research in bibliographic control • Design LIS education to meet present and future needs

19. In Summary • Report presents a vision and broad directions for the future • It is not a specific implementation plan • A call to action

20. LC’s Response • Three separate groups in the library reviewed the document • LC has committed to responding in writing to each of the separate recommendations by ALA Annual, June 2008

21. Impact on NLM? • Cataloging descriptive process could be streamlined • Catalogers could focus on the intellectual tasks of subject assignment, classification, and linkages between items • More of NLM’s cataloging resources could be devoted to providing access to our hidden collections

22. Other things NLM could do • Work with Lister Hill to develop automated means of disambiguating authors • Work with publishers to assist in developing author identifiers • Use authorized name headings in indexing citations as well as in bibliographic records

23. Other things NLM could do • Work cooperatively with LC to develop crosswalks between MeSH and LCSH • Investigate the possibility of user tagging for bibliographic citations. Review the tags to enhance the MeSH vocabulary and/or PubMed mappings

24. Access the Working Group’s Report • http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/