The Future of Cataloging

1. The Future of Cataloging Lecture 14 Info 660 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. Romeo and Juliet Example The work – William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The King Library has more than 334 matches including 191 matches for Shakespeare’s play to “Romeo and Juliet” (Drexel has only 19 matches.) A particular edition of Shakespeare’s 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 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. LOCATION CALL # Hagerty Books PR2831.A2 F8x

4. 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)” LR&TS 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.”

7. Cutter’s Ideas Remember Cutter’s 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 library’s holdings [except in the case of full text journal articles and books that have been up-loaded onto the library’s system].

8. Bibliographic Access The user’s bibliographic access can be limited or non-existent if the items are not cataloged according to the aims outlined by Cutter. The user’s 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.

9. 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?

10. 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 catalog’s 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.

11. 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 author’s 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’.

12. 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.

13. Need to Balance Increasing physical access without jeopardizing our commitment to the attainment of Cutter’s 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.

14. 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.

15. 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 library’s 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.

16. 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.“

17. 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