At the last ALA I stood up after the ALCTS program on the future of
cataloging and said that I'd been to two meetings on the future of the
catalog and now two on the future of cataloging, but no where were the
two topics being discussed together. The organizers promised to make
that a topic for their next meeting. I hope they do.
At that ALCTS meeting the anti-systems rhetoric was very sharp,
including a statement about "caring passionately" vs. "simplistic
thinking." I didn't hear much anti-cataloger talk at the systems
meetings, and I interpret that to mean that the catalogers are
frustrated and feel left out of the systems process. However, in my one
experience in developing systems, the tech services staff was involved
in all of the decisions about indexing and display, although less so
regarding the UI itself. Is this the usual way of doing things? What
experience have others had?
kc
benjamin hockenberry wrote:
> Jonathan -- I just posted on the need for catalogers to achieve
> rapport with systems folks over on Autocat; there was a wee furor
> going over the subject of Roy Tennant's RDA article in LJ. There gets
> to be a big "us and them" culture when there's really just one group
> -- the data and metadata support crew. It's not about arbitrary
> standards or technophilia, it's about sustaining and supporting the
> growth of stored store and service delivered.
>
> --
> Benjamin Hockenberry
> MLS, University at Buffalo
>
>
> On 3/22/07, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
>> Indeed. I've become a broken record on this subject, but I think a large
>> part of the solution to our "NGC" needs to lie on the merging of the
>> cataloging and library systems fields. I think many of these articles
>> we're talking about were succesful precisely becuase their authors
>> (whether individually or in collective) had both these expertises (and
>> certainly Soergel, who I have a huge amount of respect for, can hold his
>> own in both communities).
>>
>> Catalogers and techies NEED to work together more---I think it needs to
>> become a single discipline in the library world, cataloging/metadata and
>> library systems are in fact part of the same thing! That can mean
>> individuals with both expertises, but it can also mean people working
>> together to form groups with both expertises. On catalogers lists I see
>> catalogers disparaging systems people and suggesting that they have no
>> right to comment on what are 'cataloging issues', and catalogers need to
>> 'take control'. But I think this is in large part a reaction to techies,
>> on lists such as this one, disaparaging catalogers and suggesting that
>> their lack of 'systems' expertise is what has gotten us in this mess,
>> and gives them no right to comment on what are really 'technological
>> issues'. Neither of these things are true, and it's very frustrating.
>> The system and systems we are dealing with are systems including
>> technological elements and metadata elements (and 'cataloging' is
>> nothing but metadata since before there was 'metadata'), and the
>> solutions need to involve both communities--melded into one new
>> community.
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>>
>> Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
>> > On Mar 22, 2007, at 9:41 AM, Christina Pikas wrote:
>> >
>> >> Pollitt, A. S., & Ellis, G. P. (1994). HIBROWSE for bibliographic
>> >> databases. Journal of Information Science, 20, 413-426.
>> >>
>> >> A. Steven Pollitt (1998). The key role of classification and
>> >> indexing in view-based searching. International Cataloguing and
>> >> Bibliographic Control, 27, 37-40. Retrieved from
>> >> http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla63/63polst.pdf
>> >
>> >
>> > What's really cool about these sorts of articles is that they outline
>> > processes and algorithms for such features. They are just shy of to-
>> > do lists. If libraries where add to their staffs people who can
>> > implement these processes and algorithms in software, then those
>> > libraries will have less of a need for licensed software. Moreover,
>> > those libraries would be in a better place for evaluating solutions
>> > as they presented themselves, whether they be licensed or not
>> >
>> > --
>> > Eric Lease Morgan
>> > University Libraries of Notre Dame
>> >
>> > (574) 631-8604
>> >
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan Rochkind
>> Sr. Programmer/Analyst
>> The Sheridan Libraries
>> Johns Hopkins University
>> 410.516.8886
>> rochkind (at) jhu.edu
>>
>
>
--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------
Received on Thu Mar 22 2007 - 08:58:33 EDT