I'd like to second the points Jonathan is making here. I also consider
myself a proponent of "cataloging modernization." Like almost any
document I've read, the Calhoun report has a number of really insightful
suggestions, along with many that I think we would be remiss to apply.
I do consider controlled vocabularies in general, and LCSH in
particular, to be incredibly important. Unfortunately, I don't think
our current means of maintaining these vocabularies is sustainable. I'm
not convinced LC should be the party responsible for them. They are a
shared asset, and the SACO process as it now stands is too convoluted,
and not well suited to keep pace with the rate at which new topics
emerge in an increasingly interdisciplinary research environment.
I don't think this is necessarily an either we provide high quality
cataloging or we don't environment. I think it's more that our
standards either adapt to a changing research environment, or they lose
their prominence as standards. We saw this happen with LC's series
decision. I think it was a shortsighted decision, and the quality of
copy has suffered as a result. However, I also believe there were
serious problems with the DCM and NACO guidelines for controlling
series. Not addressing those problems made a decision like LC's
inevitable.
To bring this back to the third order - I've only begun reading David
Weinberger's book at this point, so won't comment too deeply. I do read
his blog, and can say that he says some things I agree with and others I
don't. One area I disagree is that this "Third Order" eliminates the
needs for Controlled Vocabularies. In fact, I think formal taxonomies
and informal folksonomies have the potential to augment one another very
well. To that end, I recommend Peter Morville's thoughtful review of
"Everything is Miscellaneous":
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000167.php
-Corey
Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> I think there are more than two 'sides' here. The Calhoun report does
> not represent my views much, and I consider myself a proponent of
> 'cataloging modernization'
>
> Certainly, economic resources are a realistic concern though, it's the
> real world we live in. But I start from the assumption that providing
> good access to information _will_ cost non-trivial money, and libraries
> need to be willing to spend that money. The fundamental question is how
> we can improve access. Now, when answering that question, it certainly
> makes sense to figure out how to use our resources _efficiently_. I
> personally think abandoning human applied subject/genre controlled
> vocabularly would be a big mistake. But are there ways to make the
> application of subject/genre controlled vocabularly we have more
> efficient? Almost certainly.
>
> When I've talked about FAST before, I've said that I think it's a big
> mistake that it was motivated and is presented as being mainly about
> money. To me, something _like_ FAST is neccesary to produce a
> subject/genre vocabulary to support the kinds of interfaces we want to
> give users to improve their information finding/browsing experiences.
> Something like FAST is neccessary to _improve service_, not to save
> money. Now, to do that, you need to start from the goal of improving
> service (albeit within the real world constraints of doing that within
> our means), not from saving money. And you need to motivate your
> decisions by analysis and emperical research to that end. FAST needs
> more of both of those things. Kelley McGrath recently posted an essay
> to this very list beginning to examine the sorts of things you might
> want to do with subject/genre controlled vocabulary, and what you might
> need in a vocabulary to do those things, which I thought was a good
> contribution. McGrath's essay was not about how to save money, it was
> about how to have a controlled vocabulary which works better.
>
> I think there are some out there in the library world who are motivated
> primarily by saving money, who's questions are always "How can we do
> this cheaper? Do we need to do this? Can't we lay off these employees?"
> I don't see these people participating on these listservs however. I
> think there are a whole bunch of people in the category of 'cataloging
> modernization proponents' who are instead asking the questions "How do
> we do this better? How do we increase what our metadata can do for us?
> How do we make it more flexible?", who are having their reception among
> some people unfairly colored by an assumption that they _really_ mean
> "How can we get rid of all the catalogers." We do not. I instead mean
> "How can we save all the catalogers"? I am not interested in 'saving
> money' (of course I'm not an administrator either), but I _am_
> interseted in "making our metadata generation more efficient", because I
> want _more_, not _less_ from it.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Ted P Gemberling wrote:
>> Allen,
>> You've brought up a legitimate question. It's appropriate to challenge
>> someone when he appears to attribute something to "base motives." But as
>> I said before, when I read the Calhoun Report, money always seems to be
>> the "elephant in the room," even when it's not mentioned. And concern
>> about money is not necessarily "base," as I will explain below.
>>
>> Here's my view of the situation. When people talk about adding things we
>> don't do now (such as the "tagging" several people spoke of), it's not
>> about money. But when they talk about eliminating things we do now (like
>> controlled subject vocabulary, as advocated in the Calhoun report), then
>> I think it is about money. FAST is basically about money, and to some
>> extent that's legitimate. It could be that in certain situations,
>> perhaps where you have to digitize a tremendous number of things and
>> don't have the staffing to do all of that with precoordinate LCSH, you
>> have to find a cheaper way of cataloging them, and FAST may be helpful
>> for that, since it doesn't require extensive training. Here's a place
>> where they did that:
>>
>> http://www.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/index.html
>>
>> That's the Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive. It's helpful to
>> compare it with the University of Southern Mississippi's regular online
>> catalog, which has regular precoordinate LCSH:
>>
>> http://anna.lib.usm.edu
>>
>> As a person from the University pointed out at ALA several years ago,
>> one difficulty is that you can't move the FAST metadata into their
>> regular catalog, because it wouldn't index correctly with the
>> precoordinate headings. But I assume the use of FAST was helpful for
>> this digitization project.
>>
>> Of course there is another point: if you're going to add something, then
>> you do often have to eliminate something else, unless you have abundant
>> funding, which most libraries don't have. So the question is, what are
>> your priorities? Calhoun and others want us to believe that the coming
>> of computers, the Web, and full text means we don't need controlled
>> vocabulary any more. (Maybe that's a pretty broad statement, but it's
>> close.) Digitizing is a higher priority than providing controlled
>> vocabulary. For the reasons I gave before, I question that.
>>
>> I realize "Calhoun and others" isn't much as documentation, but this is
>> the best I know how to do now.
>> --Ted Gemberling
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
>> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of MULLEN Allen
>> Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 6:05 PM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] "Third Order"--was Libraries & the Web
>>
>> Ted P Gemberling writes:
>>
>>
>>> But what worries me about that is that "letting go" is, at
>>> bottom, mainly about money, not about serving people.
>>>
>>
>> An assertion that the sum of the visions, prototypes, full
>> implementations, and discussions about next generation library
>> information systems that comprise what we are discussing on this forum
>> are about money deserves to be substantiated, Ted. Could you please
>> help me understand by citing anywhere in this forum, or in the writings,
>> addresses, or conversations of advocates for the development of next
>> generation library systems that substantiate this statement, especially
>> that this is "mainly about money, not about serving people?"
>>
>> What I find exciting about this forum is that it is made up of people
>> who do care about serving people well through bibliographic information
>> systems.
>>
>> Allen Mullen
>> Eugene Public Library
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
>>> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ted P Gemberling
>>> Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 3:36 PM
>>> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
>>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] "Third Order"--was Libraries & the Web
>>>
>>> Karen wrote:
>>>
>>> "The hard part is letting go... which is also about turf,
>>> egos, and force of habit."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But what worries me about that is that "letting go" is, at
>>> bottom, mainly about money, not about serving people. I
>>> realize money is a legitimate concern, but I think we should
>>> at least face the fact that this is what we're talking about
>>> when we speak of "letting go." I realize you may already have
>>> done that at some point, Karen, but I just felt I needed to
>>> emphasize it.
>>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Jonathan Rochkind
> Sr. Programmer/Analyst
> The Sheridan Libraries
> Johns Hopkins University
> 410.516.8886
> rochkind (at) jhu.edu
--
Corey A Harper
Metadata Services Librarian
Bobst Library, B42-LL1
New York University
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
212.998.2479
corey.harper_at_nyu.edu
Received on Fri May 18 2007 - 15:30:12 EDT