Tim Spalding wrote:
>> 1. Quality collection building and metadata production is becoming unsustainable.
>>
>
> This I wonder about. Librarians aren't getting more expensive. If the
> data is good, it's good. How does it become unsustainable?
>
>
It's unsustainable because the rate of information production is much
higher than it was 100 years ago when the library practices were
developed. Many times higher, I would say. Although book sales are down,
the number of book titles being published has risen greatly in recent
decades. [1] In addition, libraries need to incorporate music, films,
and even web sites into their collections. At the same time, cataloging
departments are being down-sized because library budgets aren't keeping
up with the rate of inflation, much less the increased rate of document
production and pricing.
Before the use of machine-readable cataloging, libraries had huge "back
logs" of uncataloged published materials. One mid-western librarian
boasted that his back log was the second largest library in his state.
We got rid of the backlog through online cataloging, which greatly sped
up the production of catalog data. That caused many libraries to think
that the problem had been solved, and they shifted their personnel from
cataloging to ... well, it's not clear, although if you look at the ARL
statistics, spending is up for systems and technology, and generally
down for staff (proportionally). It used to be that staff was 85% of a
library's budget, now it's around 65% in some cases. That was then...
before computers made it possible for more people to produce more documents.
Clearly what needs to happen is that metadata production has to be even
more shared that it is today, and that means shared with publishers and
information creators. But the arcanity (is that a word?) of library
cataloging practices make it nearly impossible for anyone not deeply
steeped in library practices to participate in creating library data. We
need to give up the arcane practices so that we can popularize the
practice of metadata creation, or at least move some of it outside of
libraries.
kc
[1] http://www.bookwire.com/bookwire/decadebookproduction.html
--
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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Received on Fri Feb 27 2009 - 21:54:43 EST