Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> Karen Coyle wrote:
>
>
>> Unfortunately, we still do cataloging that is essentially based on those
>> rules. And cataloging creates the catalog. That we *should* do
>> differently is obvious. But we don't, which is why the catalog still
>> serves that limited set of functions that Cutter enumerated.
>>
>
> I personally don't find anything wrong with those traditional purposes of the catalog. I think that people still want to find information *things* by their authors and subjects (uniform titles are really weird for people, but they normally want them once they understand what they are).
>
It's not that there's anything wrong with these traditional purposes.
What's wrong is *stopping there*, and that's what we do with cataloging
still today. The oft-cited recent OCLC report says that users want
evaluative information -- that's not generally part of our catalogs.
FRBR has a whole host of interesting relationships between resources --
that's not generally part of our catalogs. The view of catalogs from the
cataloging rules is fine if you see that as a kind of baseline, but in
fact it's been our upper limit as well. I'm ok with that baseline, but
it's hard to find catalogers or catalog creators who see a real need to
go further. And since we've only provided users with that baseline,
that's what they've learned the library catalog is. Which is why, in the
"perceptions of libraries" study that OCLC did, less than 2% of users
*began* an information search in the library catalog. You go to the
catalog when you've identified a resource and want to find out if you
can get it through the library.
kc
--
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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 Thu May 07 2009 - 16:21:50 EDT