“What They Don’t Teach in Library School” An ALA Preconference
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Transcript of “What They Don’t Teach in Library School” An ALA Preconference
“What They Don’t Teach in Library School” An ALA Preconference
Sponsored by ALCTS/ALISE/LC/Libraries Unlimited June 22, 2007Karen Calhoun
On Competition for Catalogers
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“What Changed in the US with Hurricane Katrina was the feeling that we have entered
a period of consequences…” – Al Gore
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How Much Stress is Too Much?
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My Report to the Library of Congress
• Calhoun, Karen. The Changing Nature of the Catalog and Its Integration with Other Discovery Tools– Washington, DC: Library of Congress, March
17 2006• http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf
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My Thesis: We Need to Rethink the Catalog in Light of a
Changed World• Users are not getting what they need
from online libraries and catalogs
• Content has changed
• Users have changed
• The library service model must change
• The catalog must change
• Catalogers must change
WHO?
WHAT?
HOW?
WHERE?
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Library Catalogs, Cataloging, and Catalogers
• MARC, AACR, and LC• Cooperative cataloging• Affordability and
scalability• More than descriptive
metadata • Metadata is a strategic
issue for libraries
“Save the time of the reader.”--S.R. Ranganathan, 1931
The Way We WorkedBooksJournalsNewspapersGov docsMapsScoresAVDissertations
Special collectionsManuscriptsPapersUniv records
Journal articlesConference proceedingsEtc.
Library catalogs
Archives
Abstracting &Indexing services
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Being a 21st Century Librarian
• Starting points:– Technology-driven research, teaching and learning– Disintermediation (decrease in guided access to
content)– Global “infosphere”– Accelerating shift in information seekers’ preferences
for Web-based information and multimedia formats
Librarianship: “There are few professions whichcontribute so much to the saving of time and tothe progress of science.” –Library Journal, 1890
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Geocentric/Aristotelian view:The local catalog is thesun
Heliocentric/Copernican view:The local catalogis a planet
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Full Text: Digital Repositories and Interactive Learning
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
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Second Life
Second Life Library
and Info Island
http://secondlife.com/5,853,971 “residents” (April 21 2007)
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A New Kind of Cataloger
• Examine assumptions• Be involved with
information objects of all types
• Move to next generation systems and services
• Make information (including, but not limited to library collections) more visible and easier to use
• Metadata and beyond
http://vivo.library.cornell.edu/
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Crisis or Opportunity?
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Opportunities for “New Age” Catalogers
• Metadata recycling and reuse
•Workflow analysis and
quality improvement
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The Continuing Importance of Books
• Books and serials are not dead, and they are not yet digital
• ARL libraries spent the lion’s share of US$665 million on books and serials in 2004
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Digitization Projects
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A New Way to Work
“Instead of being a hoarder of containers, thelibrary must become the facilitator of retrievaland dissemination.”—William Wulf, 2003
Blakeley, Daniel H.
Cornell Center for Materials Research Facility Staff page
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Making Library Collections and Services Visible
• Library must be where the users’ eyes are– Interconnections, interoperability, and information
delivery
• Offsite storage and the challenge to browsing
• Partnerships, partnerships, partnerships• Much more robust and interconnected
discovery and content delivery systems
“2 ½ cheers for Google.”--Paul Duguid, May 5 2003, Cornell University
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Affordability and Scalability
Expense of cataloging
Rapid growth of Web resources and digital assets
Need more than descriptive metadata
Interoperability issues
Competition for Resources to Develop New Library Services
Shrinking tech services departments
Streamlining tech services workflows
Increasing use of external sources of data; automated cataloging methods
Changes in Information-Seeking Behavior
Preference for online information
Reliance on simple keyword search
Decline of subject searching
Expectation of seamless linking
Table 1: Challenges Facing Traditional Cataloging
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Availability of Catalog Librarians
LIS schools not teaching cataloging
LIS grads not choosing cataloging
Graying of the library profession (demographics)
Significance of the Catalog
Catalog is one part of a much larger infosphere
Many new types of scholarly information objects not covered by catalog
Future of Individual Library Catalogs
Less emphasis on one catalog per library
Shift toward multiple catalogs appearing as one catalog; shared catalogs; cataloging or indexing interwoven into the Web (e.g., Google Scholar, Open WorldCat, worldcat.org)
Table 1, Continued: Challenges Facing Traditional Cataloging
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Increasing investment in access systems
Help build new kinds of systems for IR and delivery; many new kinds of metadata; emphasis on re-use, interconnections, interoperability
Active participation in the university community
Blurring of lines between what has been public services and technical services; project and team-based workplaces; involvement in campus projects and digital asset management; consulting work; decreasing involvement in traditional cataloging duties
Technology-driven research, teaching and learning
Need for “IT fluency, esp. metadata specialists; increasing involvement in large-scale digital library research, development, and production projects
Table 2 : Forecasts and Implications for Metadata Specialists
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Disintermediation and user self-sufficiency
Catalog librarians have always served those who want to work autonomously; metadata specialists will also enhance ease of use through expertise in indexing, data organization and management, access vocabularies, taxonomies, ontologies, etc. Rising need for understanding of visualization and other techniques to support browsing Increasing use of metadata for linking of wide array of information objects
Global infosphere, Web-based information, and multimedia
Metadata specialists will develop/lobby for standards and best practices, but proliferation of systems and object types will continue; continued need for integrating frameworks and interoperability tools
Table 2 Continued: Forecasts and Implicationsfor Metadata Specialists
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Thank You!
• Being a Librarian: Metadata and Metadata Specialists in the Twenty-first Century
• Forthcoming in Library Hi Tech, v25 n2 (Summer 2007)• Preprint 17 December 2004
• http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/2231