Jack Of All Trades, Master of None

Our cataloguing department had a chance to sit down this past Friday and listen to ALA’s super debate “There’s no catalog like no catalog”.

Highlights
How does a library catalogue get better every time it is used?
1.   What do we “cost” in relation to our benefit?
2.   Where do our services fit in to a user’s goals?
3.   Is our “virtual” library just as well staffed (with its own librarian too) as our physical branches?
4.   Why aren’t we collecting data from our patrons to enhance the catalogue and share community interests?

Some other interesting points:
1.   We need to be more evidence and cost driven.
2.   It’s important that we place more emphasis on statistics to justify what we are today and where we want to go.
3.   Our largest enemy is indifference – indifference from the profession, management and from the public.

And finally, my one concern:
It seems as if many professionals want us to become a “jack of all trades but master of none”.   A catalogue can’t be all things to all people.  Rather than try to be a Google and an Amazon, what do we do well?  What can we grow and enhance?  We are, after all, a database, not a search engine.  Perhaps I’m taking a narrower view than some.  Yes, the sky is the limit, but where do we start?  In the end, people use the catalogue because they are looking for information that is free and local.  They use the library website to find programs, links to additional reading resources and links.  I see, in the near future, a melding of these two ideas.

I found the debate useful in that it has started a dialogue in our own cataloguing department about the future of cataloguing.  I’m hesitant to adopt an “all things to all people” mentality, but I do believe we can be doing much more than we are.  I’m certainly looking forward to change, but not at the expense of a catalogue’s integrity or the detriment of the communities we serve.  First and foremost, we provide local service to the taxpayers who support us.  What do they want and need from our catalogue?

Speaking of copy cataloguing…

In my post of July 14th, much of what we discussed involved copy cataloguing.  Mitch Turitz brought up an interesting comment regarding the history of copy cataloguing.  By chance, I also stumbled across this paper by Moya K. Mason called Copy Cataloguing: Where is it Taking Us On Our Quest for the Perfect Copy?

A little Friday reading perhaps…

Podcast: There’s no catalog like no catalog

For those of you who weren’t able to attend ALA 2008 or haven’t seen the posting yet on other blogs, the complete Ultimate Debate: There’s no catalog like no catalog is now available as a podcast.

I’m going to be listening to it tomorrow with several colleagues.  I’ll let you know my thoughts once I’ve had a chance to listen and discuss it.   For those of you who were able to attend this debate at the conference, I hope you’ll contribute your thoughts on the topic.

What’s the big deal, you just import it, right?

It never ceases to amaze me that some new librarians (and not so new) continue to believe that cataloguers just import and “dump” records into the catalogue, without any editing.  After all, who gives a fig about uniformity, misspellings, local subject headings and access issues?  Oh wait, they do – but only when faced with it at the “front-line”.

(I know that there is an ongoing debate regarding the editing of each individual record, localized headings and so on.  I follow this debate as well – and am waiting for day that when I import a record, inches will convert to centimeters, “Indians of North American – Canada” will change to “First Nations”, “African Americans” will convert to “Blacks” and American spellings will add a “see also” for Canadian spelling.  These are only a few “wishes” on my cataloguing wish list.  However, until our systems are at that point, we continue to go in to records and convert, add or remove information as required by our cataloguing practices.)

But, back to the point.  Where are library schools in this?  For the recent graduate, new librarians should know that many records that are imported need to be edited.  They should be taught to analyze records and know the difference between a good one and a bad one.  Why aren’t they aware that libraries have local practices, or that some libraries use different subject headings than others?  Where does this “it’s just copy cataloguing” mentality come from?

As for the more “mature” librarian, I find it very frustrating when I hear the comment “What’s the big deal, you just import it, right?”  Yeah, right.  That’s what we went to school for.  Although this “attitude” can be blamed partially on a lack of interest in cataloguing (or the fact that we work so quickly and efficiently that’s what they THINK, because we’re so good!), I think it also stems from an unconscious desire to minimize the importance of cataloguing. 

There’s a great divide between front-line staff and “the backroom”.  I’d like to blame this attitude solely on library schools and those on the front-line who devalue our services to promote the survival of their own.  However, I think it’s partially our fault, too.  While we discuss the future of cataloguing amongst each other and in technical terms, we’re not selling what we do to management and front-line staff. 

I’ve heard about an orientation that some cataloguing and technical services departments are developing to assist with this problem.  I’m hoping to adopt this in our library as well.  New librarians will be asked to spend a morning in cataloguing, to experience first-hand what goes on behind the scenes to get the items out to the branches.  I’m also hoping to make it out to all of our branches as a representative of the cataloguing department.  While visiting, I’d like to show them some strategies for using the catalogue, let staff know how we can work together and generally, provide them with a face to the catalogue.  I’m also interested in gathering their input and ideas.

If we aren’t willing to put ourselves out there and explain just what we do to non-cataloguers, we will become a lost profession.  I want management, front-line staff and patrons to think we’re more than just editors with “cut and paste” skills.

Readers’ Advisory Services: In the Backroom

As a member of our Readers’ Advisory Team at HPL, I’ve become interested in what the catalogue can do to assist and promote RA services while at the same time, maintaining the integrity of the catalogue.  While I don’t mind creating local headings if they provide long-term benefits to access, I don’t feel comfortable adding RA “buzz” words that are “here today, gone tomorrow”.  So, how can we balance our cataloguing rules while meeting the needs of RAs?  This is something I’ve only recently been exploring.  Our first step here at HPL has involved creating genre headings that fall under the “Narrative Nonfiction”. 

This week, we’ve begun a project to create genres that fall into the narrative nonfiction category and add them to our bib records, where appropriate. The birth of this project began with the idea of a narrative nonfiction tutorial.  The first steps in our own project began through frequent discussions with frontline librarians and by looking at RA websites.  Also, I’ve been working with an adult services librarian in our system to come up with definitions of these genres for our scope notes. While cataloguers are used to compartamentalizing and organizing books into clear categories (at least, in theory this is how we work), I decided to pick the brains of those RAs who are actually doing the searching on the frontlines.  As a result, I asked an adult services librarian to create definitions of how RAs would define the different genres and what they feel would fall into those categories.  Not only has this created a working partnership with frontline staff, which makes us visible and relevant, it also provided us with scope notes for our authorities.

I’ve recently proposed holding a session on this topic at CLA Montreal.  Although I haven’t heard anything yet, I do believe this is an area of cataloguing that should be explored. My splash for the session is below:

With the growing popularity of RA services, what role does the library catalogue play?  Why is the library catalogue being passed over for databases such as Novelist? This workshop takes a closer look at the strengths and weaknesses of the library catalogue in RA services.  We will discuss the option of implementing RA “buzz words” as subject and genre headings, ideas for collaboration with RAs and the catalogue for enhancing Readers Advisory Services and what cataloguing departments need to do to get out of the backroom and onto the RA playing field

I’m looking for feedback on this idea.  Should we be exploring our role in RA services?  Do any of you have suggestions or comments about this?

Cataloguing Potpourri

While I’ve been on holiday, there have been some interesting cataloguing posts and information made available. Here’s a sampling:

Beyond the Dewey Decimal System - Washington Times, June 23, 2008

EBSCO and ATLA to Create Digital Archives for Purchase

Karen Calhoun’s New Blog

LC’s Task Force on Competencies and Education for a Career in Cataloging - Minutes
Not only are the minutes from ALA’s mid-winter meeting up, but the Task Force is now moving ahead on their projects. More to come on this as we gather information and start pulling together our resources. This is a first for me, so I’m excited to let you know about my own experiences on this task force.

LSCH on the Web

PALINET presentations

RAPI: Another open-source OPAC

Why do we Dewey? PLA 2008 session handout

Future of Cataloguing - PALINET Symposium

John Mark Ockerbloom posted a summary of what happened at the PALINET Symposium yesterday.  I urge you to read it. 

Also, for those of you who want to read a few comments by other professionals regarding how they view the future of cataloguing, check out Chris Schwartz’s May 24th post.

 

Narrative Nonfiction – A New Genre Heading?

With the growing popularity of Readers Advisory Services, it is to be expected that skills and expertise will grow to incorporate nonfiction as well. We are starting to see this trend in Canada.

Not only are patrons happy to seek the assistance of a Reader’s Advisor (RA) when attempting to find that “perfect” summer novel, but they are now asking RA’s to suggest nonfiction titles about travel, crime and adventure. Still seeking a fictional read, a new term has emerged among Readers Advisory Services to describe these nonfiction books; Narrative Nonfiction.

With the emergence of this genre, it is necessary to consider this term for library catalogues. If patrons and RAs are using this to find books, then we need to examine its usefulness in our catalogue and the possibility of implementing it. Currently, it is not a valid authority. However, it is being used as a valid genre in RA databases such as Novelist.

While catalogues are not resources like Novelist, it is important to note that most RAs prefer to use Novelist over our catalogues and prefer their terminology. I find myself continually encouraging RAs to use our catalogue to assist them in finding materials for patrons rather than using alternate resources. Building a partnership between Readers Advisory Services and cataloguing is important. This relationship ties us directly with front line staff and keeps us current on the latest trends in reading and “buzz” words.

It was inevitable, but recently it was suggested that we consider the implementation of Narrative Nonfiction as a genre in our own catalogue. When I first heard this term, I didn’t really know what it included. All cataloguers need their terms defined, so I began seeking out definitions; something succinct and straightforward; something that I could apply with uniformity to nonfiction items.

Definition
What is Narrative Nonfiction, exactly? According to Abby Alpert, who wrote the article Incorporating Nonfiction into Reader’s Advisory Services, Narrative Nonfiction is “a style of writing that tells us a true story as a compelling narrative”. It’s a start, but that definition makes for a poor authority and gives cataloguers no direction. As a friend of mine pointed out, that’s an awfully vague concept for a cataloguer to base an authority on. Edward Humes provides a deeper understanding of Narrative Nonfiction. However, after reading his description and Abby Aplert’s, I concluded that the term was just too vague and discretionary to use as a genre.

By its own definition, narrative nonfiction will mean different things to different people. How will cataloguers possibly decide what will fall within that genre with any consistency? Even if we implemented this genre, would patrons find it helpful? I can’t ignore my cataloguing instincts that this genre would be more of a “hit and miss” grouping of titles, rather than a useful heading.

However, with a firm decision not to use Narrative Nonfiction, I still didn’t want to abandon the idea entirely. I believe the idea of this type of nonfiction has significant merit and patrons want to be able to search it. So, I started to explore the genres and headings in our catalogue that will assist patrons and RAs to find Narrative Nonfiction titles.

What I came up with was the following list of subdivisions in our 650 fields:

History
Anecdotes
Case studies
Personal narratives
Travel
Biography

A colleague of mine is currently preparing a tutorial on Narrative Nonfiction for our Readers Advisors. As a result, I’ve sent her these terms, with search ideas and strategies such as:

History
(specifically of things rather than countries) are often written in “novel” form. Try performing the subject keyword search: “Salt history” in our catalogue.

Anecdotes
Try search a subject keyword and combining it with “anecdotes”. For examples, search “cat adoption anecdotes”.

Case studies
Search a topic like “organized crime” and combine it was “case studies”. You’re subject keyword search will be “organized crime case studies”. Most or all of the results retrieved in HPL’s catalogue will fall under the genre Narrative Nonfiction.

Helpful hint: Usually if you combine a topic with [anecdotes, case studies, personal narratives, travel, biography], as a subdivision, you’ll recall items that fall under narrative nonfiction.)

Even with the above search strategies, I believe we can do better. Our catalogue is just starting to make greater use of genre headings. In the past, we haven’t done so because the software hasn’t allowed them to be as “searchable” as subject headings.

As a result, we are considering the following terms for genre headings:

True adventure
Travelogue
True Crime (which we already use)
Biography/Autobiography
History
Micro History
Essays
Memoir
Reporting

The idea of Narrative Nonfiction is not going away. The RA movement is growing and we need to find ways to assist it. Perhaps we will not always be able to implement to exact “buzz” word, but many times, we can make these topics and genres easily searchable for patrons and RAs. Collaboration, education and a willingness to change the catalogue to meet the needs to today’s society are essential.

Tag of the Month

This is a quote from a site that my practicum student showed me today.  Tag of the Month is very popular among library students and a good resource for even the most seasoned cataloguer. 

Need help understanding MARC tags? Turn to Tag of the Month. This helpful resource features a new topic every month, including a description of the tag’s uses and working examples. You’ll find Tag of the Month only at Follett Software.

The Tag of the Month page also features links to other helpful cataloging resources, including the online version of Understanding MARC Bibliographic: Machine-Readable Cataloging, the definitive book on MARC, co-authored by the Library of Congress and Follett Software

 

 

 

Invitation for review: Statement of International Cataloguing Principles

IFLA is inviting the worldwide cataloguing community to review the draft Statement of International Cataloguing Principles. A temporary wiki has been created to make the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles available for worldwide review until it is available on IFLANET. There is also a vote form available on the wiki to allow for your feedback.

Comments on the Statement are due by June 30, 2008, to Barbara Tillett, Chair, IFLA’s IME ICC Planning Committee at btil@loc.gov or fax to +1 (202) 707-6629.

For those of you active in the cataloguing community or those who practice cataloguing daily, I strongly urge you to read the Statement and provide comments and feedback. These are our rules, we all need to take an interest in them.