The Impact of Social Cataloguing Sites on the Public Library Catalogue: Patrons, Social Tagging and the New Face of the Catalogue

Dr. Louise Spiteri and I will be presenting on the above topic at both the Canadian Library Association Conference in Montreal as well the Atlantic Provinces Library Association Conference in Halifax.
I’ve attached a short conference summary about this presentation.

Cataloguing component in RA training course

Last week our library held a Readers’ Advisory training session for those staff members new to RA work, or new to the library and interested in RA work.
For the first time, a cataloguing component was introduced into this training. This is a big step for the catalogue in public libraries. With the shift toward social [...]

“Standards are like toothbrushes, a good idea but no one wants to use anyone elses”

So quoted Anita Golderba during her presentation at the Cataloguing session at IFLA.
My remaining session notes are posted below. I am extremely late in posting them, but there are so many good ideas and points that were made by the presenters, I wanted to make them available.
Classification and Indexing
Classification and indexing without language borders 
Presenter:
Anila Angjeli, [...]

Another Library Ditches Dewey

The Frankfort Public Library in Illinois is yet another library, in the growing list of libraries, choosing to break free of the Dewey Decimal Classification System.In an interview with Melissa Rice, head of adult services and reference librarian Joanna Kolendo the Southtown Star reports:

“People spend 10 or 15 minutes in the library. They are frustrated [...]

Berman’s Plea to ALA’s Executive Board

I recently had a chance to read the latest issue of The U*N*A*B*A*S*H*E*D Librarian [Issue number 148 (2008)].  Sandford Berman’s plea to ALA’s Executive Board is found on page 25.  As Berman begins, he states:
Beginning years ago with the screwball plan to stop classifying materials at the Library of Congress and instead shelve them by [...]

IFLA 2008: Session on Bibliographic Control

I’ve finally had a chance to summarize some of the sessions that I attended while at IFLA. The Bibliographic Control session is summarized below.
Biblographic Control
New challenges in bibliographic control in North America
Presenter:
Liz McKeen, LAC
Challenges
Amount of digital materials. Traditional formats are not decreasing in production, but we have more and more digital information to organize and [...]

LC merging Acquisitions and Cataloguing

In June, 2007, Library Journal published the article LC merging cataloging and acquisitions by 2008
When I was at IFLA, Beacher Wiggins mentioned this merger in one of his presentations.  In fact, it may have already taken place just prior to IFLA.
This poses some interesting questions.  Will it be the cataloguers or aquisitions staff who stay?  [...]

Karen Calhoun’s: The New World of Metadata

Last week, Karen Calhoun predicted that the future of cataloguers will be so bright, we’ll need shades.  As promised, Karen has now posted her powerpoint presentation from the Industry Symposia session: The New World of Metadata.
I attended this session and strongly recommend checking out the slides.  Karen provides her outlook on the future of cataloguing with thoughtful [...]

IFLA 2008 and RDA

As most of you know from reading my blog, I was able to attend the IFLA conference.  However, I was unfortunately not able to attend the RDA satellite session that took place on Friday, August 8th in Quebec City.  However, The Bib Blog has provided an excellent overview of the session, together with a link to [...]

One librarian’s bleak outlook on the future of cataloguing

I found this post via Cataloguing Futures.   
Brigid Nischla, a library school teacher out of New Jersey, provides her thoughts on the future of cataloguing – which in her mind is “bleak and confusing”.  While I do not take the same grim view and am certainly not willing to throw up my hands and give up on the profession, [...]