The Future of Cataloging and Catalogers

Part 1: Whither Cataloging?
Libraries are no longer the first place people come for information
The Internet has changed the way people (including us) behave when seeking information
Our former “granularity consensus” is coming apart
To compete effectively for user attention, we must:
Join the larger world of information, where our users are
Learn how the competition attracts users, draws them in, and takes good advantage of their interest in participating
Find a better balance between protecting privacy and capturing usage behavior
12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

And Why Must We Do This?
The comfortable certainties we know are coming undone, whether we’re ready or not
We have much experience and insight to offer the larger information world (but not everything we’ve learned is relevant)
We are collectively about the size of the Queen Mary, unable to turn on a dime—this change will take time
Resistance is futile—we are not in charge of this new world, and our options are two: adapt or retire

The Map of Change Charting Our Course 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

What We Must Leave Behind
A view of metadata based on catalog cards
Library software that can’t sort search results better than “random” or “alphabetic”
Search interfaces even Librarians hate (and we know the data)
Clunky static HTML pages that don’t attract our user’s interest, or guide them well
One silo for books, others for journal articles, images, digitized books, etc. (explain that to a user!)

Starting to Move Forward
A Starting Point: The Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control (Library of Congress)
“On the Record”—final report, January 2008 http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/
A good, comprehensive overview of our new world and what we need to do
Recommendations for LC, OCLC, ALA, library educators and all of us
Extensively discussed at the Library of Congress and within the profession at large

“The Web is our platform”
1.2.4.2 All: Explore tools and techniques for sharing bibliographic data at the network level using both centralized and non-centralized techniques (e.g., OAI-PMH).
3.1.2.1 All: Express library standards in machine-readable and machine-actionable formats, in particular those developed for use on the Web.
3.1.2.2 All: Provide access to standards through registries or Web sites so that the standards can be used by any and all Web applications.

A New Look at Library Systems
4.1.1.1 All: Encourage and support development of systems capable of relating evaluative data, such as reviews and ratings, to bibliographic records.
4.1.1.2 All: Encourage the enhancement of library systems to provide the capability to link to appropriate user-added data available via the Internet (e.g., Amazon.com, LibraryThing, Wikipedia). At the same time, explore opportunities for developing mutually beneficial partnerships with commercial entities that would stand to benefit from these arrangements.

Enriching Library Data
4.1.2.1 All: Develop library systems that can accept user input and other non-library data without interfering with the integrity of library-created data.
4.1.2.2 All: Investigate methods of categorizing creators of added data in order to enable informed use of user-contributed data without violating the privacy obligations of libraries.
4.1.2.3 All: Develop methods to guide user tagging through techniques that suggest entry vocabulary (e.g., term completion, tag clouds).

Exploring Our New World Avoiding the Traps of Wrongovia 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

Taking a Look Around
What’s this Semantic Web thingy all about, and why do we care?
Is RDA really going to happen?
Is it that different from AACR2?
Why can’t we use RDA with MARC?
How will RDA implementation affect cataloging?
How can we best prepare for all this?

Acronymia, We Are Here
RDA: Resource Description and Access
FRBR: Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records
FRBRoo: Object Oriented FRBR (harmonized with CIDOC CRM)
FRAD: Functional Requirements for Authority Data
FRASAR: Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records

Standards Upgrade! 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar Type of Standard Old Standard New Standard(s)? Bibliographic Model None FRBR, FRBRoo Metadata Content AACR2 RDA Metadata Structure MARC21 Bibliographic RDAVocab Name Authority MARC21 Authority FRAD Subject Authority MARC21 Authority FRASAR, SKOS Encoding MARC21 XML, XML/RDF

The RDA You’ve Heard About …
4 th quarter calendar 2008 – Full draft of RDA available for constituency review (ending in early February 2009)
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/rdafulldraft.html
2 nd quarter calendar 2009 – RDA content is finalized
3 rd quarter calendar 2009 – RDA is released
3 rd and 4 th quarters calendar 2009, possibly into 1 st quarter calendar 2010 – Testing by national libraries
1 st and 2 nd quarters calendar 2010 – Analysis and evaluation of testing by national libraries
3 rd -4 th quarters calendar 2010 – RDA implementation ?

What You Might Not Have Heard
JSC has gradually backed away from their original stance that RDA could be expressed easily in MARC21
Full integration of FRBR entities into RDA has made that problematic
RDA has been developed explicitly to take advantage of the Semantic Web (although there are still residues of past practice)
Well supported rumors indicate that LC is considering discontinuing update of MARC21 sometime in 2010

Under the RDA Hood
A FRBR-based approach to structuring bibliographic data
More explicitly machine-friendly linkages (preferably with URIs)
More emphasis on relationships and roles
Less reliance on cataloger-created notes and text strings (particularly for identification)
Less reliance on transcription

JSC Scenarios
Scenario 1: separate records for all FRBR entities with linked identifiers
Scenario 2: composite bibliographic records (with authority records representing each entity)
Scenario 3: one flat record, with all Group 1 entities on a single record
This is the only scenario that MARC can handle
Not really a viable option, and as far as I know, no one is explicitly planning for it

The Rest of the Story
RDA elements, roles and vocabularies have been provisionally registered
The vocabularies and the text will be tied together in the RDA online tool
Some efforts have begun to consider how MARC21 data can be parsed into FRBR entities and RDA
eXtensible Catalog Project moving strongly in this direction
Unfortunately, we don’t know what OCLC is planning
Discussions about long term maintenance of both RDA and the vocabularies have yet to occur
The push is already on for a multi-language RDA Vocabulary

RDA & FRBR: Registered!
RDA Elements:
http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/1.html
RDA Roles:
http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/4.html
RDA Vocabulary: Base Material
http://metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/35.html
FRBR Relationships (Sandbox version)
http://sandbox.metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/90.html

Who’s Doing This?
DCMI/RDA Task Group
See: http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/
Set up during the London meeting between JSC and DCMI
Gordon Dunsire and Diane Hillmann, co-chairs
Karen Coyle & Alistair Miles, consultants
IFLA Classification and Indexing Section
Gordon Dunsire, Centre for Digital Library Research, University of Strathclyde, will be registering FRBR entities and relationships
Possible inclusion of ISBDs, FRAD, etc., in future

How Soon Will All This Happen?
The bad news: This isn’t like 1981, when there was a “start date” and we knew exactly when to change gears
More bad news: This transition is likely to be a pretty messy one, and last longer than we would like
One unknown is OCLC’s role—at present they seem to be focused on consolidating control over library data and promoting WorldCat
The good news: library vendors are starting to wake up and smell the coffee!

What Are the Challenges?
Coordination with JSC (or it’s successor, given the need to move beyond “Anglo-American”) on long-term maintenance planning
Need for lightweight process, where change is not a multi-year marathon
Continuing development towards a more Semantic web-friendly RDA (less reliance on transcription, for instance)
Tool development (at all levels, including ILS vendors)

Yet More Challenges
Application profiles that express more than one notion of “Work” and more than one point of view
JSC still seeing the process through the lens of a text cataloger
Their “core elements” only make sense for traditional books, serials, and other text-based objects
Moving the MARC legacy data into RDA
OCLC’s silence is worrisome, makes planning difficult
Multi-lingual and specialized extensions
Non-Anglo-American communities eager to participate

Multi-lingual RDA
The DCMI Registry approach:
Translations of labels, definitions and comments
URIs stay the same, as do relationships
Responsibility for updating translations rests with translation “owner”
Disadvantages
Translations tend to become outdated over time without sophisticated notification services to flag new areas needing attention
Communication with translation “owners” is managed loosely by a committee—support needs still unknown

Part 2: Whither Catalogers What Happens When The Revolution Comes? 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

Focus on Catalogers
What do we anticipate will be different about our changed working environment?
How will workflow change?
How will the data look?
What will the library vendor systems do with it?
How will we integrate user data? What kinds of user data?
What do we need to know to operate in this new environment?

Approaching Change
Catalogers will need to separate what they know about information based on their current systems
Much of the knowledge is portable, but needs updating
The new environment is not as well organized (yet), so much learning will need to be self-directed
Catalogers’ role may become closer to that of Metadata Librarian
Managing data at a more abstract level (not yet a stable structure to fit data into)
Understanding of the goals of changes anticipated and new requirements will be essential

Walking through a concrete example … From the Cataloger Scenarios 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

A Cataloger Scenario Jane Cataloger is assigned to work on a gift collection. Her first selection is a Latvian translation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Bluebeard: a novel." She searches the library database for the original work, and finds: * Author : Kurt Vonnegut * Title of the Work : Bluebeard: a novel * Form of Work : Novel * Original Language : English 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

with links to the following expression information : * Language of Expression : English * Content Type : Text and one manifestation : * Edition : 1st trade edition * Place of Production : New York * Publisher’s Name : Delacorte Press * Date of Production : 1987 * Number of Units : 300 pages * Resource Identifier : [ISBN]0385295901 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

Jane begins her description by linking to the existing Work entity. She then creates an expression description: * Language of Expression : Latvian * Translator : Arvida Grigulis She creates an authority record for the translator since none yet existed. She continues by creating a fuller description for the new manifestation, linking to the authority record for the Latvian publisher (what luck, it already existed!). * Title : [in Latvian] * Place of Production : Riga * Publisher’s Name : Liesma * Date of Production : 1997 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

A Cataloger Scenario: Updating Jane Cataloger is assigned to work on a gift collection. Her first selection is a Latvian translation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Bluebeard: a novel." She searches the library database for the original work, and finds: * Author : Kurt Vonnegut * Title of the Work : Bluebeard: a novel * Form of Work : Novel * Original Language : English 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

A Cataloger Scenario: Updated Jane Cataloger is assigned to work on a gift collection. Her first selection is a Latvian translation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Bluebeard: a novel." She searches the library database for the original work, and finds: * Author : http://lcnaf.info/79062641 * Title of the Work : Bluebeard: a novel * Form of Work : http://RDVocab.info/genre/1008 * Original Language : http://marclang.info/eng 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar with links to the following expression information : * Language of Expression : English * Content Type : Text and one manifestation : * Edition : 1st trade edition * Place of Production : New York * Publisher’s Name : Delacorte Press * Date of Production : 1987 * Number of Units : 300 pages * Resource Identifier : [ISBN]0385295901

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar with links to the following expression information : * Language of Expression : http://marclang.info/eng * Content Type : http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text and one manifestation : * Edition : 1st trade edition * Place of Production : http://www.getty.edu/tgn/7007567 * Publisher’s Name : http://onixpub.info/2039987 * Date of Production : 1987 * Number of Units : 300 pages * Resource Identifier : urn:ISBN:0385295901

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar Jane begins her description by linking to the existing Work entity. She then creates an expression description: * Language of Expression : Latvian * Translator : Arvida Grigulis She creates an authority record for the translator since none yet existed. She continues by creating a fuller description for the new manifestation, linking to the authority record for the Latvian publisher (what luck, it already existed!). * Title : [in Latvian] * Place of Production : Riga * Publisher’s Name : Liesma * Date of Production : 1997

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar Jane begins her description by linking to the existing Work entity. She then creates an expression description: * Language of Expression : http://marclang.info/lat * Translator : http://lcnaf.info/88007685 She creates an authority record for the translator since none yet existed. She continues by creating a fuller description for the new manifestation, linking to the authority record for the Latvian publisher (what luck, it already existed!). * Title : [in Latvian] * Place of Production : http://www.getty.edu/tgn/7006484 * Publisher’s Name : http://onixpub.info/6770094 * Date of Production : 1997

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar A Dublin Core View of the World DCMI Abstract Model: http://dublincore.org/documents/abstract-model/

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar Anatomy of a Statement Place of Production : New York Property Value Value String

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar Anatomy of a Statement Place of Production : http://www.getty.edu/tgn/7007567 Property Value Related Description

A Related Description 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar Description Sets a Key Concept!

Description Set= “A set of one or more descriptions , each of which describes a single resource .”* *DCAM Definition 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

12/5/08 NELINET Seminar A Description Set “Package” Work Manifestation Expression

New Tools, New Knowledge Getting There From Here 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

What’s This Semantic Web?
RDF: Resource Description Framework
Statements about Web resources in the form of subject-predicate-object expressions, called triples
E.g. “This presentation” –“has creator” –“Diane Hillmann”
RDF Schema
Vocabulary description language of RDF
SKOS: Simple Knowledge Organisation System
Expresses the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri and other types of controlled vocabularies
An RDF application
OWL (Web Ontology Language)
Explicitly represents the meaning of terms in vocabularies and the relationships between them

Semantic Web Building Blocks
Each component of an RDF statement (triple) is a “resource”
RDF is about making machine-processable statements, requiring
A machine-processable language for representing RDF statements
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
A system of machine-processable identifiers for resources (subjects, predicates, objects)
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
For full machine-processing potential, an RDF statement is a set of three URIs

Things Requiring Identification
Object “This presentation”
e.g. its electronic location (URL)
Predicate “has creator”
e.g. http://purl.org/dc/terms/creator
Object “Diane Hillmann”
e.g. URI of entry in Library of Congress Name Authority File (real soon now?)
NAF: nr2001015786
Declaring vocabularies/values in SKOS and OWL provides URIs—essential for the Semantic Web

What Happened to XML?
Nothing: XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is most likely how library systems will evolve after MARC
It makes sense to use XML to exchange data between libraries, and some external services
But RDF is gaining ground, and libraries will need to be able to accommodate it, and understand it
An XML record is essentially an aggregation of property = value statements about the same resource
RDF triples can also be aggregated using XML, but this isn’t necessarily the best way to realize the potential of RDF

User Participation Bringing Users (and Usage) Into the Circle 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

User Data “R” Us
Sources of ‘active’ user data
Tagging, etc.
Review and rating systems
Courseware systems
Sources of ‘passive’ user data
Logs of user activity
Circulation or download data
“ Making data work harder …” –Lorcan Dempsey
Collaborative filtering
Data mining

Active User Data
User tagging and description
Ex.: The LC Flickr Project
Ex.: LibraryThing
Review and rating systems
Ex.: Penn Tags
Ex.: Amazon
Courseware Systems
Making connections so that courseware can reuse catalog information; catalogs can know what has been used in courses, when, and who assigned it

LC-Flickr Project
Library of Congress and Flickr--“In a very elegant way, Flickr solves the authority conundrum of exposing collections content to social process. No need to worry if some comments or tags are misleading, arbitrary or incorrect - it’s not happening on your site, but in a space where people know and expect a wide variety of contributions. On the other hand, LC selectively reaps the benefit of these contributions.”
( http://hangingtogether.org/?p=401 )

Passive User Data
Logs of user activity
Usually locally maintained and analyzed
Services like Google Analytics can provide important aggregate information
Circulation or download data
Tricky in library settings, where user privacy an important value
Anonymized data can be stored and used for relevance ranking

Hard Working Data
Collaborative filtering
Wikipedia: “ … the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc.”
Ex.: Amazon (people who bought “X” also bought “Y”)
Data mining
Wikipedia: “ … statistical and logical analysis of large sets of transaction data, looking for patterns that can aid decision making.”
Ex.: LibraryThing Zeitgeist

User Data Issues
Privacy
Being able to use information about a contributing user without violating personal privacy
Complicated by differences in generational ideas about what privacy is
Authority (who said?)
Librarians have traditionally valued “objectivity,” but there’s no evidence that users see this as a value
Management
Keeping spammers out
Filtering language and malicious intent

Sharing User Contributions
Note how LibraryThing pulls Amazon descriptions
Amazon has an API that allows other services to use its data
Positioning Amazon data in other sites drives users back to Amazon
As libraries move more of their unique data to the Web, they need to be aware of the marketing value of sharing data and allowing other services to combine it in new ways
To do this, libraries will need to be able to package the data in ways hat others can capture it
Ex.: XC Project is planning to share Courseware information

Preparing Ourselves Figuring Out What We Need To Know 12/5/08 NELINET Seminar

Learning Strategies
Group Learning
Seminars (like this one!)
Conference presentations
Local study groups
Self-directed learning
Tutorials
Blogs
Keeping up with the discussion--You need a plan!

Self-directed Learning
Web tutorials:
http://www.w3schools.com/
Blogs
Get a Bloglines account (free)
Start with a few, and expand:
Lorcan Dempsey ( http://orweblog.oclc.org/ )
Karen Coyle ( http://kcoyle.blogspot.com/ )
The FRBR Blog ( http://www.frbr.org/ )
Catalogablog ( http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/ )
Cataloging Futures ( http://www.catalogingfutures.com/ )
Metadata Matters ( http://managemetadata.org/blog/ )

Mailing lists
Evaluate your current reading habits
Are you spending too much time on lists that focus on MARC and AACR2 problem solving?
Do you hear too much whining about change?
Migrate to some of the lists discussing newer ideas
[email_address]
[email_address]
[email_address]
[email_address]
Ask questions! Network!

Thanks & Acknowledgements
Thanks for your attention!
Slides and ideas from Karen Coyle, Gordon Dunsire, and too many others to count!
Contact for Diane:
Email: [email_address]
Website: http://managemetadata.com/

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The Future of Cataloging and Catalogers

by kramsey on Dec 05, 2008

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The Future of Cataloging and Catalogers Presentation Transcript