The first thing we do,… September 10, 2007
Posted by Minerva in cataloging, libraries.trackback
… let’s kill fire transfer all most of the lawyers catalogers.
Peter Brantley of the Digital Library Federation spoke last week at the CARL NIT workshop on Next Generation Libraries. One of the questions from the audience was what libraries should do to arrive at the next level. As he writes about his talk on his blog, I will quote him here, and not try to paraphrase:
1) Permanently and significantly reduce cataloguing staff. Now. Most cataloguing is superfluous; I am not going to defend the underlying proposition, as there have been numerous assaults already on this point. Original cataloguing – of which there will remain plenty – has an important role moving into the future. Copy cataloguing – the relentless duplication and continual iteration of obscure, underutilized metadata – is absurd. The majority of the useful and attractive metadata is easily obtained through both traditional (CIP) or newer (ONIX) data sources. Don’t worry about the rest. There’s enough richness in even the essential cataloguing data to do things far more compelling with search than we do now.
There are other costs beyond salaries at account here. One thing that libraries routinely do badly is to get books onto shelves quickly. Every book, seemingly, must be looked at, considered, and metaphorically if not physically measured. Natch. If you keep choose to keep buying books, get them into circulation.
Discuss.
Minerva, Just a quick thought to start a discussion. I suggest a good summary for the other side of this argument is represented in an AUTOCAT thread from September 6, 2007. The thread is titled Routine cataloging.
Being in acquisitions I don’t want to attempt to speak to the metadata aspect of that quote, but it is possible to have quick copy cataloging. At my small academic library, from the time I receive a box to the time its contents are available to patrons is nearly always less than three days, and is generally within 24 hours.
Perhaps Mr Brantley should read Roy Tennant’s article Metadata’s Bitter Harvest.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA434443.html
Chris: Thanks for the AUTOCAT suggestion. I’ll look at the archives as soon as I remember my password.
Al Don Quijote: I’ll definitely give this article a read.
Kirsten: From my experience, English language books have a fairly quick turnover from box to shelf. Other languages and other media however require more attention. And if your library uses a different classification system than that in say an OCLC record, that will also take more time.
I sometimes wish those who don’t catalog would spend an afternoon with someone who does. Perhaps then I could learn how exactly I am wasting my time, and what steps to ignore.