Professional Development

RTSS 2008 - The Future of Bibliographic Control

At NCLA’s Resources & Technical Services Section’s Spring workshop, held this year on May 22 in Raleigh, the keynote speaker was Jose-Marie Griffiths, Dean of the Library School at Chapel Hill, and also a member of a working group charged by the Library of Congress to:

(1) Explore how bibliographic control (formerly known as cataloging, also including related activities) can support access to library materials in the web environment;

(2) Advise the Library of Congress on its future roles and priorities.

The group published its report, titled “The Future of Bibliographic Control”, in January of this year. It’s available on LC’s website: http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/

Concerning the web environment, Giffiths began by noting that many users nowadays turn first to Google or some other web browser for their information needs; that despite the number of web-based library catalogs, there are still many separate library databases that are not accessible by a web search; that, due to the web’s worldwide reach, our users are increasingly diverse, using multiple venues (vendors, databases, social networking, etc); also, that bibliographic data now comes from increasingly diverse sources via the web; and that, as a result, bibliographic control must be thought of as “dynamic, not static”, and that the “bibliographic universe,” traditionally controlled by libraries, will in future involve “a vast field of players” (including vendors, publishers, users, even authors/creators themselves).

As for LC’s role, the report reminds us that LC’s official mandate is to support the work of Congress. It has never been given any official mandate — and most importantly, the funding — to be a national library, providing the kinds of services (cataloging, authority control, standards) for the nation’s other libraries that national libraries typically do. Of course, over the years LC has become a de facto national library, providing all the above services, upon which not only American libraries but libraries worldwide rely heavily. As this unfunded mandate is rapidly becoming unsustainable, pressures are building to “identify areas where LC is no longer the sole provider” and create partnerships to distribute the responsibility for creating and maintaining bibliographic data more widely (among other libraries, vendors, publishers, etc.); also, to review current LC services to other libraries with an eye to economic viability, or “return on investment.”

To achieve these aims (exploiting the web environment, and sharing responsibility), the working group offers 5 recommendations:

(1) Increase efficiency in producing and maintaining bibliographic data. Griffiths noted that duplicated effort persists not so much in creating bib records nowadays (thanks to OCLC and other shared databases), but in the subsequent editing and maintaining of these records: many libraries do these tasks individually offline. Proposed solutions: recruit more libraries into the CCP (Cooperative Cataloging Program, those other large research libraries that contribute LC-quality records to OCLC). Convince OCLC to authorize more libraries to upgrade master records (the ones we see when we search) in the OCLC database. Also, exploit data from further upstream: Publishers and vendors create bib data before libraries do. Find more ways to import vendor data directly into library systems, without library catalogers having to re-transcribe it all. (This may cause some of us who’ve seen certain vendor records in OCLC to blanch; however, the Working Group’s report adds: “Demonstrate to publishers the business advantages of supplying complete and accurate metadata”[!]). Similarly, recruit authors, publishers, abstracting-and-indexing services, and other communities that have an interest in more precisely identifying the people, places, and things in their files, to collaborate in authority control. Team up with other national libraries to internationalize authority records.

(2/3) Position our technology, and the library community, for the (web-based) future. We need to “integrate library standards into the web environment.” Proposed solutions: Ditch the 40-year-old MARC format (only libraries use it), and develop a “more flexible, extensible metadata carrier [format]”, featuring “standard” “non-language-specific” “data identifiers” (tags, etc.) which would allow libraries’ bib data to happily roam the World Wide Web, and in turn enable libraries to import data from other web-based sources. Relax standards like ISBD (the punctuation traditionally used in library bib records) to further sharing of data from diverse sources. “Consistency of description within any single environment, such as the library catalog, is becoming less significant than the ability to make connections between environments, from Amazon to WorldCat to Google to PubMed to Wikipedia, with library holdings serving as but one node in this web of connectivity.” Incorporate user-contributed data (like we see in Amazon, LibraryThing, etc.) that helps users evaluate library resources. Take all those lists buried in library-standards documentation - language codes, geographical codes, format designators (GMDs), etc. - and put those out on the web for the rest of the world to use. Break up those long strings of carefully-coordinated subdivisions in LC subject headings (”Work — Social aspects — United States — History — 19th century”) so they’ll work in faceted systems (like NC State’s Endeca) that allow users to mix-and-match subdivisions on their own. (This is already generating howls of protests from the cataloging community, with counter-arguments that the pre-coordinated strings provide a logical overview of the topic — including those aspects the user didn’t think of on their own.) The Working Group supports development of FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, a proposed digital-friendly standard), but like many in the library community, remains skeptical of RDA (Resource Description and Access, another proposed standard meant to bring the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules into the digital age) until a better business case can be made for it: “The financial implications … of RDA adoption … may prove considerable. Meanwhile, the promised benefits of RDA — such as better accommodation of electronic materials, easier navigation, and more straightforward application — have not been discernible in the drafts seen to date…. Indeed, many of the arguments received by the Working Group for continuing RDA development unabated took the form of ‘We’ve gone too far to stop’ or ‘That horse has already left the barn,’ while very few asserted either improvements that RDA may bring or our need for it.”

(4) Strengthen the profession. Griffiths noted that in many areas we lack the comprehensive data we need for decision-making and for cost-benefit analysis. We need to build an evidence base, and “work to develop a stonger and more rigorous culture of formal evaluation, critique, and validation.”

(5) Finally, with the efficiencies gained from the above steps, LC and other libraries will be able to devote more resources to cataloging and digitizing their rare and unique materials. The Working Group feels that enhancing access to more of these “hidden materials” should be a priority.

Griffiths shared with us LC’s immediate reactions to the Working Group’s report. The concepts of shared responsibility, and of accepting data from multiple sources, were “expected.” More controversial were the shifting of priorities to rare materials; the relinquishing of the MARC format; and the focus on return-for-investment in assessing standards, such as RDA.

LC’s final decisions regarding the Working Group’s recommendations are expected to be announced this summer.

This morning’s plenary panel on the future of libraries in HE was presented by Dr. Annette Haggray (Dean at College of DuPage), Lisa Hinchliffe (Head of UG Library at U of IL at Urbana-Champaign) and Christopher Stewart (Dean of Libraries at IL Institute of Technology).

Univ of Illinois:

• RESEARCH is primary
• 11 million vols in Library
• how do we reposition ourselves in an era when having a lot of print stuff is not what makes a great research institution -
• 10,000 graduate students!
• how do the research libraries serve the undergraduate student?
• how do we connect with student habits, traditions, patterns?
• Put the library where the students will ’stumble’ over it
• Best thing about being a librarian is helping students reach their dreams

College of DuPage

• Community College (largest in IL - top 4 in country)
• multiple missions - education, workforce development, community outreach, economic stimulation,
• Deeply embedded in community -
• many non-traditional students, online, experiential learning,
• Library helps faculty with instructional development and design
• increasing number of students who are underprepared or unprepared and of non-native speaking students - library will have a growing role in both of these

Illinois Institute of Technology

• known for science, technology, engineering and architecture
• Mies Van der Rohe designed the campus - library is a knock off
• Libraries 1.8 million volumes; 30,000 digital journal titles
• Flashpoint of financial tsunami that is affecting libraries — all of their research areas are the expensive titles…..
• Information Literacy is a bit different for science and technology libraries — much more reliant on a primarily online environment for their research — they will be the ones building our buildings, bridges, schools, airplanes — VERY important that they know how to do good research

Question to panelists: Where will we be in the future?

• What will the value of the university be in 10 years? What are the President and Provost reading? Quality, measurement, regulations, value, markets, prestige (not related to quality), efficiency will all impact IHEs — where does the library fit in with all of these things — has the library become part of the problem or part of the solution to addressing these issues?
• Are we going to be an institute of the future or the past? Given the way funding, regulation, student as consumer model are going - do we answer in what we were in the past or what we need to be in the future. What does pursuing quality aggressively mean?
• Do we have the courage to bring in and welcome the new librarians seeking to come in and work with us and take us in future-looking directions or will we drive them away to other more future-looking professions
• Library does not ‘OWN’ information literacy — we bring IL to the table and ask faculty ‘how will you work with us on this?’ — we need to address how to define it collectively and collaboratively within the disciplines.
• Market share of for-profit institutions is growing — neither faculty nor librarians own the curriculum - they have addressed efficiency in the educational enterprise — Univ. of Phoenix now has 300,000 students
• Illinois State study on how they got such great results integrating IL into the curriculum — librarians were on the committees, volunteered for the jobs others didn’t want (like policy writing) and did the work they said they were going to do….had a profound impact on the policies and the speed at which they were created and adopted
• Offer the library up as a solution to problems on campus - space, services, events, etc.

Question to Panelists: How do we market libraries?

• Marketing is about your brand - get students to connect your brand with learning - not just with stuff or with a place
• Marketing potential exists in EVERY transaction within the library
• Make sure the marketing is in line with the institutional brand - let the institution print your marketing materials
• Staff (not librarians) often have more transactions with our patrons than librarians do (student workers even more) — be sure you include them in any discussion of marketing
• Reconceptualize the job of the student workers — customer service model — so many barriers between a student and a librarian - make sure ALL their interactions are positive and service-oriented
• Market Librarians’ office hours –

Question to Panelists: How do we create a welcoming environment?

• Don’t make assumptions about your students and how they expect to be treated in your enviroment
• New or renovated spaces bring in more people
• Library should be the symbolic starting place on campus
• Library is the only place where it is socially acceptable to be alone (never thought of that!)
• Libraries should start to think of multi-use possibilities — writing center/writing lab; eating/drinking;
• Part of the reason we get space based on books is because that is how we have sold the need for more space — we need to discuss the need for space for collaboration, student study, staff connecting with students, etc. Change the sales pitch!
• Career counseling, campus help desk, academic advising, wellness center all have on-site hours in the library — don’t have to bring the office into the building - just the services — set up a consultation desk — have organization schedule time at the consultation desk
• Prioritize your space for your people, not your books. Let books be off-site and let students connect with the librarians
• University of Chicago is doing the opposite –new space coming — all monographic titles would be browsable in the new building — only moved journals off-site. Gathering in all of their monographs to one location.