Professional Development

On Oct. 30, Leslie attended a webinar hosted by OCLC, detailing OCLC’s preparations for the soon-to-be-released new cataloging rules, RDA (Resource Description and Access), which will succeed AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules), the standard that has been in place for the last 30 or so years.

A poll of webinar attendees, posing the question “How is your institution responding to RDA?”, produced the following responses: 200+ are presently reading material and attending sessions on RDA; 85 are waiting to see how others proceed; 3 are currently changing their cataloging practices; and a small number do not plan to implement RDA.

An attendee asked: Will libraries be forced (by OCLC) to adopt RDA? The answer: No, we can continue to enter data in AACR2 for the forseeable future. The presenters noted that, while RDA has proven controversial in the United States, it has been received more positively in the UK and Australia — prompting OCLC to proceed early with RDA development, to meet the demand of its international clientele.

The planned release date of the RDA online manual is November of 2009 (http://www.rdaonline.org/). In the six months following the manual’s release, a project to test the new rules will be conducted by the three U.S. national libraries (LC, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Agriculture Library). A group of test participants, representing libraries and archives of all types, as well as cataloging agencies (firms that provide cataloging for other institutions), will work with a core set of materials, representing all the major categories, plus other materials usual to the participating institutions, cataloging them in both AACR2 and RDA. Qualitative and quantitative feedback will be solicited, and the test results will be made public. OCLC presenters noted that, since the testers will be working in OCLC’s live production mode, we will see RDA records contributed to OCLC products such as WorldCat.

Catalogers will no doubt already be aware of the planned changes to the MARC21 record format, in preparation for RDA (http://www.loc.gov/marc/formatchanges-RDA.html). OCLC plans to make the new fields, codes, etc. available in Connexion (OCLC’s input interface for catalogers) before the testing period. Connexion users will be alerted in a future Technical Bulletin.

A webinar attendee asked if OCLC would be providing a new data-input template for RDA. While OCLC is currently working on an interface that incorporates RDA’s controlled vocabulary, the presenters noted that participants in the testing project would be working primarily with MARC21 records, and that “most of us will be working with MARC for some time to come.” They recommend that we follow the test reports, and wait for the results, before jumping in and implementing RDA.

A recording of the webinar will be posted on OCLC’s website (http://www.oclc.org/us/en/default.htm).

Earlier this afternoon, Lauren C., Leslie, Patty, Chris, Jean-Paul and I attended (watched? listened to? whatever) a NISO Webinar called Bibliographic Control Alphabet Soup: AACR to RDA and the Evolution of MARC. The program consisted of three presentations related to RDA and the future of the MARC format.

The first speaker was Barbara Tillett, the Chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office at the Library of Congress. She discussed the history of bibliographic control up to RDA (Resource Description and Access), which is intended to be a new cataloging code to supersede AACR2. RDA grew out of an attempt to develop an AACR3. RDA attempts to incorporate FRBR principles (which has been discussed in a number of other entries. If you have any questions about it, just ask me), and tries to be more universal than AACR2, which is tied to the English-speaking world. Furthermore, RDA reflects changes in technology (both in terms of the content it describes and how content is described), changes in focus (bibliographic description is not just for a local library, but for an international audience), and a change of view (moving from describing items to, in FRBR-terms, describing entities).

So, what does all that mean in practical terms? Well, the RDA code has two major areas it describes, elements of records (in database talk, entities and their atrributes) and relationships (between elements of a record, and between various records). RDA simplifies a number of the descriptive rules for cataloging, using a “take what you see” approach. Rather than qualifying information with parenthetical statements and re-ordering data, as AACR2 requires, RDA would note information as it appears on an item, which will make it far easier to harvest data automatically. RDA also makes the rule of three (the rule that no more than three authors can be listed) optional, gets rid of Latin phrases in notes, dispenses with GMDs (general material designations), gets rid of the “polyglot” designation, allows for more complete data in authority records, etc. All of these changes are made with an eye toward allowing data to be harvested and generated in automated ways more easily from the records, making the records more intelligible to users, as well as strengthening the relationships between records for related and derivative works.

The second presenter was Diane Hillmann, the Director of Metadata Management Services at the Information Institute of Syracuse. Hillmann was very knowledgeable about her topic, but moved very quickly and assumed a lot of familiarity among her audience with the topic she was discussing. It was fairly confusing, but we were able to identify her main point, which was that the exclusive use of MARC by libraries limits us in exchanging data outside the library silo. Nobody else uses MARC, nor are they likely to. Descriptive metadata use outside the library world is exploding and we’re not in on it. To get libraries into the general metadata game, part of the project of the RDA developers is to develop a vocabulary with defined data elements that can be used to create cataloging records, but that are also searchable and intelligible to the Web in general.

The third and final presenter was William Moen, the Director of Research from the University of North Texas’s School of Library and Information Sciences. He discussed a research project he and a team conducted from 2005 to 2007, in which they studied how many of the fields and subfields available in the MARC format were used and/or indexed by libraries in their bibliographic records. They did frequency counts and analyses of more than 56 million MARC21 bib records from the OCLC database. 211 fields and 1,596 subfields were used at least once. Looking at records in the Books, Pamphlets and Printed Sheet format, Moen and his team found that 7 fields appeared in all of the records, while 15 fields occurred in more than 50% of the records. Many, many fields had very few occurrences. The 656 field had only one occurrence. About 60% of all fields and subfields are used in less than 1% of the records. This led Moen and his team to consider the idea of developing core bib records in the MARC format that use a limited number of the currently available fields. By identifying the fields that are used in all bib records, combined with the most commonly used fields, Moen and his team developed proposed core bib records. However, Moen does not advocate simply leaving the decision up to statistical analysis. If we are to move to a more streamlined core MARC record, he suggests that catalogers think long and hard about what is actually needed in the bib record, and that the MARC format be revised with an eye toward supporting the FRBR-defined user tasks (he also asks if we really know which content designations are needed to support a given user task).

As the broadcast part of the webinar wound down, Lauren, Leslie, Patty, Chris, Jean-Paul and I engaged in a lively and interesting conversation about the issues raised in the presentations that last well-past our scheduled end time. That struck me as a very good sign that this webinar was quite worthwhile.

On Saturday, I attended “Workflow Tools for Automating Metadata Creation and Maintenance” which was a panel discussion comprised of individuals who work on digital projects at their institutions.

Much of the talk was highly technical and I didn’t quite understand everything, but one of the most interesting projects discussed was by Brown University’s Ann Caldwell, Metadata Coordinator for the Center of Digital Initiatives, who spoke about their recent project in assisting the Engineering Department with its upcoming accreditation. Engineering professors wanted to digitize materials such as syllabi and assignments so that the accreditation team could have them in advance of their visit. The Center created an easy way for professors to put stuff into the repository by creating a very simple MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) record form with required fields to fill in (e.g. date, title, genre) and providing an easy way for individuals to upload files (i.e. digital objects). Faculty decide how they want to set up folders for their stuff; they can dump everything in one folder or create multiple folders down to the micro-level. Faculty also determine who and what individuals can see. Because of the enormous amount of material being brought in to be digitized, the Center developed a tracking system. Due to the success of this project, the Engineering Department will continue digitizing their materials for future accreditations, and Ms. Caldwell indicated other departments were interested in doing the same.

In regards to metadata creation workflow, consistency, automation, streamlining and true interoperability between systems are of utmost importance. With the help of metadata tools, librarians can do their jobs better and more efficiently. Smart systems are possible and necessary. We need to pay attention to user interface design for cataloging tools because it is critical to the success of our data.

Next, I attended a four hour panel discussion titled “Look Before You Leap: Taking RDA for a Test-Drive.” Again, a highly technical presentation. RDA is the acronym for “resource description and access” and is a new cataloging tool to be utilized for the description of all types of resources and content. It is compatible with established principles, models, and standards and is adaptable to the needs of a wide range of resource description communities (i.e. museums, libraries, etc.) Tom Delsey began the session by comparing and contrasting AACR2 and RDA. Nanette Naught followed by previewing the RDA Toolkit which is currently in the alpha testing stage. Sally McCallum of the Library of Congress spoke on new fields developed for the MARC record in conjunction with RDA. John Espley, Director of Design at VTLS, gave attendees a preview of what an RDA record would like like in the ILS he represents. His presentation finally shed some light for me as to how an RDA cataloging record would appear in an online catalog. National Library of Medicine’s Barbara Bushman described the upcoming testing of RDA at 23 select institutions. The testing will occur in OCLC Connexion as well as in various ILS. Voyager being one. Once the RDA Online software is released sometime in November or December 2009, a preparation period which includes training for the testing institutions will occur in the months of January-March 2010. Formal testing will commence in April-June, followed in July-September with a formal assessment. October 2010 a final report will be shared with the U.S. library community.

If and when RDA is approved for use, training for catalogers will be the next step. Knowledge and training about RDA for all library staff will need to take place as well. People on the front lines working with patrons in catalog instruction will need to know the differences between a specific work and its possible multiple manifestations (work and manifestation being FRBR terminology).

For more information, one can visit the RDA web site.

Needless to say, after this session ended, I was ready to head back to my hotel for some rest. I will post more information on the rest of my conference experiences on Friday.

I’m back from this year’s annual conference of the Music Library Association, held in Chicago (during a snowstorm) Feb. 17-21. This year I also attended the pre-conference hosted by MOUG (Music OCLC Users Group). Some highlights:

Sound Recordings and Copyright

Tim Brooks of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections described the ARSC’s work lobbying Congress to reform US copyright law on pre-1972 sound recordings. These recordings are not covered by federal law, but are often governed by state law, which tends to give copyright holders, in Tim’s words, “absolute control.” Tim cited some startling statistics: of all recordings made in the 1940s-70s, only 30% have been made available by the copyright holders; of recordings made in the 1920s-30s, only 10% are available; and of the enormous corpus of ethnic and traditional music from all over the world that was recorded by Columbia and Victor in the early years of the 20th century, only 1% is available. Because US copyright law for sound recordings is the most restrictive in the world, early recordings of American artists are currently legally available in other countries but not in the US — which means that American libraries and archives are unable to preserve this portion of our own heritage.

In response, the ARSC has made the following reccomendations:

• Place pre-1972 recordings under a single federal law.
• Harmonize US copyright law with that of other countries.
• Legalize use of “orphaned” works (whose copyright holders cannot be identified).
• Permit use of “abandoned” works, with compensation to the copyright holders.
• Permit “best practices” digitization for preservation. Libraries and archives are the most likely to preserve early recordings (they have a better track record on this than the recording companies themselves) and the least likely to re-issue recordings (so they’re no financial threat to copyright holders).

Of ARSC’s experiences lobbying Congress members, Tim reports that many were simply unaware of the situation, but were sympathetic when informed; that libraries are seen as non-partisan and a public good, “the guys in the white hats”; and that there is now much “soft” support in Congress. Other ARSC activities include a “white paper” for the Obama administration, and the establishment of an organization called the Historical Recording Coalition for Access and Preservation (HRCAP) to further lobbying efforts.

In another copyright session, attendees and speakers offered some good tips for approaching your legal counsel re digitization projects:

• Present your own credentials (copyright workshops you’ve attended, etc.) pertaining to libraries and copyright.
• Cite specific passages of the law (section 108, 110, etc.)
• Show you’ve done due diligence (e.g., you’ve replaced LPs with CD re-issues where available; you’ve determined other LPs are in deteriorating condition, etc.)
• Try to persuade counsel to adopt a “risk assessment” approach (i.e., just how likely is it that a copyright holder will challenge you in this case) versus the more typical “most conservative” approach.
• File a “contemporaneous writing” — a memo or other document, written at the outset of a digitization project, in which you explain why you believe that you are acting in good faith. This will go a long way towards protecting you if you are in fact challenged by a copyright holder.

Is the Compact Disc Dead?

This was the question addressed by a very interesting panel of speakers, including a VP of Digital Product Strategy at Universal Music Group; the CEO of the Cedille recording label; a concert violinst (Rachel Barton Pine); a former president of the American Symphony Orchestra League; and a music librarian at Northwestern U.

The panel quickly cited a number of reasons to believe that the CD remains a viable format: among these, the universal human desire to own a physical artifact “to give and to show”; the ability to listen on room speakers, not just earbuds; violinst Pine noted that she sells and autographs some 40-70 of her CDs after each performance, that people enjoy the personal contact with the artist, and relish being able to take home a souvenir of the concert. Flaws of downloadable releases were cited in comparison: garbled indexing, making identifying and retrieving of classical works difficult; frequent lack of program notes to provide historical context; the inferior audio quality of compressed files. Changes in student behavior were also noted: in online databases, students tend to retrieve only selected works, or excerpts of works; there doesn’t seem to be the inherent incentive to browse like that offered by physical albums, with the result that students don’t develop as much in-depth knowledge of a composer’s works. On the other hand, the reduced cost of digital distribution has enabled smaller orchestras and other groups to reach a larger audience.

Concern was expressed over an increasing trend among major labels to release performances only in the form of downloadable files, often with a license restricted to “end user only” — preventing libraries from purchasing and making available these performances to their users. The panel proposed that performers and IAML (the International Association of Music Libraries) put pressure on the record companies. Alternative approaches? CDs-on-demand: Cedille’s boss sees this as a growing trend. Also, consortial deals with individual record companies: OhioLink has recently done one with Naxos.

Finally, a concern was expressed about the aggregator model of audio-steaming databases: that these hamper libraries’ responsiveness to local user needs, and the building of the unique collections important for research. The music library community needs to negotiate for distribution models that enable individual selection for traditional collection development.

How Music Libraries are Using New Technologies

• Videos demonstrating specific resources, such as composers’ thematic catalogs (similar to Lauren’s Research Toolkits).
• “Un-associations,” in informal online forums like Yahoo or Google groups. There are currently groups for orchestra libraries, flutists, etc.
• Use of Delicious to create user guides.
• Meebo for virtual ref.
• Twitter for virtual ref and for announcements/updates.
• Widgets and gadgets to embed customized searches, other libraries’ searchboxes, and other web content into LibGuides, etc.
• ChaCha (a cellphone question-answering service) for virtual ref. Indiana U is partnering with ChaCha in a beta test.

JSTOR

A JSTOR rep presented palns to add 20 more music journals to the database, including more area-studies and foreign-language titles. Attendees pointed out that popular music serials (Downbeat, Rolling Stone, etc.) are becoming primary source material for scholarly research — would JSTOR consider including them? The rep replied that JSTOR originally required that journals be peer-reviewed, but had recently begun to relax this rule. A dabate ensued among attendees as to whether the pop publications were sufficiently relevant to JSTOR’s mission — some believed that JSTOR should stick to its original focus on scholarly literature, and that others could preserve the pop stuff.

Bibliographic Control and the LC Working Group (or: Music Catalogers Freak Out)

The MOUG plenary session gave catalogers a forum to discuss ramifications of the LC Working Group’s recommendations on bibliographic control (see my blog posting for RTSS 08). Concerns expressed:

If collaboration is properly defined as “doing something together for a purpose,” then the disparate (and sometimes opposing) purposes of publishers, vendors, and libraries means that LC’s vision of collective responsibility for metadata and bibliographic control will not constitute true collaboration, but merely exploitation.

The Working Group appears to some to harbor a naive faith in digital architecture to meet all discovery and retrieval needs (it reminded one attendee of predictions that microform would solve all our problems). This is perceived to cultivate a gobal, generalist, one-size-fits-all outlook divorced from existing patterns of scholarly communication and “communities of practice” (e.g., the subject specialist and the community of practitioners that he/she serves). Bibliographic control should be “a network of communication between communities of practice.” An MLA liaison to ALA’s RDA committee noted that the RDA folks expected local catalogers to help fill in the gaps in the currently-vague RDA code — but when specialist communities actually propose details (such as a list of genre terms for music), they’re “dissed.”

Others fear that if LC backs away from its historical role as national library, relying on the larger community of publishers, vendors, and libraries to collaborate in bibliographic control, the actual effect will be that library administrators will think: “If LC isn’t doing this work, then we don’t have to either” — and collaboration will disappear.

Yet others fear the “commodification of cataloging.” With the increasing availability of MARC records and other metadata from third-party sources, there seems to be a growing perception that all metadata is the same — and a concommitant decline in willingness to investigate its source and quality. Administrators increasingly speak of metadata as a commodity.

Remember Katrina?

I’ll close with an item from the business meeting of SEMLA (the Southeast chapter) which was a cause of great celebration: our colleagues from Tulane University in New Orleans, whose music collection was flooded in Hurricane Katrina, announced that 70% of their collection has successfully been restored, and the last portion of it recently returned to them. They brought along a few representative items for show and tell — including a score died pink by its red paper covers. Recalling photos of the original damage, a 70% recovery rate seems a miracle!

Since Leslie has already done such a good job of summarizing the keynote address of the RTSS Spring Workshop, I will discuss the next most useful session I attended, “Next Generation Cataloging Standards: RDA + FRBR,” presented by Erin Stalberg, Head of Metadata and Cataloging at North Carolina State University.

RDA, or Resource Description and Access, is the new code being developed as a successor to AACR2. Work began in 2004 on AACR3 with the intension of making the rules more flexible and comprehensive, yet the group working on it soon found that the changes needed were too sweeping to be accommodated in an AACR3, and thus RDA was born. RDA is a content standard, not an encoding standard, and it is intended to be independent of MARC, but compatible with the MARC format.

RDA is to be a new standard for resource description and access designed for the digital world. It is designed to cover all types of resources. Although it is being developed for use in libraries, it is intended to be applicable anywhere. And the code is designed to be compliant with FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, a conceptual model for bibliographic description, not a set of rules).

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) is the group responsible for developing the new code, and it includes international representation, although it is heavily represented by the English speaking world (US, UK, Australia, Canada, etc.). The completed version of RDA is expected August 2008, but it is being vetted by a large number of cataloging groups, committees and interest groups in ALA and other organizations.

Stalberg outlined some of the areas of description that will change under RDA (punctuation, where titles are derived from, use of abbreviations, etc.), but I won’t bore the non-catalogers with that info, particularly as the code has not yet been adopted.

The JSC is committed to guaranteeing that RDA-produced records will be compatible with AACR2-produced records, which will thankfully save us from having to retrospectively re-catalog our entire collection. However, this also results in the criticism that if AACR2 records are compatible with RDA records, does RDA really go far enough in re-vamping the catalog code. That is, isn’t RDA then effectively AACR3? Other criticisms include that RDA is too complicated, too confusing and too redundant, and that the code still has too much emphasis on human creation and manipulation of records, not enough on computer-to-computer interchange.

The real takeaway for me from this session was that, as a practical matter, RDA is a long way from affecting actual cataloging practice in libraries. Not only must RDA be approved by the JSC and a huge number of cataloging interest groups in the US and abroad, the MARC format will have to be updated to accommodate RDA, bibliographic utilities (such as OCLC) will have to accommodate a revised MARC format, ILS systems will have to be revised to work with new RDA-compliant records, and catalogers will have to be trained in working with the new rules and attendant format changes. Optimistically, we’re looking at several years (if not longer) before records cataloged according to RDA are in use.

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.

I’m back from Pittsburgh, where the Music Library Association held its annual conference this year. The program was so breathlessly jam-packed that I’m just going to have to, unbloglike, post one long report at the end. Sorry!

Dominating the sessions this year were the many creative ways music librarians are exploiting new technologies to enhance their mission:

IPODS

My colleagues at NC School of the Arts described their use of ipods for music reserves. They do this in two ways: issuing library-owned ipods with the course listening assignments pre-loaded (other schools, like Baylor, also do this); or, upon request, downloading the content to students’ own ipods. They cover their legal liability on the latter service by requiring the student to sign an agreement not to steal the content; violation results in a fine based on the going Itunes rate per track (often totalling hundreds of dollars) and being blocked from class registration for the upcoming semester. They report that this deterrent has proven quite effective. The biggest problem, rather, has been failure to return library-owned ipods.

PODCASTS

A number of music libraries are using enhanced podcasts for outreach. Enhanced podcasts combine audio and video to, e.g., feature a performer, a faculty research project, etc.

WIKIS

Quite a few libraries have mounted their staff and student manuals on wikis, citing the ease of updating and editing, and the added benefits of facilitating feedback and collaborative work. Many are also employing wikis in the same way Lauren has in Gov Docs, for optimizing communications in the running of public service desks.

INTEGRATED LIBRARY SYSTEMS: ALTERNATIVES

As in the larger library community, music librarians’ frustration with existing integrated library systems (ILS) is widespread. There were presentations on ways libraries are using third-party software to enhance the useability of their ILS: NC State’s use of Endeca with their Sirsi system was mentioned, as well as Lib X, a Firefox browser extension designed for libraries, which features a toolbar containing links to the library’s catalog (a number of other libraries have developed similar toolbars of their own, offered to students for download). Other libraries have gone further, developing alternative open-source ILSs. These include the Univ. of Rochester’s Extensible Catalog; Georgia’s public library systems’s Evergreen; Plymouth State’s WP Opac, which uses blogging software. All these systems have faceted browsing, and various blendings of Google-like features with traditional catalog functions.

MUSIC STREAMING SERVICES

An attempt at providing another kind of seamless access was demonstrated in an update session by Naxos Music Library, an online streaming service. Naxos has plans to partner with Proquest’s International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP), Sheet Music Now (a public-domain digital score provider), and Webfeat, the federated search engine recently demo’d here, to create a product that will enable a user studying a given musical work to listen to a performance, download and print the score, and locate secondary literature, all in a single online search session.

With the advent of Naxos and other online music-streaming products, the imminent demise of the CD has inevitably been prophesied. A lively dabate arose on this topic in a session titled “Hot Topics in Music Librarinaship.” Many attendees reported that, subscriptions to streaming products notwithstanding, they’re still buying CDs, citing the lack of coverage of certain repertoire online (I’ve encountered this problem with our own music faculty: for teaching Medieval and Renaissance-era repertoire they find the online products largely useless, because these are typically licensed to distribute only older recordings, which in the case of early European classical music reflect obsolete/discredited research on performance practices); ease of use (faculty are fond of grabbing a physical CD five minutes before class); connectivity problems; varying levels of psychological readiness of faculty to adopt new technology; and questions of ownership/archiving (there’s no JSTOR for sound recordings).

VIRTUAL BI

In the same “Hot Topics” session, several attendees reported on how they’re exploiting the virtual environment for music bibliographic instruction. Facebook and Myspace were deemed particularly valuable as a space for student group work and peer mentoring. Others have found uses for Youtube: one colleague found that when she integrated Youtube clips into an ethnic music studies course, students more readily absorbed information on the more traditional research sources.

OTHER DIGITAL TRENDS IN MUSIC

On a more esoteric note, Mark Katz of UNC-Chapel Hill gave an intriguing presentation on “The Second Digital Revolution in Music.” The first revolution, of course, was the coming of the Internet. Now we have new artforms such as “turntablism,” a practice developed by DJs of manually manipulating vinyl discs on turntables to produce special effects; and “mashups,” the overlaying of the vocals of one popular song on the accompaniment of another. This, Mark notes, raises questions of authenticity: whereas traditionally a live performance was considered “authentic,” and the recording of it a reproduction, now activities such as turntablism and mashups render the recording itself the “authentic” entity. Does this make turntablists and mashup artists composers?

A second revolutionary trend identified by Mark is the virtual music community. This is found, of course, in places like Myspace (where many performers have pages), Youtube (which brings together people with shared musical tastes), and concerts in Second Life. Are virtual communities “real” communities? Do people hear music differently as an avatar in Second Life? Music scholars, in Mark’s opinion, have lagged behind those in other disciplines in exploring questions such as these; the field of “music and technology” has yet to mature.

CATALOGING: RDA AND MUSIC

I attended a session on RDA (”Resource Description and Access,” the new cataloging rules currently under development) and its implications for music (and other formats such as video). One thorny problem: access points for performers. When do you make the primary access point for the work and when for the performer? RDA has adopted the basic principles of FRBR, which say the primary access point should be the work. But this proves to be at odds with customary practice in various creative communities: the film community considers a film a new work in its own right (not a derivative of the novel, etc.); and what to do about musical performers who are also the composer, arranger,etc. of the work they’re performing?

AMERICAN MUSIC

This year’s conference was a joint one held with the Society for American Music (SAM). In a SAM session, one of our own Music faculty, Louis Goldstein, who specializes in contemporary American repertoire, gave a lecture-recital of a piano work by little-known Denver-born composer Stephen “Lucky” Mosko (1947-2005). Mosko’s reputation is so obscure that most of us in attendance had never even heard of him, but the piece Louis played for us was exquisitely beautiful, so I’m going to look up more of his music to add to our collection.

A tradition of the SAM folks is to hold a shape-note hymn sing at their conferences, and this was a most moving experience also. MLA members fielded a brass band and jazz band, which provided the entertainment at the closing reception. Some years we have a chorus, too. This is one of the coolest things about being a music librarian: getting together with colleagues who are both scholars and performers!

EXHIBITS

I spent a productive afternoon in the exhibits hall. In particular, I got a chance to talk to some vendors who offer approval plans for scores and recordings, which I’ve been eyeing as a possible solution to some faculty requests regarding gaps in our collections. Also got updates from vendors of music online resources that are still (sigh!) on our desiderata list.

As I said, a jam-packed and most informative program this year. My biggest disappointment was that some sesssions had so many speakers lined up that each one had only five or ten minutes to describe their “how we done it good” projects.