immaculate catalogues taxonomy, metadata and resource-discovery in the 21st century
TRANSCRIPT
Immaculate catalogues
Taxonomy, metadata and resource-discovery in the 21st Century
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Introduction
“As to persons who see no difficulties, who speak of immaculate catalogues, who laugh at rules, at method, at principles, at accuracy, at consistency, and at such other bibliographic follies, they are not worth listening to…any more than a blind man… when he descants on the faults of a painting or the art of colouring in general.”
A. Panizzi
Letter to the Earl of Ellesmere, 29th January, 1848
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The challenge confronting cataloguing
Market for traditional publications continues to expand
New kinds of information resource
Competition from other mediation services
Perception of high cost/low value for money
Fiscal constraints
Declining workforce
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Expanding market
UK publishing
The number of new monograph titles/new editions has more than doubled since 1996. [1]
The rate of increase is accelerating.
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50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
1996 1999 2002 2005
UK Mono
[1] Sources: Whitaker Information Services (1996-2002); Nielsen Bookscan (2005)
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Expanding Market
World Monograph Publishing
Expectation is that volume of publishing will continue to increase in mature economies.
The chart shows growth trends % over 3 years.
Volume of research level publication is also expected to increase at a slower rate.
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2
4
6
8
10
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Growth
USA Netherlands
France Japan
Source: British Library’s content strategy – Meeting the knowledge needs of the nation http://www.bl.uk/about/strategic/pdf/contentstrategy.pdf
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Expanding Market
World Monograph Publishing
Expectation is that volume of publishing will increase in emerging economies.
Supported by growth trends over last 3 years
Volume of research level publication is also expected to increase, but from a relatively low base.
0
2
4
6
8
10
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Growth
Russia China
Brazil India
Source: British Library’s content strategy – Meeting the knowledge needs of the nation http://www.bl.uk/about/strategic/pdf/contentstrategy.pdf
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Fiscal constraints
2001-4 UK monographs market grew by approximately 18% per annum
2001-4 BL Grant-in-Aid increase by 0.75% over the same period
Do more with less.
02468
101214161820
UK Books GIA
2001/2004
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Electronic media
New kinds of information resource
Traditional Media
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New mediation services / value for money
“..our bibliographic systems have not kept pace with this changing environment…Our users expect simplicity and immediate reward and Amazon, Google, and iTuenes are the standards against which we are judged. Our current systems pale beside them.”
Rethinking how we provide bibliographic services for the University of California: final report, December 2005 / Bibliographic Services Task Force. The University of California Libraries
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“The current Library catalog is poorly designed for the tasks of finding, discovering, and selecting the growing set of resources available in our libraries. It is best at locating and obtaining a known item….We offer a fragmented set of tools to search for published information (catalogs, A&I databases, full text journal sites, institutional repositories, etc.)….for the user these distinctions are arbitrary.”
Rethinking how we provide bibliographic services for the University of California: final report, December 2005 / Bibliographic Services Task Force. The University of California Libraries
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Rising Costs / Declining numbers
US Technical Services = $239m FY2004
Library of Congress - $44m per annum
British Library - £5.8m ($11m) FY 2005/6
33% of US cataloguers will retire by 2010
Aging faculty
Declining student numbers
LIS Syllabus threatened
Leysen, Joan M. and Boydston, Jeanne M. K.. “Supply and demand for cataloguers present and future.” LRTS 49(4) pp.250-265.
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What is to be done?
Is cataloguing relevant in the web environment? Short – medium term Medium – long term
If so, how should cataloguing change to meet those challenges?
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Is cataloguing relevant in the web environment?Short-Medium Term
YES!
Print still major (and growing) medium for communicating information for recording knowledge for entertainment
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Is cataloguing relevant in the web environment?Long Term
YES!
But, the answer is complicated…
Technological obsolescence i-book Self describing resources Key words rule
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Is cataloguing relevant in the web environment?Long Term
Non-textual resources are not self describing Legacy collections are not self describing
Mass digitization How do you search the world’s knowledge?
Relevance ranking & keywords not enough Google & Microsoft reuse existing catalogue records
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Is cataloguing relevant in the web environment?Long Term
Cataloguing is not just description
Establishes context for a resource Answers real world questions
What else has this author written?
What is there on this subject?
Is there a suitable version for ME?
Work 1
Person 1
Expression 1.1
Manifestation 1.1.1
Expression 1.2
Person 2
Institution
Item 1.1.1.1Person
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Work 2 Work 3
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Is cataloguing relevant in the web environment?Long Term
Cataloguers have created a map of: recorded knowledge Humanity’s intellectual activity
…Consider navigating all this with just a gazetteer of names and locations
Work 1
Person 1
Expression 1.1
Manifestation 1.1.1
Expression 1.2
Person 2
Institution
Item 1.1.1.1Person
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Work 2 Work 3
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Change to survive – use metadata more effectively
The OPAC has a limited life expectancy Failure to exploit metadata for
navigation
Use web technologies to integrate Presentational strengths of
printed catalogues Range of access points from
on-line catalogues Power of web to express
relationships
R.I.PR.I.P
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Change to survive– sell the value to end user
Cataloguing saves time and money of end users
Cataloguing is a public good
Public goods are difficult to quantify
Research demonstrates fourfold return on investment in British Library
Measuring our value: results of an independent economic impact study commissioned by the British Library to measure the Library’s direct and indirect value to the UK economy.”
http://www.bl.uk/about/valueconf/pdf/value.pdf
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Electronic media
Change to survive – put Web resources in context
Not monolithic
•Selection
•Filtering
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Electronic media
Change to survive – put Web resources in context
Not monolithic
•Selection
•Filtering
Archival structure
Simplified / derived metadata
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Change to survive – Collaboration
Well supported within the library sector Common content standards Formats and schema for interoperability
Closer engagement with other sectors Archives and museums Book trade Rights management Bibliographic continuum – reuse of metadata through the
supply chain
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Change to survive – Scalability
Move from craft to manufacture Transfer production from library to commerce Automation of metadata extraction
Unambiguous identification ISTC / ISPI
More accessible documentation RDA
Focus on creating infrastructure and adding value
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Conclusions
We need clarity about our values
There is hope: Online retailing catalogue driven Internet Movie Database based on bibliographic concepts Underlying logic of the semantic web is that one day
everyone will be a cataloguer.
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Conclusions
“… deeply impressed as I am myself with the difficulties often alluded to, I am still more impressed with the difficulty of communicating to others and equal sense of these difficulties.
In attempting to do so, I must enter into minutiae and details, not only apparently insignificant, but also not very easy to make plain in writing…”
Sir Anthony Panizzi
