Anthony Tardiff Cataloging and Classification, LS502:W1 Term Paper 4/30/10

Libraries and Metadata: Adjusting to Changing Usage

The way libraries are used has changed in the internet age, especially the way patrons

find books. A system of locating books via indexed subjects according to strict classification

systems has transformed, in practical use if not in theory, into a system of keyword searching,

with the Dewey or other cataloging number being simply a method to find the item on the shelf.

Libraries have been fortunate to have been prepared for this change almost by accident, with a

pre-existing metadata standard that transferred easily to online cataloging, but as changes

continue libraries would do well to take a more active role in adapting to them, with the added

role of sharing the wealth of experience in metadata which libraries possess with others who can

benefit from a more structured standard.

Metadata in its broad sense is simply data about data. Libraries have always used

metadata, recording what items are in the collection. In their article Metadata: Cataloging by

any other name . . . Jessica Milstead and Susan Feldman (1999) write, Like the man who had

been writing prose all his life without knowing it, librarians and indexers have been producing

and standardizing metadata for centuries. As libraries evolved, so did the metadata used to

describe the collection, encompassing not only what items the library possessed and where they

could be found but also information about the items themselves.

Eventually shared standards of metadata were developed which are both concrete

ensuring accuracy and complex enough to handle a wealth of information about books and

other items in a library collection. This pre-existing metadata, usually stored on index cards in a

card catalog, was transferred to computers at the beginning of the digital age. In the 1960s, well

before the personal computer boom of the 1970s and 1980s, MARC was developed as a method

of storing cataloging information in a computer-readable format. This is one of the first instances

of digital metadata. Today, the term metadata usually connotes digital information.

Since libraries began, metadata has been used to find information. Since computers

became involved, the process, though not the goal, has changed. Instead of patrons finding items

by looking at subjects in a card catalog, patrons search an electronic catalog with specific query

terms which are matched by the computer to catalog data. In a study of users of a university

library online catalog, Ray R. Larson (1991) found a consistent decline in the frequency of

subject index use by online catalog users, with a corresponding increase in the frequency of title

keyword searching. He concluded that this was due to user difficulties in formulating subject

queries with Library of Congress Subject Headings . . . and the problem of information

overload as database size increases. Patrons did not use the search function of the online

catalog the same way catalog cards had been used.

In her article Rethinking Subject Cataloging in an Online Environment, Marcia J. Bates

(1989) recognized this change: Based on our experience with card catalogs, we have been

conditioned to think of subject indexing in a catalog as consisting of subject headings and

classification numbers. . . . We think of an online catalog as simply the same catalog as before,

but now online-accessible. But, in fact, online search capabilities themselves constitute a form of

indexing. Subject access to online catalogs is thus a combination of original indexing and what

we might call search capabilities indexing. Today, subject headings are all but neglected by the

ordinary library patron.

The advent and expansion of the internet and of search engines like Google has

conditioned patrons to treat electronic searches as general keyword searches and to expect

relevant results without expending much effort. Libraries still have not really addressed how this

search capabilities indexing is affected by current library cataloging methods, which were not

designed for natural language searching. Patrons who do not know Dewey as anything except a

way to find an item on the shelf that they have already found in the computer do not realize that

a simple keyword search is not necessarily going to pull up the most relevant or helpful results,

results that use the depth of information available in each catalog record. While libraries were at

the forefront of electronic metadata almost by default, it is not certain that the metadata libraries

currently use is the best suited to making the wealth of information it contains available to the

typical library patron.

It is not only libraries that have trouble adapting metadata to popular use. The problem

libraries face is in getting the information stored in its structured, authority controlled metadata

to users. On the internet and in electronic information depositories the opposite problem is

evident: the metadata is loosely defined and lacks authority control.

The concept of metadata has risen to great importance in attempts to organize electronic

information. Unfortunately there is no universally accepted standard. As Milstead and Feldman

(1999) write, Probably the biggest stumbling block in the way of orderly development of

metadata is the sheer number of different metadata projects. Library-developed standards like

Dublin Core are a big step in the right direction, but they are useless if few adopt them.

If libraries truly want to continue to drive the development and adoption of useful

metadata and organizational concepts, they must look to themselves first. The way metadata is

used has changed, and libraries must adapt their metadata to the new methods or risk users

turning for their information needs to sources like the internet which are less accurate but which

fit their methods of search. Perhaps if libraries adapt, they can also help non-library information

sources to learn the lessons in accuracy and authority control which libraries already know, while

maintaining the ease of understanding and use which users expect in the internet age.

References:

Bates, Marcia J. (1989). Rethinking Subject Cataloging in an Online Environment. Library Resources and Technical Services, 33 (4), 400-412.

Larson, Ray R. (1991). The Decline of Subject Searching: Long-Term Trends and Patterns of Index Use in an Online Catalog. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42 (3), 197-216.

Milstead, J., & Feldman, S. (1999). Metadata: cataloging by any other name. . . .. Online (Weston, Conn.), 23(1), 24-6. Retrieved April 21, 2010, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.