LIS512 lecture 12 conclusions Thomas Krichel

today Self-assessment of course so far Future of cataloguing in libraries

LIS512 The contents of the course has been rife with debate for many years. In the tradition (and naming) from Richard P. Smiraglia, it is was supposed to be a theory- only course. But other professors and adjuncts in particular have made it

the books The books are really surveys. They survey a lot of contents but in a superficial ways. It is not important to know that in area foo, standard bar is applied.

the real basics There are some real basics. Most information organization task boil down to a few basic concepts. These concepts are embedded in all information organization work.

the theory I still have to see a coherent explanation of a body of work that makes up cataloging theory. I have not seen a good book about it. You probably have to work your way through individual writers' work, Bacon, Ranganathan, Lubetzky etc.

basic element I believe that there are basic elements in information organization. – records – mappings – formats, constraints – nesting and when you understand them, you have a basic grasp of how to organize information.

learning by doing It is best to learn by doing in depth. This is different from the survey ideas of the books. So you need to study a format. It's like learning a computer language, you learn one of them you learned a lot about the others. AARC2 + Marc appears the way to go, however controversial they are.

good points start with databases and FRBR appears good, but swap both around. Insistence on basic concepts is important. But there needs to be more bottom-up examples. Contrasting MARC basic syntax with XML will highlight that different syntax can carry the same information.

improvements bring koha in from the start. Use koha database tables as a way to introduces tables at the start of the course, through a simple example. register students, then proceed to look at some tables related to their branches.

problems One would like to cover more on LCSH and LCC, but how for to go until this becomes a full-blown cataloging class? There needs to be more bottom up discussion of the MARC format. XML can be introduced as a way to write MARC. Other XML stuff can be omitted.

more problem We should have discussed copy-cataloging. The assignment of cataloging items should be reduced to one item, for which copy- cataloging appears to be impossible. Students should hand in essay with a full description of the item, including it's full MARC record.

future of cataloging As long as libraries store physical items they have to keep an inventory of it. This is for internal purposes. Whether the current rules to compose the inventory are adapted to patron's needs and are cost-effective is a matter of debate about the rules.

future of libraries Libraries as they currently operate assume that there is a tight connection between contents and a physical item. The advent of digital information disrupts this model. Libraries are sitting an a pile of print material that is of shrinking importance to information needs.

lost cause Things go lost when libraries, confronted with digital offerings of publishers, did not require storing these on a local server. Publishers can cut off library customers at any time, and not back access may be available. Referring a patron to a toll-gated resource that can be freely accessed by the patron is a daunting challenge. Item-level cataloging is gone.

building digital holdings It is possible to build digital holdings and make them available to the public at a charge, or at no charge. However this require skills that are not taught in library schools. Web site building is the starting point for such skills.

libraries without holdings Without holdings libraries are cornered between two developments – The Google book project – The ebook readers. The former is particularly troublesome, with the perspective of a monopoly on contents by one private company when libraries have thrown out their copies.

divergent perspectives If libraries are freed from the unifying constraints of holding material that is physical, they may go different ways depending on their types. – School media center is already not a library. – Public library will be an adult education center. – Academic library will support digital research materials.

information organization? Storing, organizing and preserving digital information is a huge challenge. It involves extensive computing skills but computers are only tools. It looks like graduates of LIS school are left out of this. I am keeping up my struggle to get people up to speed with LIS650 and LIS651.

Thank you for your attention! Please switch off machines b4 leaving!