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Greetings:<br>
Below is a draft of comments on the report of the Library of Congress
Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. These comments were
compiled by Larry Creider, Nina Schneider, Deborah Leslie, and Randal
Brandt and are to be submitted on behalf of the Bibliographic Standards
Committee. Comments are due to the Working Group on Saturday, Dec. 15.
Please give us any feedback you can by Friday, Dec. 14.<br>
Thanks,<br>
Randy<br><br>
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The Bibliographic Standards Committee (BSC) of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of ACRL welcomes the opportunity to comment on
the <i>Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control </i>drafted by the
Library of Congress (LC) Working Group (WG) on the Future of
Bibliographic Control. The Bibliographic Standards Committee is
especially encouraged by the fact that access to rare and unique
materials is recognized as one of the five central themes within this
report.<br>
<br>
The Bibliographic Standards Committee strongly agrees that, indeed, there
are many institutions and organizations that have the expertise and
capacity to step forward and play significant roles in the bibliographic
future. Only if we are allowed and encouraged to do so will this be
successful.<br>
<br>
Although the Bibliographic Standards Committee is most interested in the
second theme of the report relating to the exposure of rare and unique
materials, we realize the recommendations of the entire report will
impact rare book and special collection repositories just as
significantly.<br>
<br>
What follows are specific comments on many aspects of the report.<br>
<br>
In general, the report ignores the impact of the vast quantity of
materials on the Web and the issues of selection and providing access to
them, except by talking indirectly about making use of metadata.<br>
<br>
Page 6: It is gratifying to see that the Library of Congress has learned
that announcing major changes to the library community without advance
preparation, as happened with their series decision, is not the way to
introduce change. The ability of the cataloging community, together with
OCLC, to discover ways to cope with that decision is an indication that
the Library of Congress can indeed rest easy in the knowledge that there
are organizations and institutions who are willing to step forward and
volunteer their expertise in cataloging standards.<br>
<br>
Page 7, Paragraph 2: The Bibliographic Standards Committee agrees that
users would be better served if access to a variety of materials were
provided in the context of a unified philosophy of bibliographic control.
Unfortunately, this desire is most likely impossible to realize given the
commoditization of information and proprietary considerations.<br>
<br>
Page 7, Paragraph 3: The Bibliographic Standards Committee strongly
disagrees with the statement that "Consistency of description within
any single environment, such as the library catalog, is becoming less
significant than the ability to make connections between
environments." Both are important; minor inconsistencies are
tolerable both within and between databases. Major inconsistencies need
to be remedied lest they result in chaos. Introducing a database with no
authority control into one with authority control eliminates any
authority control and adequate precision or recall in both
databases.<br>
<br>
Page 7, Paragraph 4: What is meant by "cataloging?" Perhaps
this needs redefinition as much as "bibliographic control." It
is "necessary to embrace a view of bibliographic control as a
distributed activity, not a centralized one." Fortunately, this has
been happening for a few years thanks to the Program for Cooperative
Cataloging (PCC) and OCLC’s master record concept. <br>
<br>
Page 8, Paragraph 1: The Bibliographic Standards Committee is very
worried that the Working Group accepts the commoditization of information
without a nod to the notion of information as a public good. Does this
mean that the Library of Congress will begin charging for its services?
Should we expect to see pop-up ads on Classification Web in the near
future? Are the nation's public libraries a target for mergers and
acquisitions?<br>
<br>
Page 9-10: Redefining the Role of the Library of Congress. As mentioned
earlier, the Bibliographic Standards Committee agrees that LC might want
to reconsider its responsibilities to the nation's libraries. There are
many experts in public, academic, and special libraries that would be
willing to work with LC to create partnerships and opportunities to
improve the universe of bibliographic control. This will be a new world
for LC and a learning experience for all involved, but a public
recognition that the locus of expertise has given way to many loci is
necessary. As LC is aware, the Bibliographic Standards Committee is very
involved in the creation and maintenance of standards for the rare
materials community. The Bibliographic Standards Committee is willing to
share its expertise and expects that LC recognizes its expertise and
willingness to share it.<br>
<br>
Page 10: The shift of bibliographic control of primary resources within
LC does not mean that traditional cataloging practices must be abandoned.
The traditional practices need revision and need to be coupled with other
means, but they will continue to be necessary for materials of all
formats. As we will see in Recommendation 2, traditional cataloging
practices will be necessary to make some of these resources available.
These resources do not leap into malleable electronic metadata without
costly human intervention and intellectual activity.<br>
<br>
Page 11, Section 1.1: Eliminating Redundancies. Although a good idea, the
amount of intellectual effort and physical work saved by transferring
descriptive metadata is not the basic cause of the cost of bibliographic
control. Even classification could be more automated than it currently
is. The real, barely reducible, cost comes with controlling names,
titles, and subjects. <br>
<br>
Page 13-14, Section 1.2: Copy cataloging and loading of LC authority
files are not the only reasons that libraries have reduced staff. Budget
cutbacks and lack of qualified professionals, as well as the soaring
costs of the materials and licensing should also be considered.<br>
<br>
Page 15: Overall, the Bibliographic Standards Committee agrees with
Recommendations 1.2.1.1-1.2.1.3. LC could make better use of PCC-produced
data. If the recommendations in 1.2.2 to examine original cataloging
programs and sub-programs at the Library of Congress are to work, LC will
need to do a better job than it has in the past of identifying and
working with other entities. As mentioned above, LC will need to
explicitly abdicate from the library community's expectation that it is
THE source of knowledge in these areas and direct some inquiries to other
institutions or groups.<br>
<br>
Page 16: Recommendations 1.2.3 and 1.2.4. The problem is not simply the
number of PCC participants; the problem is with institutional barriers to
expansion of PCC participation. For example, when NACO and BIBCO
catalogers move from libraries where they have been trained in NACO and
BIBCO procedures and made contributions to libraries that are not
members, their expertise is lost. The Bibliographic Standards Committee
also recognizes that libraries need to expand the number of certified
librarians within their institutions. NACO certification, and perhaps
BIBCO certification, should be attached to catalogers and transferable
with the cataloger. There should be investigation of ways OCLC can
encourage small, specialized libraries, to achieve Enhance status, which
is necessary for BIBCO membership. OCLC in particular should consider
amending its loading algorithms and rewards for upgrades and corrections
to avoid M-level records with 20 libraries attached whose catalogers have
done work in their local catalogs but found it too time-consuming to make
the changes in the "master record."<br>
<br>
Page 16-19, Section 1.3: The section of collaborating in authority record
creation is excellent, particularly in its recognition of the inescapable
amount of human intellectual effort that is devoted to authority work. A
great deal could be done here by making participation in cooperative
authority processes easier, as mentioned above. <br>
<br>
Page 18: Again, the Bibliographic Standards Committee is willing to work
with LC to increase collaboration on authority data and controlled
vocabularies.<br>
<br>
Page 19-21: Enhance Access to Rare and Unique Materials. On the whole,
this is an excellent section. Some things might be added. First is that
increasing cooperative collection development by research libraries will
mean that more current material, particularly from foreign countries,
will become "rare" and require original cataloging because no
one else holds these materials. Research libraries need to commit to the
fact that creating unique collections will require more resources for
bibliographic control of those materials.<br>
<br>
Page 20, Recommendation 2.1: Rare book and special collection
repositories have recognized the need to make the discovery of their
materials possible. The Bibliographic Standards Committee has gone a long
way towards this goal in codifying rules and emphasizing access to a
greater number of items and empathizes with LC in prioritizing these
materials.<br>
<br>
Page 20, Recommendation 2.2: "Streamlin(ing) cataloging for rare and
unique materials, emphasizing greater coverage and access" is an
oxymoron. One can streamline some of the processes, but poor access will
hinder users from finding the materials they need almost as much as
providing no access at all. When thinking about the different levels of
2.2.4 and the "some level of access" of 2.2.1, institutions
need to remember the way in which broadsides were ignored not so long ago
and the way pamphlets were bound together and given an assigned title
with little or no access to the individual pamphlets. Individual items of
these types often have great research (and monetary) value and are used
in serious scholarship. By not providing full access, libraries hinder
discovery by both scholars and collection development staff who must
decide how best to spend limited resources on new acquisitions. The
Bibliographic Standards Committee notes that there is tension between
recommendations 2.1 and 2.2. There is danger in merely shifting
unprocessed materials to under-processed materials by adopting an
uncritical approach to "some access." The Working Group cites
the ARL White Paper on "Hidden Collections" (on p. 19) and
would be well-advised to consider the approaches examined there more
carefully.<br>
<br>
Page 20, Recommendation 2.3: Integrating finding aids and databases and
metadata records into the discovery tools for rare and unique materials
is a wonderful idea. However, these systems need to have the ability to
limit to or exclude such materials.<br>
<br>
Page 21, Recommendation 2.5.1: Is it necessary to share metadata for
unique materials? <br>
<br>
Page 21, Recommendation 2.5.2: Success will depend on OCLC's ability to
offer federated searching on institutional records and to make it easier
for finding aids or images, for example, to be loaded into OCLC.<br>
<br>
Page 21-22: Position Our Technology for the Future. It would be foolish
to adopt a replacement for MARC that does not retain the advantages of
MARC (e.g. subfields for searching) or that does not address the major
defect of MARC, namely its inability to handle hierarchical
relationships. Would it not be better to work with Web developers to
increase the relevance and ranking of library catalogs and standards and
to index MARC records in such a way as to increase visibility in search
engines? Catalogers and programmers will need to work together to make
this possible. <br>
<br>
Page 23-24, Section 3.2: Standards. The report states that "it is
through consistent application of standards that the full value of
bibliographic data can be released across many potential use
environments" and that standards are in reality, a business issue.
Standards not only remove barriers, they also impose barriers,
particularly those relating to cost. Standards require conceptualizing
data in a certain way. A better argument for standards is the utility for
the users of bibliographic data, which goes along with recognition of
their limitation. We need to recognize the limitations and shortcomings
of standards along with their undeniable value and not blindly endorse
anything simply calling itself a "standard."<br>
<br>
Page 25, Recommendation 3.2.1-3.2.2: Suspend work on RDA. This makes
sense, even if not for the reasons given. Some in cataloging community
think that it goes too far, others think it doesn't go far enough. Until
ALA and LC agree on a format for the recording and display of data, and
detailed statements on encoding, existing catalogers will find it very
hard to implement RDA. The Bibliographic Standards Committee also wonders
how the recommendations in 3.2.2 will, if at all, affect <i>Descriptive
Cataloging of Rare Materials</i>.<br>
<br>
Page 26, Paragraph 2: It is unlikely that machine applications will ever
be the primary users of bibliographic data. They may be one of the major
manipulators of such data, but the users remain human, with human
objectives. It is enough to say that we need to structure encoding
schemes that support such manipulation.<br>
<br>
Page 26, Section 4.1, Paragraph 3: "... most users now conduct their
research in multiple discovery environments: search engines, online
booksellers, course management systems, specialized databases, library
catalogs, and more." This is similar to the what users have always
had to do, consulting catalogs, periodical indexes, newspaper indexes,
bibliographies, printed catalogs, microfilm, etc. The difference is that
at one time, researchers had to travel to different institutions or use
different machines. Most of this can now be done from one computer, which
gives the illusion that these resources should all work the same way.
Unified searching may be an unattainable goal.<br>
<br>
Page 27, Paragraph 2: The report's assertion that library users value
features and data that help them make sense of results by ranking,
organizing, and clustering, may or may not be true. Recall and precision
of results is just as important, if not more so. <br>
<br>
Page 27, Paragraph 3: It is very disturbing to learn that LC considers
that a library catalog should be designed to ingest or interact with
records from sources outside of the library cataloging workflow. Unless
there are stringent guidelines and intense oversight, any idea of
authority control or standards will be negated. If LC is concerned with
the overwhelming responsibility and staffing issues of updating and
maintaining its records, this would indeed be foolhardy decision. Rather,
LC should consider an alternative, using its catalog as a base, but
leaving the integrity of its catalog intact. <br>
<br>
Page 27, Paragraph 4: "Many libraries have chosen to produce
metadata to satisfy the needs of their most sophisticated users, despite
the fact that such users are but a small percentage of their total user
base. They do so under the increasingly dubious assumption that all users
will benefit from the greatest detail in cataloging." This statement
contradicts the whole tenor of Recommendation 2 and promulgates an
atmosphere of anti-intellectualism. Ideally, we, as information
professionals and librarians, should encourage discovery and deeper
understanding in everyone who makes use of a library. Nevertheless, the
fact is that discoveries and research are made by the small number of
users who make intensive use of primary sources and secondary literature.
This is as true of scientists as of humanists. Such intensive use of
information requires complex tools to study the very complex reality we
live in. What is required in the library catalog is detail sufficient to
distinguish resources so that the user may discover and select them. The
larger the database, the more sophisticated the user, the more detail may
be required. <br>
<br>
Page 28, Recommendation 4.1.2.1: It is reassuring to see that LC
recognizes the importance of maintaining the "integrity of
library-created data."<br>
<br>
Page 28, Recommendation 4.1.3.1: Algorithms need to go a long way before
they are useful in suggesting works that might be useful to patrons.
Their algorithms fail to distinguish between scholarly and popular
material.<br>
<br>
Page 28, Recommendation 4.1.3.2: If implemented, this will take longer
than creating original controlled vocabularies and their variations.<br>
<br>
Page 28, Section 4.2: Realization of FRBR. What does the statement
"FRBR suggests alternatives for analyzing intellectual content for
bibliographic control" mean? FRBR proceeds from what users, do or
are supposed to do, and posits ways of constructing relationships and
displaying those relationships. <br>
<br>
Page 29, Paragraph 2: Developing a means to exchange work-level data will
take thought but is hardly less feasible than many of the other
suggestions the report adopts, such as recasting LCSH in a hierarchical
structure. The cataloging rules are part of RDA. In the report, the WG
calls for the suspension of work on rules that will support the creation
of authority records using FRBR, but then attack the FRBR model for not
having such cataloging rules. The real problem will be finding the
resources to apply FRBR retrospectively and to materials whose metadata
is inadequate for any but the most basic purposes.<br>
<br>
Page 29, Recommendation 4.2.1.3: There are at least as many problems with
the concept of Manifestation as Expression. Nonetheless, the fact that
these determinations are flexible and subject to development as
scholarship intensifies on a particular group of Works, with the related
Expressions and Manifestations, allows for the model to stay alive.<br>
<br>
Page 30, Recommendation 4.3: Although the Bibliographic Standards
Committee is particularly interested in description, subject access is an
important aspect of discovery. This section, and the diagnosis of
problems, ignores the basic fact that LCSH is complex because reality is
complex. Navigating the thesaurus and the Subject Cataloging Manual is
difficult, but so too is describing the world of knowledge. Any attempt
to do justice to a resource's subject is bound to be difficult. The
length of LCSH strings is more a problem of catalog displays. Oddly, LCSH
strings are quite useful for keyword searching which can then allow
retrieval of other items with the same or similar subject strings. LCSH
is not, and should not be, designed for novices. Such individuals are
best served by starting with a keyword search and then building on the
subject headings or bibliographies to find other materials. <br>
<br>
Page 31, Recommendation 4.3.2: De-coupling of strings is possible, but
hardly necessary when keyword searching of subject strings is so
effective.<br>
<br>
Page 32, Recommendation 4.3.3.2: "Apply terms from any and all
appropriate sources of controlled subject headings in bibliographic
records to augment subject access." How does this fit in with the
streamlining mentioned in Recommendation 1? How does this reduce the cost
of cataloging? How will it help the user?<br>
<br>
Page 32: The Desired Outcomes do not flow from the recommendations. The
result of the recommendations on LCSH will be more complex subject
analysis, not less, and certainly not more intuitive. It will not be
easier to update and to apply. Terminology may be more current but
certainly not more consistent. The application of the recommendations
will require substantial resources that may or may not be justified.
Rather than test FRBR, the recommendations concerning LCSH should be
tested for feasibility and user benefits before they are put into
practice.<br>
<br>
Page 35, Recommendation 5.2.1.2: This recommendation is excellent, but
until libraries make clear that there is a demand for graduates with
these skills and that cataloging and bibliographic control are the
backbone of a library, the recommendation will languish. <br>
<br>
Above all, there needs to be a commitment on the part of the institutions
involved to invest in the expertise required for control of these items:
technical knowledge of papers, bindings, printing and photographic
processes, reproduction technologies, languages, scripts, subject
expertise in areas ranging from chemistry to denominational schisms, as
well as electronic systems, encoding schemes, and programming ability.
Only if institutions are willing to value this expertise will there be
the necessary personnel to realize these outcomes. In this report, the
Working Group never really commits itself to the notion that no matter
how many shortcuts can be found, how much electronic manipulation of
metadata is done, libraries will still have substantial investments in
the human aspects of bibliographic control. Until this fact is
recognized, they will not be able to make the changes that will lead to
effective implementation of the recommendations, let alone implement some
of the others that are needed.<br><br>
Respectfully submitted (on behalf of the ACRL/RBMS Bibliographic
Standards Committee),<br>
Laurence S. Creider, New Mexico State University<br>
Nina Schneider, Clark Memorial Library, UCLA<br>
Deborah J. Leslie, Folger Shakespeare Library<br>
Randal S. Brandt, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley<br><br>
<br>
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__________________________<br>
Randal Brandt<br>
Principal Cataloger<br>
The Bancroft Library<br>
(510) 643-2275<br>
rbrandt@library.berkeley.edu<br>
<a href="http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/" eudora="autourl">
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu<br>
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