[DCRM-L] Future of Bibliographic Control

[Randal Brandt]

Greetings:
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.
Thanks,
Randy

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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 Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control 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.

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.

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.

What follows are specific comments on many aspects of the report.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Page 18: Again, the Bibliographic Standards Committee is willing to work 
with LC to increase collaboration on authority data and controlled 
vocabularies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Page 21, Recommendation 2.5.1: Is it necessary to share metadata for unique 
materials?

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.

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.

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."

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 Descriptive Cataloging of 
Rare Materials.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Page 28, Recommendation 4.1.3.2: If implemented, this will take longer than 
creating original controlled vocabularies and their variations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Page 31, Recommendation 4.3.2: De-coupling of strings is possible, but 
hardly necessary when keyword searching of subject strings is so effective.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Respectfully submitted (on behalf of the ACRL/RBMS Bibliographic Standards 
Committee),
Laurence S. Creider, New Mexico State University
Nina Schneider, Clark Memorial Library, UCLA
Deborah J. Leslie, Folger Shakespeare Library
Randal S. Brandt, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley



__________________________
Randal Brandt
Principal Cataloger
The Bancroft Library
(510) 643-2275
rbrandt at library.berkeley.edu
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu
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