[DCRM-L] OCLC's IR webinar (May 13)

[Matthew C. Haugen]

For OCLC to say their data shows users don't care about IRs seems like a
self-fulfilling prophecy.  Maybe it's a small population, but if indeed "users
who care about copy-specific descriptions generally don’t see OCLC as a
useful discovery tool," that's probably because the copy-specific
information that lives in IRs is not exposed in public worldcat searches
anyway.

We don't create IRs at Columbia, and I'm perhaps too new to know all of the
background behind that, but if the records can't be publicly searched
anyway, it would seem our time is better spent upgrading master records
that are actually visible, and maintaining copy-specific information in our
local Voyager records, where our users, reference staff, etc. are more
likely to find it.

Matt

On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 12:35 PM, Noble, Richard <richard_noble at brown.edu>
wrote:

> This does go some way back. As noted by Jackie Dooley, in "Ten
> commandments for special collections librarians in the digital age" in
> *RBM* in 2009:
>
> "Karen Calhoun noted the need to 'get over item-level description' and
> get more serious about streamlining cataloging. Our generalist colleagues
> in libraries have
> ​ ​
> made massive strides in this regard over the past decade or more. Isn’t it
> time we do
> ​ ​
> the same? Archivists generally let go of item-level description at least
> 25 years ago
> ​ ​
> and have now widely embraced the Greene/Meissner mandate for 'more product,
> ​ ​
> less process.'"
>
> As I recall that startlingly antagonistic address (at the 2008
> Preconference), we were also told to "get over ourselves", and I think what
> we're hearing is that OCLC would rather get over us.*  They are, in
> accordance with their business model, satisficing. However that therm is
> technically defined, we know that in our endeavor, this means that
> Excellent + Good = Good, Good + Good Enough = Good Enough, Good Enough + OK
> = OK, OK + Whatever = Whatever, and that the job is to persuade the
> customers that Whatever is the New Excellence.
>
> *Granted, the report indicates that Calhoun was addressing the matter of
> archival cataloging, but my recollection of the address that it was rather
> more generally and sometimes offensively "disruptive".
>
> RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
> BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
> <Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>
>
> On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Rouse, Lenore <rouse at cua.edu> wrote:
>
>>  Will et al.,
>>
>> We ARE users but many of the people making decisions about our work are
>> not. I see two similar trends which nobody has mentioned yet, which do or
>> will obscure or obliterate bibliographical difference as badly as ditching
>> those IRs. One is a tendency in large libraries or consortia to merge bib
>> records for "the same" title. In the case of certain consortia, this will
>> mean dispatching all local notes to the holdings record while merging all
>> the stuff that belongs in the bib record. The devil will be in
>> distinguishing the local from the general note. You all know it's not
>> always possible to determine whether the cancel or other feature in your
>> copy is present in every copy.  Even if you can separate out the local info
>> from the general (including 655s, 7xxs who is going to want to look at
>> local notes for multiple holding institutions when they are parked in the
>> holding record and not near related info in the bib record? Not my idea of
>> user-friendly. How will the important information in the local notes even
>> be searched if it is no longer part of the bib record? That should
>> theoretically be possible, though it's not clear to me that the makers of
>> the feudal business model are concerned with such minutiae.  Some of them
>> seem to believe fewer records are cheaper than more records; it's rumored
>> to be a great cost-savings to copy catalogers.
>>
>> Another aspect of this merge mentality just came to my notice last week.
>> I discovered that WorldCat may stealthily merge all editions of a title
>> without letting the user know. Example: my search was for *Loss and gain*
>> by J. H. Newman, ed. by Sheridan Gilley. The search retrieved quite a slew
>> of hits, including a local one I was not aware of. But next to the results
>> is a disclaimer "Show libraries holding *just* this edition or narrow
>> results by format" A click on this reduced my results to one library: the
>> Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (!).  So, if I SEARCHED for *just* this
>> edition, why is WorldCat's default presenting me with 4 screens of
>> irrelevant nonsense?
>>
>> Instead of "are we not users" maybe the question should be to the
>> managers making these bizarre decisions "are you not librarians?"
>>
>


-- 

-- 
Matthew C. Haugen
Rare Book Cataloger
102 Butler Library
Columbia University Libraries
E-mail: matthew.haugen at columbia.edu
Phone: 212-851-2451
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