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

Thu May 14 11:35:46 MDT 2015

Matt,
I’ve never used IR’s myself, but I understand the reason this development hits a raw nerve is that many people on this list think there are too many duplicates in OCLC to find good records within a reasonable amount of time. They need the IR’s to find them.

One point I made awhile back: can we expect this problem to diminish over time? There are no more pre-1801 books being published. If we concentrate on upgrading good records to DCMB(x), could we gradually get to where we can just ignore non-DCRM(x) records?

I generally ignore non-English records unless all the English records are bad. I take pride in how little original cataloging I do. Sometimes I even upgrade awful UKM records if they fit the item I have in a minimal way.

Probably about once a month I create a new record and then, doing a last search before updating the holdings (i.e., adding my record to the database), stumble on another one I missed somehow. I go through the laborious process of moving all the detailed fields I put on my record to the other one.

Maybe this work pattern isn’t feasible for everybody. If I was used to using IR’s, I might think they are indispensable.

Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Matthew C. Haugen
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 11:58 AM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] OCLC's IR webinar (May 13)

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<mailto: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<tel:401-863-1187>
<Richard_Noble at Br<mailto:RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu<http://own.edu>>

On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Rouse, Lenore <rouse at cua.edu<mailto: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<mailto:matthew.haugen at columbia.edu>
Phone: 212-851-2451
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