Re: {Cooperative Cataloging Rules} From the outside
40 views
Skip to first unread message
James Weinheimer
Aug 29, 2019, 3:38:10 AM8/29/19
to Elaine Sanchez, Cooperative Cataloging Rules
Hi Elaine!
I am doing well, although unfortunately like everyone else, I am getting
older too. I have semi-retired and am working part time for an Italian
book dealer. They provide full MARC records with their books, so I have
turned into one of the bad guys taking jobs away from library
catalogers! At one time I would have hated what I have become, but
now.... boh! Well, for once I'm on the winning side. I catalog for all
kinds of libraries: US libraries like Harvard, Princeton, and so on. The
Sorbonne, British Library, German and Austrian libraries and lots of
others. No libraries in Asia yet. This dealer sends me books every week
and I do the subjects and assign LC numbers for them. So I am doing the
non-RDA part of the record. Subjects are the parts of cataloging I
always enjoyed the most anyway. The materials are interesting. I end up
working for half the year, so it's not too bad. I know that the public,
which includes myself, finds materials in completely different ways than
in the 1980s. Or before. I just try not to ruminate on whether any users
actually utilize the subjects I add and how useful what I make is.
Many other librarians have written sad stories to me that are very
similar to yours. The current direction of cataloging is clear and the
coming RDA/Bibframe train crash may be the final straw that breaks the
camel's back. I don't know what will happen, and I don't even know what
the "gurus" have in mind but what they are building is clearly far too
complex to be implemented, especially in this economic climate. If the
idea is that non-library linked data sites will use our records, that is
simply laughable. And I can't imagine anybody--librarian or user--who
wants the kind of "information" they talk about on the RDA list. Those
gurus must understand all of this but that means (to me) that they don't
care and they have other agendas that we do not know about.
The information that public wants is in the collection, not in the
catalog. Therefore, they want to spend the least amount of time with the
catalog as possible so they can get into the stacks, which is where they
really find the information they want. The cataloging gurus don't seem
to understand this very basic fact, and are building something else. I
also haven't seen anyone talking about hiring the needed flotillas of
new, incredibly highly trained RDA/Bibframe catalogers to actually do
the work--and paying for these highly trained people. Funding has never
been a part of the RDA/Bibframe equations. But funding is a major
consideration in individual libraries, as your experience shows. I find
it very sad. It's hard to predict what will happen to libraries, and in
libraries, when the next economic downturn comes. As we all know it must.
Yet, I am really worried about the future of librarianship and libraries
in general, and I mean the future as in "existential threat." There is
the business side disaster that you speak of, but what concerns me
perhaps more is that libraries seem to have given up on some highly
important problems needed by our society desperately, and I think
librarians--as a group--are in a special position to help solve these
problems. I am talking about the problem of "fake news" and who and what
to believe. People now throw competing "experts" and "facts" at one
another like they are brickbats. There are hundreds of ways this is
happening and it is permeating throughout our society. This results in
people either being bewildering so much that they take on a nihilistic
frame of mind, or they spend their time nursing their "cognitive bias"
by looking only for whatever confirms the beliefs they already hold.
With all of the blogs and websites produced by all and sundry, you can
always find "evidence" for whatever stance you are looking for.
Information has already become a serious political issue and I see it
becoming only much, much worse. At one time if you wanted information,
you would go to the local library and look at the books and journals
there that had been selected by the librarian, and you would hope the
librarian was not simply mirroring his or her own social and political
opinions in the library's collection. Sometimes you even spoke with the
librarian. But that world is gone now. I can't remember how many
information literacy workshops I have taught, but I also have no doubt
that none of my students remember much, if anything, of what they
(supposedly) learned. Workshops--in other words: foisting the problem
onto the public for them to solve themselves--is not, and has never
been, an answer.
But more workshops is the only answer I have seen from the library
community. I think there is so much that libraries could do to help this
situation, but they don't. They seem to prefer to dream about creating
"makerspaces," or clearing out the books for workspace for group
projects or trying to get Krispy Kremes into the library's ultra-cool
coffee bar. In other words, they seem to be concentrating on the parts
of a library that do not relate intellectually to a library's
collection, but to the library as community center. That's
okay--community centers are needed--but if that is the future direction
of librarianship, you really don't need librarians, you need people
skilled in the hospitality industry.
In cataloging, the hope is that linked data will arrive like a handsome
prince to save us but I haven't seen too many successes from linked
data. Perhaps there is a use for it and maybe even in libraries but I
certainly don't think it's useful in library catalogs.
Well, that's enough of my own rant. Good to hear from you. My wife and I
recently had a nice trip to Brussels, Belgium, where it was blissfully
cooler than here in Rome. Good beer too!
Ciao,
Jim
--
James Weinheimerwei...@gmail.com
First Thushttp://blog.jweinheimer.net
First Thus Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/FirstThus
Personal Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/james.weinheimer.35
Google+https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesWeinheimer
Cooperative Cataloging Ruleshttp://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Cataloging Matters Podcastshttp://blog.jweinheimer.net/cataloging-matters-podcasts
I am doing well, although unfortunately like everyone else, I am getting
older too. I have semi-retired and am working part time for an Italian
book dealer. They provide full MARC records with their books, so I have
turned into one of the bad guys taking jobs away from library
catalogers! At one time I would have hated what I have become, but
now.... boh! Well, for once I'm on the winning side. I catalog for all
kinds of libraries: US libraries like Harvard, Princeton, and so on. The
Sorbonne, British Library, German and Austrian libraries and lots of
others. No libraries in Asia yet. This dealer sends me books every week
and I do the subjects and assign LC numbers for them. So I am doing the
non-RDA part of the record. Subjects are the parts of cataloging I
always enjoyed the most anyway. The materials are interesting. I end up
working for half the year, so it's not too bad. I know that the public,
which includes myself, finds materials in completely different ways than
in the 1980s. Or before. I just try not to ruminate on whether any users
actually utilize the subjects I add and how useful what I make is.
Many other librarians have written sad stories to me that are very
similar to yours. The current direction of cataloging is clear and the
coming RDA/Bibframe train crash may be the final straw that breaks the
camel's back. I don't know what will happen, and I don't even know what
the "gurus" have in mind but what they are building is clearly far too
complex to be implemented, especially in this economic climate. If the
idea is that non-library linked data sites will use our records, that is
simply laughable. And I can't imagine anybody--librarian or user--who
wants the kind of "information" they talk about on the RDA list. Those
gurus must understand all of this but that means (to me) that they don't
care and they have other agendas that we do not know about.
The information that public wants is in the collection, not in the
catalog. Therefore, they want to spend the least amount of time with the
catalog as possible so they can get into the stacks, which is where they
really find the information they want. The cataloging gurus don't seem
to understand this very basic fact, and are building something else. I
also haven't seen anyone talking about hiring the needed flotillas of
new, incredibly highly trained RDA/Bibframe catalogers to actually do
the work--and paying for these highly trained people. Funding has never
been a part of the RDA/Bibframe equations. But funding is a major
consideration in individual libraries, as your experience shows. I find
it very sad. It's hard to predict what will happen to libraries, and in
libraries, when the next economic downturn comes. As we all know it must.
Yet, I am really worried about the future of librarianship and libraries
in general, and I mean the future as in "existential threat." There is
the business side disaster that you speak of, but what concerns me
perhaps more is that libraries seem to have given up on some highly
important problems needed by our society desperately, and I think
librarians--as a group--are in a special position to help solve these
problems. I am talking about the problem of "fake news" and who and what
to believe. People now throw competing "experts" and "facts" at one
another like they are brickbats. There are hundreds of ways this is
happening and it is permeating throughout our society. This results in
people either being bewildering so much that they take on a nihilistic
frame of mind, or they spend their time nursing their "cognitive bias"
by looking only for whatever confirms the beliefs they already hold.
With all of the blogs and websites produced by all and sundry, you can
always find "evidence" for whatever stance you are looking for.
Information has already become a serious political issue and I see it
becoming only much, much worse. At one time if you wanted information,
you would go to the local library and look at the books and journals
there that had been selected by the librarian, and you would hope the
librarian was not simply mirroring his or her own social and political
opinions in the library's collection. Sometimes you even spoke with the
librarian. But that world is gone now. I can't remember how many
information literacy workshops I have taught, but I also have no doubt
that none of my students remember much, if anything, of what they
(supposedly) learned. Workshops--in other words: foisting the problem
onto the public for them to solve themselves--is not, and has never
been, an answer.
But more workshops is the only answer I have seen from the library
community. I think there is so much that libraries could do to help this
situation, but they don't. They seem to prefer to dream about creating
"makerspaces," or clearing out the books for workspace for group
projects or trying to get Krispy Kremes into the library's ultra-cool
coffee bar. In other words, they seem to be concentrating on the parts
of a library that do not relate intellectually to a library's
collection, but to the library as community center. That's
okay--community centers are needed--but if that is the future direction
of librarianship, you really don't need librarians, you need people
skilled in the hospitality industry.
In cataloging, the hope is that linked data will arrive like a handsome
prince to save us but I haven't seen too many successes from linked
data. Perhaps there is a use for it and maybe even in libraries but I
certainly don't think it's useful in library catalogs.
Well, that's enough of my own rant. Good to hear from you. My wife and I
recently had a nice trip to Brussels, Belgium, where it was blissfully
cooler than here in Rome. Good beer too!
Ciao,
Jim
--
James Weinheimerwei...@gmail.com
First Thushttp://blog.jweinheimer.net
First Thus Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/FirstThus
Personal Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/james.weinheimer.35
Google+https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesWeinheimer
Cooperative Cataloging Ruleshttp://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Cataloging Matters Podcastshttp://blog.jweinheimer.net/cataloging-matters-podcasts
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages