Cataloguing – a problem shared?

Cataloguing – a problem shared? CIG Conference Sept 13th 2010 Sally Curry, RIN

Overview • RIN • Researchers – how do they work and what do they need for resource discovery • Cataloguing - how best to support research • Findings of the Creating Catalogues report • and other developments • Impact of financial constraints on libraries • Key points

Research Information Network • A small policy unit funded by the four HE Funding Councils, the seven Research Councils and the three National Libraries • Aims: to enhance and broaden the understanding of how researchers in the UK create and use information resources and services • Supports: the development of effective policies and practices for researchers, institutions, funders, information professionals and all others involved in the research information landscape

What does RIN do? RIN’s remit covers information in all formats, and how it relates to libraries, data archives, research funders, HEIs, publishers as well as researchers and all involved in the research process. ‘promoting improved access for researchers to information sources’

Researchers • What are their needs? • How do they work? • Do they need the library or its catalogues?

Researcher choice of information sources and search techniques • Like to work in their comfort zone • Use services recommended by colleagues or websites they believe to be authoritative • Search strategies - advice from colleagues • Discouraged from seeking out other resources because of the time and effort needed • Feel they know enough to find all they need

How do researchers work? • Speed and convenience of major importance • Traditional role of the catalogue and the librarian largely replaced by reliance on Google • Use a narrow range of search engines and bib sources • Concern about accessibility – barriers to published content and online information • Significant disciplinary differences

The Google Generation: Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future • Research behaviour traits commonly associated with younger users – impatience in search and navigation, and zero tolerance of any delay in satisfying their information needs – now the norm for all age-groups, from younger pupils and undergraduates through to professors • Although young people demonstrate an ease and familiarity with computers, they rely on the most basic search tools and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to asses the information that they find on the web’

Impact of lack of search skills • Over half of researchers have difficulty at least once a month in accessing the content they require from their own institution’s library Why? • Complex discovery options - External search interfaces are not well-integrated with library systems • Problems with search and navigation, combined to some degree of a lack of researcher expertise* • No licence has been purchased RIN Access Report

Impact of lack of access to resources • Around 59% feel that lack of access has a real impact on their research • 18% said it was a significant impact • Arts and Humanities report greatest concern over the impact on their work, Social Sciences less and scientists the least RIN Access Report

Resource Discovery • Essential to the work of researchers, teachers and students • The last 10 yearshas been a period of unprecedented change for all players in this arena • The resources available to researchers, the technology they are using, their means of communication with each other are all changing rapidly

Do researchers need libraries and catalogues? • Many think not • See the library purely as a bookstore and never use the library catalogue • The Google Generation study calls for libraries to respond urgently to the changing needs of researchers and other users and to understand the new means of searching and navigating information • ‘Learning what researchers want and need is crucial if libraries are not to become obsolete…’ Google Generation Report

The Catalogue: how best to support research? The role of the catalogue is essential in resource discovery But are many of our catalogues still fit for purpose in a networked world? Doug Vernimmen pictures

Creating Catalogues Report The report covered: • the role of all the providers in the creation and flow of bib records from publisher to the university or other libraries • Monographs, e-books; printed and e-journals, and journal articles • The balance between effort expended in enhancing records for new acquisitions and dealing with backlogs and retroconversion

Key issues investigated • Is the current balance of effort effective in meeting the needs of users? • Does the work on more than 160 university catalogues requiring locally adapted bib data provide the best return on investment? • Would the creation of a shared catalogue for the HE sector and researchers more widely be viable?

Findings overview Current systems are not efficient and do not always serve well the interests of the users they are intended for ‘All those involved in creating, distributing and using bibliographic data must work together to find creative, practical and sustainable ways to increase the efficiency of current systems, and to exploit the opportunities for developing new services’

Recommendations • E-books: Publishers and aggregators should work together with other interested groups in the supply chain, and with users, to consider how to establish comprehensive listings of high-quality records for e-books, and to seek agreement on standards for the content and format of such records • Scholarly journals: Publishers should be encouraged to make article-level metadata more widely available to third parties in a standard format, so that they can be harvested and utilised by aggregators, libraries, repositories and others

Recommendations Printed books: • Libraries should give serious consideration to the benefits that would accrue from moving from standalone catalogues to a shared catalogue for the whole UK HE sector • A shared catalogue for the whole of the UK HE sector could bring enormous benefits in terms of : • reduced costs • the potential for developing new, user-focused services which would allow them to remain relevant and compete with Amazon, Google and others

Creating Catalogues Workshop 1 • Meeting of all key stakeholders including • commercial vendors, • aggregators, • JISC and other national services, • academic and research libraries Output • Need for further work on: • Content – needs of users along the chain • Format – what format is needed • Licensing – constraints licensing issues may put on efficiencies in sharing and distribution

Creating Catalogues Workshop 2 Barriers identified: • A lack of trust in the quality of records supplied • Issues of the distinction between the use of catalogue records for management purposes and for discovery purposes • Confusion in the minds of those library staff handling the data over whether they were permitted to pass it on for further use

Creating Catalogues Workshop 2 Suggestions: • A simplification of the regulations attaching to catalogue records • A standard phrasing for permissions for reuse of records • A symbol attached to a record such as the Creative Commons ‘licensed for re-use for non-commercial purposes’

Creating Catalogues Workshop 2 Licensing catalogue records: - ‘Happy to accept they will be shared’ • at item level rather than passing on a complete set of data • provenance code to be retained within the files • some limits: some suppliers – eg Coutts have to pass on the limitations on the data that they are supplied with Support from supplier side: • BIC: ‘Anything that would make the library supply chain of metadata more efficient, we’d support.’ • BL: very supportive • The potential for linking with SCONUL shared services programme identified

Edinburgh Glasgow reciprocal cataloguing scheme • Cataloguing staff in each library had language skills that the other lacked • Resources pooled in the interest of future collection development • Edinburgh: Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew • Glasgow: Russian and Polish • Formal scheme ended some years ago but continued low level informally • Heads of service now to discuss reopening scheme

Challenge Fund – 16 new collections • + 7 from further additions • 16 Challenge Fund collections have brought in an additional 1,394,402 unique records • Plus 432,432 • 59.4% of the total records added are unique: • Total records on COPAC now 37,266,837

JISC RLUK Resource Discovery Task Force Vision ONE TO MANY; MANY TO ONE ‘That UK researchers and students should have easy, flexible access to content and services through collaborative, aggregated and integrated resource discovery and delivery framework which is comprehensive, open and sustainable’

British Library frees metadata The British Library is now making its bibliographic records available for free to researchers and other libraries – for non-commercial purposes • Libraries who wish to process material more efficiently – eg retro-con • For research - into publication patterns / data mining etc • Linked Data www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html

JISC: Sharing and re-using catalogue records in a Web 2.0 world • Contracts (licences) with record suppliers have a greater influence on what individual libraries can and cannot do with their records than intellectual property law • No such thing as a standard licence for the supply of records • To establish what libraries can and cannot do with records sourced from suppliers, they need to check their individual licences. The toolkit includes information on what sort of conditions to look out for in licences and the sort of clauses libraries should consider including when negotiating new licences with suppliers.

Special Collections • The Library’s USP • Ensure they are visible – fully catalogued online and exposed to search engines • They help to publicise the library and demonstrate the unique value of the resources available at your organisation • They are part of support for research throughout the your organisation, the UK and beyond

Institutional Repositories • Libraries have taken a leading role in managing institutional repositories • IRs will play an important role in what ever follows RAE • Are cataloguers involved? • Are there links between the OA resources and the catalogue?

Open Data and Data Management • Most research funders require grant holders to make data available for third parties • Little evidence that planned data management has been widely adopted • Confusions over terminology data, datasets, databases, digital objects, digital information • Major issues to be overcome with regard to the sensitivities of data ownership and of the researchers who provided it

Data Ownership issues - protection and trust • Responsibility, protectiveness and desire for control over data - concerns about inappropriate use • Creation, collection/gathering of data not usually the primary objective of research • Career rewards rarely come from sharing data • Resistance to open sharing of ‘intellectual capital’ • Decisions on when and how to share • Commercial, ethical, legal issues

Data Management role • Active engagement with researchers is crucial for the creation of a workable process of checks and balances • The DCC Digital Curation Centre provide on its website an analysis of the policies of all major UK funders http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-and-legal • UKRDS assessing the feasibility and costs of developing and maintaining a national shared digital research data service for UK Higher Education sector http://www.ukrds.ac.uk

The impact of financial constraints • Significant cuts in budgets are likely to be prolonged • Libraries have already made real efficiency savings in the last 10 years • There are few ‘efficiency’ savings left to be made – what will go – stock or services? • Shared Services the only area where there remains the possibility of reducing costs and retaining or enhancing services

Key points • Catalogues are an essential tool for research but they must be visible where the researchers work rather than expecting researchers to adapt to traditional ways of searching • Data Management may be coming your way • Financial situation will have an impact on your role and what you do • Shared services are the way forward

References • Creating catalogues: bibliographic records in a networked world - http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessing-information-resources/creating-catalogues-bibliographic-records-network; • Challenges for academic libraries in difficult economic times http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessing-information-resources/challenges-academic-libraries-difficult-economic- • Overcoming barriers: access to research information content www.rin.ac.uk/overcoming-barriers • Researchers’ use of academic libraries and their services http://www.rin.ac.uk/resources/rin-publications/ All the RIN reports and briefings are downloadable from the RIN website

References • Communicating Knowledge: How and why UK researchers publish and disseminate their findings www.rin.ac.uk/communicating-knowledge • E-journals: their use, value and impact www.rin.ac.uk/use-ejournals • ‘Transitions in scholarly communication’ focuses on changes taking place in the world of scholarly communications and their impact on research http://www.rin.ac.uk/resources/publishing/transitions-scholarly-communications • Interim conclusions from survey in BL/JISC October 2009 http://explorationforchange.net/attachments/054_Summary%20Report%20Final.pdf • Retooling libraries for the Data Challenge, Dorothea Salo. http://deve.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/salo/ If you would like to be added to the RIN mailing list, please contact me: sally.curry@rin.ac.uk

Cataloguing – a problem shared?