Rethinking What We Do

1. Rethinking What We Do The Library’s Diminishing Market Share William E. Moen <wemoen@unt.edu> Texas Center for Digital Knowledge School of Library and Information Sciences University of North Texas

2. To begin… • It’s not as if we just landed in Oz … • It’s not as if folks hadn’t been identifying the challenges and opportunities … • It’s not as if we haven’t been • Thinking • Conducting research • Discussing • Experimenting • … The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

3. The library catalog and cataloging • We used to know what the catalog described • “We can catalog the Internet via traditional AACR and MARC practices” • A little revision to the MARC record … • And changing the very nature of the catalog The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

4. Not Library Catalog The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

5. The Web Amazon DigitalResources DigitalResources Google DigitalResources Licensed Databases Library Catalog Local Databases The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

6. Taylor’s categories of added value • Ease of use • Noise reduction • Quality • Adaptability • Time-saving • Cost-saving The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

7. Interface Browsing Formatting Interfacing – Mediation Interfacing – Orientation Ordering Physical accessibility System Alphabetizing Highlighting important terms Taylor’s ease of use (examples) The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

8. Quesenbery’s 5 E's of Use • Effective • Efficient • Engaging • Error Tolerant • Easy to Learn The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

9. Access to library resources Your Library Information System Different: Interfaces Commands Presentation Citation Databases Gateway to the Internet Other Information Bibliographic Records The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

10. Integrating access Local or Remote User Citation Databases Digital Collections Bibliographic Records Local or Remote User Your Information System with Multiple Resources Single User Interface to Multiple Resources The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

11. OAIster.org • A union catalog of digital resources • Contains nearly 11,000,000 records describing freely-available and restricted-access digital resources • Uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting • Harvests the descriptive metadata (records) and makes those searchable • Currently harvesting from over 700 digital repositories The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

12. Index Data Master Key (prototype) • Enables efficient metasearching of hundreds of databases at the same time • Uses Z39.50, SRU/W, or proprietary protocols • Open-source-based alternative to proprietary, closed-source metasearch alternatives. • Supports: • on-the-fly merging • relevance-ranking • sorting by arbitrary data elements • facets for limiting result sets by subject, author, etc. • Current demo searches open web resources • OAIster • Open Directory • Wikipedia • Open Content Alliance • Can be used for metasearching of catalogs, commercial dbs, etc. The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

13. Distributed and integrated access Remote Information System (e.g., archives) Remote Information System (e.g., museum system) Your Information System (e.g., library resources) The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

14. The MCDU Project MARC Content Designation Utilization • Provide empirical evidence of catalogers’ use of MARC content designation • Identify commonly used elements of bibliographic records • Contribute to community discussion about core elements in MARC bibliographic records • Explore the evolution of MARC content designation • Develop research approach to understand the factors influencing levels of MARC content designation use The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

15. Richness of MARC The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

16. The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

17. Example results • 7,595,887 LC-created records in dataset • Type of Record: Book, Pamphlets, and Printed Sheets • Total number of unique fields: 167 • Number of fields accounting for 80% of occurrences: 14 fields (8.3%) • Number of fields accounting for 90% of occurrences: 21 fields (12.6%) • Approximately 110 fields (66%) occur in less than 1% of all records [Note: Fields are cataloger-supplied, not system-supplied] The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

18. Example results The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

19. Questions for catalogers, 1 • Can the data inform your local practices? • What about the 60% of all fields used in less than 1% of the records? • What is really needed in a bibliographic record? • Support for the four user tasks? • Management of information resources? • How do your systems use the infrequently used data? The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

20. Questions for catalogers, 2 • Can you argue persuasively for the cost/benefit of your existing practice? • Should the focus be on high-value, high-impact, high-quality data in a few fields/subfields? • Can you identify these few fields/subfields? • What would it mean for costs of cataloging? • What would this mean for training? The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

21. Adopting new cataloging practices • Select the appropriate metadata scheme. • Use level of description and schema (DC, LOM, VRA Core, etc,) appropriate to the bibliographic resource. Don’t apply MARC, AACR2, and LCSH to everything. • Consider …abandoning the use of controlled vocabularies [LCSH, MESH, etc] for topical subjects in bibliographic records. • Manually enrich metadata in important areas • Enhance name, main title, series titles, and uniform titles for prolific authors in music, literature, and special collections. • Automate Metadata Creation • Encourage the creation of metadata by vendors, and its ingestion into our catalog as early as possible in the process. • Import enhanced metadata whenever, wherever it is available from vendors and other sources. Rethinking How We Provide Bibliographic Services for the University of California (December 2005) The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

22. The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

23. AquaBrowser – Arlington Public Lib The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

24. Dempsey’s acronymic density or …this is the present future!! • Metadata schemes: • DC, MODS, CDWA, VRA, etc. • Metadata content standards • AACR, CCO, DACS, etc. • Metadata encoding standards: • MARC, XML, RDF, etc. • Metadata container/wrapper standards: • METS, MPEG, etc. • Discipline specific metadata schemes: • GILS, CSDGMI, GEM, IEEE-LOM, etc. • Other schemes of interest: • TEI, EAD, etc. “I've often said librarians should like any metadata they see.” (R. Tennant) The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

25. The changes are here and coming • The library as network centric not building centric • A node on the network in competition for users • The library catalog as one metadata repository • A rich repository of detailed metadata, which needs to interact with other network systems • The network centric library: • Exposes, transforms, reuses, and aggregates metadata • Supports interoperability of metadata • The library cataloger as metadata maven • Organizing and managing a wide variety of resources in multiple repositories with different metadata schemes • Digital libraries • Institutional repositories • Image databases • ,,,, The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

26. Closing quote Thus, if librarians are involved at all, it is already clear that their role with respect to metadata will be vastly different from their old cataloging role. As libraries and other agencies continue to make information accessible via the Web, there will be considerable need within the academy for the development of portals, tools, and strategies customized for precision research on the vast Web…. So far, most major developments in these areas have taken place outside of libraries, in the commercial database or portal world, and this trend is likely to continue. If colleges and universities determine that librarians should be involved, this could constitute a solid platform for academic libraries in the next generation. (Campbell, 2006) The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007

27. References • Index Data Master Key • http://mkey.indexdata.com/demo/ • OAIster.org • MARC Content Designation Utilization Project • http://www.mcdu.unt.edu • Karen Calhoun. (2006). The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools • http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf • Lorcan Dempsey. (2006). The Library Catalogue in the New Discovery Environment: Some Thoughts • http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue48/dempsey/ • Bibliographic Services Task Force. (2005). Rethinking How We Provide Bibliographic Services for the University of California • http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/BSTF/Final.pdf • Designing the future -- Library Systems and Data Formats • http://futurelib.pbwiki.com/ • Next Generation Catalog [listserv] • NGC4LIB@listserv.nd.edu • Jerry D Campbell.(2006) Changing a Cultural Icon: The Academic Library as a Virtual Destination. • http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0610.pdf The Eppes Lecture -- Florida State University -- March 20, 2007