INTERESTING TIMES

MOLLY TAMARKINDUKE UNIVERSITY

Connecting RDA to the Catalog

1. Me2. AACR2, MARC & the catalog3. RDA & the catalog4. Outside the library: search & description5. The future6. Implications for administrators

Overview of Talk

About me

1982: 1st library job as work study: Univ. of Chicago Library

Tech services & development

1990: got MLS: St. Louis Public Cataloging & collection development

1992: Brooklyn Public reference 1996: Marlboro College librarian 1999: Marlboro IT director 2001: Duke Asst./Assoc Dean for

IT 2007: CTO, Univ. of Puget Sound 2009: Assoc. Univ. Librarian, IT,

Duke

AACR2AACR2 MARCMARC

Began in 1960s, revised in 1970s

Provides standard for description of physical objects

More like a conceptual data model (but MARC isn’t really a logical data model)

Early 1960s to create catalog cards

Predates relational databases

More like a transport protocol and markup than a data model Like HTTP / HTML

AACR2 and MARC

AACR2 & MARC

Both were created in an era where information was obtained through a physical medium (books, journals, documents)

Both are used to represent a physical item in a condensed form: information about information (metadata)

Both are used when representing a physical item digitally

MARCMARC The CatalogThe Catalog

Allows us to transfer information about our inventory

Allows us to represent a physical item electronically

Is the structure of necessity in today’s ILS

Provides inventoryProvides locationProvides statusAggregates items

around pre-defined vocabularies

Traditionally composed of MARC records

MARC & The Catalog

Reflections on MARC and the Catalog

Our catalogs are limited by our ILS systems

If your only tool is a hammer, every problem can be a MARC record

Our catalog is of limited utility—who does it really serve: us or our users?

RDA & MARC

RDA can be interpreted in MARC records in the same way AACR2 serves as a descriptive standard for MARC

RDA & MARC are not incompatible, though MARC 21 has been revised to incorporate RDA elements

But is the relationship between RDA and MARC relevant to our future?

RDA & the Catalog

If your catalog is a bunch of MARC records, then RDA can have minor effect on your catalog. But is this good?

If RDA can genuinely contribute to the semantic web, then why have a local catalog of MARC records?

WWW and the development of search

What happened?

To structured topics?

To controlled vocabulary

Has search gotten better or worse?

Recall the directories of yore (Yahoo, Alta Vista, even AOL)

What’s happened to search as a result?

How have users changed? Their expectations Their search strategies

Good enough is better than perfect Good, fast, or cheap:

pick twoBig business

commercially (Google, Bing!) and academically

What’s happening with description?

RDF = W3C standardOptimized for search

engines Best data format for

linked data (naturally builds a “web”)

RDA vocabularies can be viewed as an RDF subset

WHAT IS UNIQUE TO LIBRARIES?

WHAT CONTENT REQUIRES A LIBRARY-SPECIFIC APPROACH?

Print materials?Physical objects?

What is the difference between web resources and

information resources?

Future of Content

Print as the sole format is decreasing

Digital content is becoming unbundled, or bundled arbitrarily

Printed acquisitions are likely to be “special”

Digital content is getting less owned and more leased

Effects of content change on the catalog

More and more silos

More and more “discovery” tools

Less and less control

More and more “good enough”

Less and less value in the catalog?

Thinking ahead…Thinking ahead…

Access provided by identity services

Local catalog for special collections

Local catalog of value internally

Content discoverable via web standards

Continue to need a way to represent physical items

MARC record retired, converted

Descriptive standards apply to minority of objects available

Future Role of Catalog

Current Trends in [Library] Systems

Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) Community-sourced ILS for higher education Building more of a system to model data and less of a

data model

Cloud services expand Library as pioneer in this area Effect on local systems Effect on local silos

Collaborative development continue Again, library is a pioneer here

•CONTENT GROWING MORE FRAGMENTED

•CURRENT SYSTEMS DO NOT SUPPORT P TO E CHANGES

•CURRENT PLANNED CHANGES MAY SUSTAIN US

•CURRENT PLANNED CHANGES MAY NOT BE THE RADICAL DEPARTURE WE COULD HAVE

What we know for sure

Library Administration

Are you Bleeding edge? Leading edge? 3rd to none? Laggard?

What is your culture?

Where should you be?

ParetoPrinciple

For many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes

This is a law about optimizing resources

Are you building a system for 20% of your resources or 80%?

Are you building a system to handle exceptions or to manage the rule?

CURRENT AND FUTURE

What is best for your community?

FOLLOW THE MONEYQUESTION REALITY

What is best for industry?

RDARDA CatalogCatalog

Useful relation to RDF

Won’t solve the silo on its own

May be an important change for 20% of your resources?

Of internal use as local inventory

No longer authoritative for resources provided

Content must be exposed to 3rd party services

Summing It Up

Consider the following

Univ. of Phoenix For profit education

growing at about 10% year

DIYU Edupunk movement

Google Constant innovation

Blockbuster vs Netflix…. Deal making vs

customer-focused innovation?

Does anyone use: AOL Dogpile Altavista

INTERESTING QUESTIONS?

Interesting Times

Image Credits

Slide 3: photo of Regenstein Library from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Regenstein_Library_entrance.jpg (creative commons license)

Slide 7: photo of silos from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Allegany_Township_silos.jpg (creative commons license)

Slide 9: photo of pig from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lipstick_on_a_pig.jpg (creative commons license)

Slide 10: Altavista screenshot taken from http://www.solecontrolsolutions.com/blog/ . Reproduced here for purposes of commentary under fair use.

Slide 11: photo of March 2009 Computer cover from http://www.qmags.com/Magazines/PubHomePage.asp?publication=116&issue=3960&sessionID=9803ED4ABED8D09C248779E94; reproduced here for purposes of commentary under fair use

Slide 12: RDF illustration from http://www.semanticfocus.com/blog/entry/title/introduction-to-the-semantic-web-vision-and-technologies-part-3-the-resource-description-framework/ . Reproduced here with permission.

Slide 14: table from http://dwarfplanetpress.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/book-publishing-industry-statistics-part-4/ Reproduced here with permission.

Slide 15: catalog card photo from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LA2-katalogkort.jpg (creative commons license)

Slide 19: wave photo from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ocean_surface_wave.jpg. Photo in the public domain.