Union Catalogs As Institutions of

CultureHenryk HollenderLazarski University

Sept. 4, 2012 1

A cultural remark on „Union Catalogs As Institutions of Culture”.

This paper was initially intended for the Polish audience. When we hear „institutions of

culture”, we understand, in a sense, „cultured institutions” or, first of all, „institutions of

[appropriate, desired, mainstream] culture”. And indeed, we like „instytucje” to be „kultury”.

This is not necessarily what a native speaker would probably assume; her/his uderstanding

would be more anthropological, like „institutions characterized by their cultural

features or aspects”. 2

Union catalogs as institutions of culture?

What is cultural about union catalogs?

Obvious:

•Cultural contents: books & stuff

•A catalog can support research and leisure

Unobvious, perhaps:

•Catalog as source of standards, patterns, practices

•Catalog as a story (image? map?) of a national (regional, professional) culture

•An organization behind the catalog may engage in diversified cultural activities

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For. Maria Burchard, http://wyborcza.pl/51,90889,5311351.html?i=0

When we think of NUKAT…

• Pioneering• Standard-driven• Unifying, consolidating• Strict, austere• Disseminating bibliographic

rationality and excellence• Clear, user friendly, simple• The front line of essential

bibliographic discussion and decision in Poland

• Open and inviting • A general problem with

subject headings… addressed. But solved?

• Processing external data and gradually withdrawing from control of cataloguing quality

Nadia Caidi on national union catalogs (2004):„Like any socio-technical system, a union catalog embodies the values, beliefs and practices of its producers, along with their broader social and cultural contexts.”

This includes, among others:

• Power issues• Cultural issues (choices and values

that are embedded in the design and use of information, its agencies, and its technologies )

• Trade-off between globalization and localization

• Disseminantion or protection: language and cultural heritage issues 5

Does this thing communicate? Union catalog as a culture-specific creation

• Decisions, financing, organizational structure (formal and informal), management, organizational culture

• Priorities on contents and method

• „National” dimension: a monument or a utility. Heritage issues. Politics of memory

• Professional dimension. Is the information community able to learn from the undertaking? Follow it? Shape it? Oppose it?

• Public image and social function. The union catalog awareness in education and research

• Taxonomies, vocabularies and mapping: how catalog organizes knowledge and language (thesauri, indexes, terminology, classification, scripts)

• „Plenty of everything”: media, formats, technologies, genres. Completeness and lacunae

• Order and beauty: design, Website ergonomics, search functions, usage enjoyment, editorial taste and skills

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Scope of responsibilities of a central bibliographic utility: a case of ABES (France, 1994)

• Publisher of SUDOC (Système Universitaire de Documentation): 10 million bibliographic records, 32 million copies, 24 million public queries in 2010

• Manages and promotes the pooling and sharing of resources and strengths. Managerial mosaic: network of ca. 1,800 libraries; groups, committees, tasks, numerous links to the world of government and politics; complex issues in efficiency, transparency, and control.

• Increasingly working on the Semantic Web

• Theses portal: Fichier Central des Theses + STEP – Referencing Theses in Progress

• Negotiating and acquisitions of national licences and grouped orders

In Poland – probably the most difficult area 7

Union catalogs: hottest bibliographic and computational issues

• Authority control and the beginings of NUKAT

• Multiple physical contents

• Enhanced data, languages, alphabets etc. Diversified discourse units.

• Statistics that describe the catalog usage or contents (may lead to quantitative study on distribution of cultural phenomena, like a region’s publishing output)

• Global Library Manifestation Identifier (OCLC)

• Virtual International Authority File (OCLC)

• Duplicate records vs paralell records. New approach to record uniqueness, record linking, and record/holdings linking. (See the next slide)

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„The days of reliance on just one master record in WorldCat for a given publication are now over, and it is time for a new approach to clustering metadata and holdings information.” (WorldCat Quality: An OCLC Report, 2011, p. 11)

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Most widely held works by O. V. de L Milosz

Audience Level

Related Identities

Useful Links

Associated Subjects

Languages

Cultural lessons from THE union catalog, interoperation and connectivity

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oskar_Mi%C5%82osz_-_portrait.jpg10

„Magisterium” of a union catalog

• Authoritativeness of data

• Hub for processing and metadata of all that is published (cf. national catalog – national bibliography issue)

• Managerial excellence and patterns: speed, efficiency, routines, leadership and working habits

• Importance of „is in” and „is not in” for all that is published

• Giant record of the nation’s (state, region, network etc.) history and identity

• Contents information: how to combine neutrality, precision, and moral standards

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A case in presentation of material of high cultural importance (1). A union catalog record: a trimmed record from the local catalog?

Important note. But this is what the title actually mentions. The title could be more articulate – why not extend it, we are no longer restricted with the catalog card size, are we?

Even with shared cataloging, the union catalog is under a pressure from bibliographic cultures of contributing libraries.

• Isn’t ownership note copy-specific rather than edition-specific?

• Does NUKAT/WorldCat user deserves provenance info? If so, in what format?

• Bibliographic source: surely yes. But what „BSZ” actually means?

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Digital library – library catalog complementarity

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Union catalog and the language policy (1)

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Union catalog and the language policy (2). Transliteration, transcription, and respect for scripts other than Latin. In Poland?

Wydaje się, że w czasach obecnych, gdy znikały żelazne kurtyny i kruszone były betonowe mury, nadszedł czas na pełne respektowanie piękna kulturowego innych narodów i zaniechania niesławnych praktyk przeszłości. Wyzwaniem czasu nie jest całkowite zarzucenie transliteracji i transkrypcji, lecz wprowadzenie jednolitych zasad dodatkowego posługiwania się językiem oryginału w systemach informacyjnych i jak najszybsze wdrożenie ich w codzienną praktykę.

Jurand B. Czermiński: Cyfrowe środowisko współczesnej biblioteki, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2002, p. 144. http://www.ug.edu.pl/pl/?id_wyd=3413

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Scripts other than local/national are now common in union catalogs.

BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

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Каталог старопечатных книг (изданных с 1450 по 1830 гг.)

RUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY

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There is more to catalog

contents than its adopted

coverage

Civil war in Poland; The Bell Curve: Meager presence in libraries, and no translations into Polish

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And now subject headings: could they be sharp, informative, and unbiased? Assigned to fiction?

Supplemented with genre headings?

+ Goodreads reviews

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Different cataloging rules? Different understanding of the librarian’s role? Different understanding of the

analyzed text? Mitchell, Margaret: Gone with the Wind

O’Hara, Scarlett (Fictitious character) -- FictionGeorgia – History – Civil War, 1861-1865 -- FictionWomen – Georgia -- FictionLove storiesPlantation life – Fiction+ Summary

Israel Shahak: Jewish history, Jewish religion…

Israel – politics and governmentOrthodox Judaism – Israel – Controversial literatureZionismPalestinian Arabs – Israel

Mitchell, Margaret: Przeminęło z wiatrem

Stany Zjednoczone – 1861-1865 (Wojna secesyjna) – powieści

Gatunek/forma: Powieść amerykańska – 1900-1945 -- tłumaczenia polskie

Israel Shahak: Żydowskie dzieje i religia…

Kwestia żydowska – historiaJudaizm – pisma polemiczneJudaizm – zwyczaje i praktykiŻydzi – moralnośćŻydzi – obyczaje i zwyczajeŻydzi – sposób życia 22

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Culture – a librarian’s* perspective

Mission and performance of the national union catalog

What professional values and competences are present at the country’s library scene

The culture: elites and the general society

Global culture * h.hollender@lazarski.edu.pl