Prepared for the PCC Participants Meeting San Antonio TX January 2006 Karen Calhoun On Competition for Catalogers

January JOHN KERRY TESTIFYING BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE, APRIL 22, 1971

January The Way We Worked Books Journals Newspapers Gov docs Maps Scores AV Dissertations Special collections Manuscripts Papers Univ records Journal articles Conference proceedings Etc. Library catalogs Archives Abstracting & Indexing services

January Being a 21 st Century Librarian Starting points: –Technology-driven research, teaching and learning –Disintermediation (decrease in guided access to content) –Global “infosphere” –Accelerating shift in information seekers’ preferences for Web-based information and multimedia formats Librarianship: “There are few professions which contribute so much to the saving of time and to the progress of science.” –Library Journal, 1890

January From Dempsey, Lorcan et al “Metadata switch.” In E-Scholarship: A LITA Guide (Chicago: LITA). Used by permission.

January A New Kind of Library Build a vision of a new kind of library Examine assumptions Be more involved with research and learning materials and systems Move to next generation systems and services Make library collections and librarians more visible An online social network

January How Much Stress is Too Much?

January 20068

9 A New Way to Work “Instead of being a hoarder of containers, the library must become the facilitator of retrieval and dissemination.”—William Wulf, 2003 Blakeley, Daniel H. Cornell Center for Materials Research Facility Staff page

January Making Library Collections and Services Visible Library must be where the users’ eyes are –Interconnections, interoperability, and information delivery Offsite storage and the challenge to browsing Partnerships, partnerships, partnerships Much more robust and interconnected discovery and content delivery systems “2 ½ cheers for Google.” --Paul Duguid, May , Cornell University

January Library Catalogs, Cataloging, and Catalogers MARC, AACR, and LC Cooperative cataloging Affordability and scalability More than descriptive metadata Metadata is a strategic issue for libraries “Save the time of the reader.” --S.R. Ranganathan, 1931

January Affordability and Scalability Expense of cataloging Rapid growth of Web resources and digital assets Need more than descriptive metadata Interoperability issues Competition for Resources to Develop New Library Services Shrinking tech services departments Streamlining tech services workflows Increasing use of external sources of data; automated cataloging methods Changes in Information- Seeking Behavior Preference for online information Reliance on simple keyword search Decline of subject searching Expectation of seamless linking Table 1: Challenges Facing Traditional Cataloging

January Availability of Catalog Librarians LIS schools not teaching cataloging LIS grads not choosing cataloging Graying of the library profession (demographics) Significance of the Catalog Catalog is one part of a much larger infosphere Many new types of scholarly information objects not covered by catalog Future of Individual Library Catalogs Less emphasis on one catalog per library Shift toward multiple catalogs appearing as one catalog; shared catalogs; catalogs interwoven into the Web (Open WorldCat, RedLightGreen) Table 1, Continued: Challenges Facing Traditional Cataloging

January Increasing investment in access systems Help build new kinds of systems for IR and delivery; many new kinds of metadata; emphasis on re-use, interconnections, interoperability Active participation in the university knowledge community Blurring of lines between what has been public services and technical services; project and team-based workplaces; involvement in campus projects and digital asset management; consulting work; decreasing involvement in traditional cataloging duties Technology-driven research, teaching and learning Need for “IT fluency, esp. metadata specialists; increasing involvement in large-scale digital library research, development, and production projects Table 2 : Forecasts and Implications for Metadata Specialists

January Disintermediation and user self-sufficiency Catalog librarians have always served those who want to work autonomously; metadata specialists will also enhance ease of use through expertise in indexing, data organization and management, access vocabularies, taxonomies, ontologies, etc. Rising need for understanding of visualization and other techniques to support browsing Increasing use of metadata for linking of wide array of information objects Global infosphere, Web- based information, and multimedia Metadata specialists will develop/lobby for standards and best practices, but proliferation of systems and object types will continue; continued need for integrating frameworks and interoperability tools Table 2 Continued: Forecasts and Implications for Metadata Specialists

January Thank You! Being a Librarian: Metadata and Metadata Specialists in the Twenty-first Century Forthcoming in Metadata and Digital Collections: a Festschrift in Honor of Thomas P. Turner. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, Preprint 17 December http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/ 2231