From Cataloguing to Metadata: An Invitation
In recent talks for library cataloguers on "the new world of metadata," I am often challenged for real evidence of a shift from traditional cataloguing tasks to more broadly defined metadata activities--and what kinds of activities are we talking about anyway? In other words, I have a sense that at least some of my audience members are from Missouri (the "show me" state).
Some Evidence
This post provides some evidence that the transition from cataloguing to metadata work is well underway and invites your collaboration in providing more. I'm not aware of any systematic studies of the transition that have been conducted in North America on this topic (are you?--if yes please share). However, an excellent study from down under--Directors Views on the Future of Cataloguing in Australia and New Zealand, 2007: A Survey, by Jenny Warren of Monash University--speaks to the topic at hand. Warren's respondents are split on the question whether cataloguers have already transferred their skills to metadata work. Fifty-four percent of the respondents to the Warren survey believe the shift to metadata work is underway in their libraries; forty-six percent believe the shift has not begun (see question 12a of the survey).
Some Activities
Those respondents who believe the shift from cataloguing to metadata is already happening in their libraries were asked to provide examples of the transition (question 12b). A sampling of their answers follows:
o Participation in or leadership of institutional repository, federated search, or image database development
o Maintenance of non-MARC databases
o Advising on the creation, structure and metadata for other library databases or information systems
o Working with thesauri (beyond the traditional library ones)
o Implementing and maintaining Dublin Core or EAD
o Tagging projects
o Indexing projects
o Developing and maintaining crosswalks and metadata conversions
o Becoming the metadata guru for websites
This seems a familiar list to me, based on what I have observed in North American libraries in transition. Other significant areas of activity that I'm aware for cataloguing/metadata units in transition include help with learning management systems' metadata and information access services. One related example includes the significant contribution of the MIT library's Cataloging and Metadata Services (CAMS) department to MIT's OpenCourseWare Project. In fact, MIT's CAMS mission statement seems to me an exemplar for a department in transition, and the MIT approach to offering for-fee metadata services is typical of the direction that I have observed several university libraries taking.
An Invitation
I would like to begin an informal, occasional series on this period of transition from cataloguing to metadata in libraries. Would you be willing to share your success stories and hard-earned lessons on this blog? I believe your shared experiences could be quite useful to those working through transitional issues in their own libraries. If you have a story that you think could help others better define their own path forward, please comment briefly on this post, and I'll be in touch about next steps. Thanks for considering this opportunity to share your experiences and help colleagues in other libraries.
This is a perfect blog post to use in the last org class of the semester as a focus for a look at how things are changing on the job. Thanks!
Found your post while trying to research exactly the same topic... thanks! Seems in addition to your list are all the activities underway to move cataloging out of traditional MARC.
This is an excellent topic that hopefully will get a lot of attention. As for myself, I wonder if the wording "a transition from cataloging to metadata" however misses the mark. Consulting the MIT's CAMs mission statement, this sentence really struck me: "The cataloging units of the MIT Libraries develop and apply creative solutions to manage and facilitate the use of information resources. " The reason this sentence seems important to me is that MIT retained the use of the expression "cataloging units" in regard to traditional cataloging and metadata. I think that the transition is an opening up of the tasks of the cataloger to include not just print and perhaps the DVD, sound recordings or other materials that the famaliar chapters in AACR2 treat but also to those information resources that have been deemed important for knowledge in one way or another. So, there is then a larger array of the materials with which catalogers handle. However, the process of describing and making these materials accessible for users is similar (especially in terms of the Find, Identify, etc. mantra of FRBR or even Cutter).
Of course, I realize that the topic is complexe and deserves more than a short paragraph. Hopefully others will contribute.
Cataloguer by trade but since my foray into all things social networking the necessity to apply metadata in a 'free for all' community was apparent. My organisation Scottish Library & Information Council started with using FlickR as a means for image storage, to my chagrin there was no standards applied for adding tags to objects. With this in mind, a colleague and I created a guideline for applying tags in FlickR and other social technologies we use for our organisations.
http://www.slainte.org.uk/files/pdf/web2/TaggingGuidelines08.pdf
We currently use it as an in house guide but do hope others will find it useful. I think it was my predilection for standards in cataloguing that made me do it and I wanted some consistency in the application of tags. I agree with the above comment, this is an extremely interesting topic and I'll be following this closely. Let's not even mention the personal metadata we input on a daily basis to other web based services...in my case, mainly shopping!