Ethics and cataloguing

Application of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)

to metadata associated with items in library stock

In September 2014 I was lucky enough to attend the CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing Group conference entitled: "Metadata: making an impact", at which Ruth Jenkins delivered a lightning talk "Improving subject-based metadata for LGBTQ related young adult books." At the time this was an interesting view on an area that, to my knowledge  had received little previous discussion [do let me know if you know otherwise], and was perhaps suggesting that young adults might benefit from being more easily able to discover resources that might reflect their own life experiences.  

In September 2017 the ALCTS ran an eforum entitled: “Power that is moral: cataloguing and ethics”, which was based on a session discussing cataloguing ethics at the ALA Annual Conference in June 2017. The ALA Code of Ethics was created in 1994, and ALCTS created a specific code for their members in the same year.

Up for discussion was the widespread use of LCSH in cataloguing records, how these terms are based on a Western code of ethics, and how appropriate, or otherwise, their usage is today, particularly in relation to equality.

Following up on this discussion I discovered an article about a small group of students in the US who felt that the use of the LCSH “Illegal aliens” was inappropriate. They got together with library and information professionals and were successful in persuading Library of Congress to withdraw the use of the term.

So, this term is no longer recognised in the up-to-date LC database, however, as with any changes to cataloguing and classification standards, there remains the problem of legacy records – records already in a system, which retain the use of out-of-date practices. The dilemma for most under-resourced cataloguing departments is, do we spend time amending our metadata retrospectively, and if so, how much time can we afford to divert from the cataloguing and classification of new stock. Certainly here at DMU, our previous approach has been to accept that there will always be a quantity of metadata that is outdated.

However, there are times when evidence of past practices need to be eradicated: this is one of those times.

With a view to improving our cataloguing and classification practices to better reflect current thinking and provide better access to our resources for our customers, a search was performed on the library catalogue using the term “Illegal aliens”. This search produced a disappointing 12 results, disappointing because the outcome was greater than zero.

Delving slightly deeper into the catalogue revealed that the term “Illegal aliens” was picked up by the search as it appeared as an LCSH, and as a result of these search results, cataloguers began to investigate and amend the use of this particular LCSH.

The consideration of this particular LCSH is the start of a bigger project to look at the application of subject headings more broadly, particularly in relation to equality, whilst at the same time allowing for those involved in the academic study of a discipline to still be able to identify relevant resources easily. 

Classification - a bit of a rant!

A book classified is a book lost … if no-one understands the classification scheme!

When I started at university one of the first big words I heard was “serendipity”. At the time my understanding was that the lecturer concerned was referring to the joy people experienced on browsing among the bookstacks and happening upon some exciting book they weren’t looking for but were keen to read, now that they'd come across it.

Today we could equally well apply this browsing to the [online] library catalogue. There are so many opportunities for users to happen upon something of interest, through almost any search of the catalogue – author, keyword, related search etc..

I went into librarianship because I wanted to help people, but was bothered by the sight of blood and the smell of hospitals, was not comfortable with the formality of teaching, was ill-prepared for a career in social work, but wanted to do more than work in a shop. I didn’t enter the profession because I loved books! For me, the excitement was always in tracking a book down - and not often about reading it - and seeing library users go away happy!

Do you need to understand Dewey (or whatever classification scheme the library uses) to know where to find your books? I would argue that you don’t. As a cataloguer, however, I do need to understand Dewey so I can assign your books with a number that suitably reflects the subject of the book, so that when you are looking for books on that subject you will be able to find them. And, yes, it would be nice if all the books on your subject and related subjects were on the shelves together, but this is virtually impossible to achieve, whatever classification schedule the library chooses to use. This is because in some way all subjects are related, either through their discipline, their subject, or in your own mind! This is perhaps where the internet has lead us to false expectations: Yes, if you are reading an article on the web about one thing, it will have links to articles on related topics, which you can easily navigate to and read, and then return from whence you came. That’s because computers are built to store and retrieve things in a particular way, which just isn’t possible with tens of thousands of physical items – in this case, books.

So, books are ordered on the shelves according to a specialised classification scheme. This could be a sequence of numbers, or letters, or a combination of both, and to the untrained eye, could be seen to be random. A classification scheme is designed with a couple of things in mind: It helps to a certain degree to collocate related subjects and it helps you to find the one book among the thousands on the subject you are interested in.

But, if books are hidden in some, seemingly, peculiar order on the shelves, how do you unlock the secret of that order? Well, the way in is through the OPAC; OPAC is your finding tool. If the library has it, it will be listed on OPAC and by typing in anything you already know about a specific book, or about a specific subject you can find the location of any book in the library. Library staff at the enquiry desks are always able to help you use OPAC and find what you are looking for.

That’s the easy bit! Once you’ve found your classification number, knowing how the books are arranged on the shelves and being able to find the one you want can be rather difficult, if not daunting. And that’s why we have library staff roving the floors, and who can be called upon to help you find books on the shelves. They are expert at it; this is their job!

We also provide leaflets aimed at explaining to you how to find things on the shelves – written by experts, with you in mind! However, when those experts question the choice of classification scheme, I do begin to despair …

Day in the life - Part 8, Day 2

Day 2 – Tuesday

All night-time water drunk. Bad night. Really tired.

Didn’t bother trying to park on campus today. Enjoyed the walk, if a bit chilly!

Straight in to looking at the budget figures again! So engrossed forgot to collect the Duty Manager pager and go to a 10 o’clock meeting! Arrived late to interesting meeting about inter-library loans; much food for thought.

Had many plans for today, but this has turned into a most surreal day! Still fretting over budgets, but I think I may have worked it out.

Today everyone seems to want me to sign their leave card: Is it the sight of the cataloguing backlog that is putting them off, I wonder?

Have sent my congrats and what I consider to be some useful links to a newly promoted member of my team.

Hmmm, as Duty Manager this morning, I failed to resolve a dispute over fines: This is disappointing. Haven’t had to look into such a situation for literally years, so I’m sure I could have dealt with it better than I did. Usually, I get involved in breaches of security, or having to advise people who want to bring children into the building.

Hot on the heels of the fines dispute, I find myself listening to an upset member of the team. Probably didn’t do that justice either, as feeling pre-occupied with unsatisfactory fines discussion, niggling doubts about the budget figures and an overwhelming sense of having too much to do in the time available. Maybe just listening was enough.

Hadn’t realised how difficult it can be to take part in a new staff induction! Numerous emails floating back and forth, but eventually it’s sorted.

Oh, just received a nice floor plan from one of the library offices; apparently they’ve had some move arounds and thought we might like to know where everyone now sits! Bit more sophisticated than our own desk plan!

Oh, someone undertaking NVQ wants to do the cat/class option! It’s great to hear that people are still interested in technical services work!! Better find out what they need from us. Very conscious that the person who used to help people with these units has now retired; hopefully we can find enough time to do this properly.

Have now put all the data back into the budget spreadsheet and it’s looking ok, but will take it home and look at it with a different perspective! Oh dear, having to text child to report I’m running 30 minutes late so he’ll have to stand around in the freezing cold waiting for me!

Cataloguing across sites

At one time I worked in an institution that had about five distinct sites at various locations throughout the UK. Each site was responsible for its own resource acquisition, and four were responsible for all their own cataloguing and classification, whilst the fifth only catalogued and classified off-air recordings. It was obvious from early on that some kind of co-operation was desirable, if we were to produce good quality cataloguing, since all the bib records were visible on the same OPAC.

Background

As a bit of background, three institutions joined with the largest of the institutions, while two were set up by the largest of the institutions. One of the joining institutions used the same LMS provider, so merging the two catalogues was quite easy, compared to the other two institutions who used a different LMS provider, so their bib records had to be converted and merged into the other LMS.

As for classification schemes, three of the libraries used Dewey, one used National Library of Medicine and, I regret to say, I can't remember what the other used, but I have a vague recollection it might have been BLISS.

Bringing it all together

In order to achieve some kind of cohesive system, a cross-site cataloguing group was formed, whose constitution included representatives from the cataloguing departments of each of the five sites, supplemented by representatives from other areas from the largest institution who were responsible for off-air recordings. This group met about once every term, to discuss standards, specific issues, etc., and to exchange experience.

Early decisions

Important decisions to be made from the outset included:

1. Agreeing a minimum standard for bib records. The LMS supplier provided a cataloguing manual that outlined the minimum acceptable core bibliographic record, so this, in conjunction with the BIBCO standards, was used as a basis for discussion and an agreement was reached on what should be included in a basic record, and how a record could be enhanced.
   



2. A consideration of the classification schemes in use, and the appropriateness if these. It was agreed that given one of the sites was specifically a nursing library, that NLM was the most appropriate classification scheme to be used at this site, although this did cause some confusion and clashes in the OPAC when copies of titles were held at any of the other libraries too. This was never satisfactorily ironed out, but at least it was possible to limit the OPAC search to just one site. The other site that wasn't using Dewey agreed to re-classify their stock and use the latest edition of Dewey. This proved interesting: the Phoenix schedule in that particular edition of Dewey hadn't yet been used in the largest institution, so when the time came to re-classify at the largest institution, class numbers for titles hald at both libraries could be taken from the re-classified copy at the smaller, specialist institution. There was also some conflict in the use of the Dewey schedules in the libraries that already used Dewey, for example, one used Option A for Law, whie the other used Option B; one library classified primary education in the education section, while the other classified it with the subject, using standard subdivisions. It was agreed that since the usage of the libraries was so different and the users' needs so different, that these adoptions of the classification scheme would continue.
   



3. Training needs of staff. Immediate training needs included training in the use of the LMS for staff in those libraries that were using a different system prior to the mergers; familiarisation sessions with the Dewey schedules for those library staff who would be re-classifying; and cataloguing training for those library staff who were new to cataloguing.

The termly meetings

Each meeting of the group was held at a different site, which enabled staff from the various libraries to meet staff doing similar jobs, giving them a face to a name and thus encouraged them to network. It was also useful to see the different acquisition and cataloguing / classification processes in action. This proved to be an eye-opener, especially for those working at the larger sites where the processes were split into small component parts, of which they did one bit, and for those working in the smaller where one person was involved in many of the steps in the process. It also helped to streamline processes, as staff were able to comment on and discuss the way things were done, and come up with improvements.

The format of the mettings followed that of any normal staff meeting, with issued raised, questions answered and information sought. Following the meeting there was often an exchange of experience session, concentrating on an agreed topic of interest. These included, amongst other things:

• video / off-air recordings cataloguing
  



• conference cataloguing




• use of series tracings (440, 490, 840 in those days)




• authority control work




• cataloguing of missing pages / offprint collections




• art exhibition cataloguing




• foreign language cataloguing

Whenever possible, these sessions were led by cataloguers involved in such work, rather than by the Chair of the group, and the sessions usually generated lively discussion.

Supplementary systems

In order to help members of the group communicate between meetings, an email group was set up (in the early days we used the predecessor of Yahoo groups) specifically for members of the cross-site cataloguing group. This ensured that all members of the group could be involved in the "conversations". There was also a shared files facility which was used by the group for uploading and storing agendas and minutes of the meetings and filing and retrieving training material, policy documents and other documentation produced in support of the group, for example the statement of minimum standards for bib records, notes from the exchange of experience sessions and any other useful information. The email group and the accompanying shared files were restriced to use only by members of the group, thus ensuring a degree of security and privacy.

Conclusion

Managing a geographically dispersed cataloguing operation could have proved difficult, but the co-operation between the library staff and the support from management of cross-site working, together with advances in technology meant that the system used was quite harmonious.

Apologies for the peculiar line spacings: I cannot get Blogger to do what I want today.

ALCTS-eforum

Towards the middle/end of last week I “attended” the ALCTS-eforum on the follow-up to "2010: The Year of Catalogue Research". For those of us in the UK who might not be familiar with the organisation, the Association for for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) is a part of the American Library Association (ALA). On its website the ALCTS says it is



"the premier resource for information specialists in collection development, preservation, and technical services. [and is] the leader in the development of principles, standards, and best practices for creating, collecting, organizing, delivering, and preserving information resources in all forms."



So, having picked up notification of the e-forum via Twitter, I subscribed and waited for things to happen - and, goodness, did they happen! The invitation to subscribe put forward the purpose of the group as to look at some of the following issues around catalogue research:



"How important is cataloging and classification research to your everyday technical services decision-making? Do you find the library literature useful in informing your policies and procedures? Are you producing statistical studies that might help others in the field? How do you disseminate your results? Do you find reviews of the literature helpful? Do you have suggestions for future directions in cataloging research? Is it time to develop formal dissemination forums for metadata research that are separate from MARC cataloging?"



This was followed by an introductory message suggesting that anyone contributing introduce themselves, and describe how they keep up-to-date, any suggestions for best practice, and what research they might be doing in the field of cataloguing.



As you might imagine, there were a variety of library staff contributing to the forum, all reporting many and varied ways of keeping up-to-date, including using RSS feeds, iGoogle, single blogs (like planet cataloguing), wikis, Twitter, some really whizzy personally created sites and a whole range of other things! There was interesting discussion around the value of differing information resources - the web 2.0-type resources compared to the traditional published journal resources.


Another area of discussion was the interest in research into cataloguing. Several suggestions came up, including the use of user tagging compared to the use of controlled vocabulary (like LCSH), and investigating catalogue usage statistics to inform bibliographic record creation.


It was also suggested that the community involved in the discussions seemed to be falling into three distinct camps: RDF / linked data; xml / metadata / digital; MARC / AACR cataloguing. There was concern that there was overlap in the areas of work, but that there perhaps wasn't enough communication and cross-pollination between the groups.


Discussion also focussed on the education of new information professionals and the sometimes woeful amount of time allocated to cover the whole area of cataloguing / metadata etc..


Overall, the e-forum proved to be an interesting sounding board for many thoughts and ideas, a few of which are mentioned above. The ALCTS will be producing a summary of the discussions so it you have an interest in this area, do check their website regularly for this report.


Apologies if this report sounds a bit disjointed: For some reason or other my original post got lost in the ether so I did a re-write - and these just never seem to be as coherent as the originals!


Lynne

Strategies for re-classification

Finally, as promised, a discussion on re-classification!

We all know that classification schemes need to change on a fairly regular basis in order to keep up with our ever-expanding knowledge, and remain a relevant way of organising the world's knowledge. Whether or not your library wants to keep up with these changes is, of course, a decision for each individual library service. There are a number of strategies that can be used to make the decision whether or not to re-classify and there are lots of different ways of going about it. Some of these issues are discussed in this paper.

Cataloguing backlogs!

As promised, a discussion on cataloguing backlogs - and what cataloguing department can say they haven't got one, or they've never had one?!

And, what's in a name? What is a "backlog"? Does it change its spots if it's called a "throughput", or a "work in progress"?

What is definite is that if you have one you're sure to know about it, and if you don't acknowledge it, public services / reader services staff will be sure to let you know! The other certainty is that if you don't take positive action, your backlog will never diminsh! If you want some courage to grab the bull by the horns, give this true life story a read!

Hoping this helps you and your backlog!