Do Traditional Cataloging Rules Belong in Todays Catalog

1
The Baby and the Bathwater, or

• Do Traditional Cataloging Rules Belong in Todays
  Catalog?
• Margaret Foote
• Coordinator, Systems and Technical Processing
• Eastern Kentucky University
• (margaret.foote_at_eku.edu)
• OVGTSL Conference, May 17, 2007
• Bowling Green, KY

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What Shall We Do with the Baby?

• Do we keep the baby -- traditional cataloging?
• Do we throw out the baby with the bathwater --
  which means the end of traditional cataloging as
  we know it?
• Do we keep the baby and refresh its water?
• Lets see . . .

3
Looking at Tradition and beyond

• Tradition
• Sir Anthony Panizzi at the British Museum
• Pannizzis 91 rules (1841)
• Cutter, Ranganathan , AACR2, FRBR, RDA

• And beyond . .
• Google
• Karen Calhouns report, The Changing Nature of
  the Catalog and its Integration with Other
  Discovery Tools (2006)

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First and Foremost

• Define the Community You Serve -- Calhoun
• Every book its Reader -Ranganathan

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We are in a period of transition and the
transition may continue for years to come
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The catalog is no longer the main portal for
library users . . .

• . . . but the catalog is still a very important
  tool. We should continue to maintain its
• Quality
• Accuracy
• Currency

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Quality Enhance the Description

• Maintain traditional elements Title, place of
  publication, publisher, date, physical
  description
• Continue to add table of contents
• Add summaries (520 field) when available
• Include theses abstracts as well
• Add more access points even if rules are broken

8
Everyone Loves Authority Control

• Authority control is still valuable
• For names (personal, corporate, conference)
• For uniform titles
• For series titles
• For subject headings (if we keep them)
• Accuracy consistency important
• Viable system of cross references

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Subject HeadingsTo Keep or Not to Keep That
is the Question
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The Calhoun Report Action and Reaction

• In her report, The Changing Nature of the
  Catalog . . . Karen Calhoun recommends
  abolishment of LCSH
• Currently underway a study of LSCH by ALCTS,
  Cataloging and Classification Section, Subject
  Analysis Committee, SWOT Subcommittee
• SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
  Threats) of LCSH

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Our Decision as a Community

• Do we keep LCSH?
• Do we continue to perform subject analysis?
• Do we decide to rely solely on keyword?

12
Classification? Still Needed?

• Still good for print materials
• Collocates topics
• Provides address of book
• Not necessary for ebooks?
• Not necessary for ejournals?

13
The Vendor Needs to Work Harder for Us, Part 1
Cataloging Tools

• We need more assistance from vendors
• We should not need to rely on the community of
  users to solve basic problems such as a new book
  list
• In return, our demands should be broad-based, not
  for small local practices

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We need the Vendors to Work Harder for Us, Part
II the OPAC

• No more card catalog look
• User should be able to find all sorts of
  information easily type in cooking and get
  keyword cooking and subject heading cookery
  titles as well
• We are creating quality records, and those
  records should be easily accessed through the OPAC

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We as catalogers--need to quit being our own
worst enemies

• We often whine too much
• Sometimes we even border on hysteria over a
  change
• We need to cope with changes in culture, in
  technology
• We need to quit agonizing over rules when
  performing original cataloging
• But . . . .

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We Need to Keep our Passion for our Work
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Finally . . .

• The battle over costs sometimes called library
  administrator vs. cataloger is a tradition
  that probably will not end anytime soon.
• Let us deal with the battle as firmly and with
  as much grace as possible.

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In Conclusion

• We have too much of a rich tradition in
  cataloging (the baby) to toss it out with the
  bathwater
• We should fight for valuable traditions but let
  go of or modify traditions of lesser value
• We will have to deal with change, we will need to
  remember costs
• We need to refresh the bathwater, and continue
  with the worthwhile elements of the past for the
  users of the future