Quoting Stephen Paul Davis <[log in to unmask]>:
Karen and all: This is a great start to setting out goals. Just
a quick caveat about looking at costs. I think it's important not to
raise expectations that this effort will necessarily reduce costs,
although it should certainly be a goal that it not raise them.
****
kc: I agree that cost saving may not be a viable goal, but it has been
touted as one of the possible advantages of FRBR. Even if costs rise,
they need to be measured. The difficulty with cost/benefit in
libraries is always the difficulty of finding a measurement for the
various library services. Costs of cataloging could rise and at the
same time the value of services could rise even more -- thus you would
get more benefit for the cataloging costs.
I was able to do this kind of analysis with the implementation of RFID
in a library. Although RFID cost more to implement and manage than the
barcode system, in the end the library was circulating more items
using the same FTE. (some libraries I investigated had doubled or
tripled their circulation).
There undoubtedly are things we could measure and compare between
today and some future date. Things as simple as numbers of views of
catalog records -- assuming that seeing them is better value than not
seeing them. Links coming in from the outside. And, of course,
increased use of collections. All of those are measurable. You can
give them a value by a simple:
cost to catalog in 2011 / number of uses
cost to catalog in 2015 / number of uses
It usually comes down to "providing n times more service with n-2
times the cost." It's not going to win any awards from economists or
business schools, but it gives us something to measure.
kc
IMHO
costs in cataloging come chiefly from cataloging rules and "best
practices" not from the data format under the surface. It's not at
all clear that RDA will in fact reduce costs. And the fact that RDF/
MARC will allow us to do so many more new, cool things may in fact
tend to raise ambitions and costs -- just when some institutions are
trying to figure out how not to do cataloging at all ;}
Also -- the prospect that system vendors or developers in the tiny
library automation environment will invest a great deal in building
new post-MARC systems and then charge us less for them is unrealistic.
I'm all for starting to model and pilot this effort as soon as
possible, as you suggest, but let's not oversell it as a cost
reduction effort.
/Stephen
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Stephen Paul Davis ~ Director, Libraries Digital Program
207A Butler, Columbia University Libraries, New York, NY
email: [log in to unmask] ~ ph(212)854-8584 fax(212)854-0089
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At 11:00 PM 11/4/2011, BIBFRAME automatic digest system wrote:
> Browse the BIBFRAME online archives.[1]
> Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2011 11:11:30 -0700
> From: Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Goals
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>
> [From my blog post
>
http://kcoyle.blogspot.com/2011/11/future-format-goals-and-measures.html]
>
> What needs to be done before we go much further is to begin to
> state
> our specific goals and the criteria we will use to determine if we
> have met those goals. Some goals we will discover in the course of
> developing the new environment, so this should be considered a
> growing
> list. I think it is important that every goal have measurements
> associated with it, to the extent possible. It makes no sense to
> make
> changes if we cannot know what those changes have achieved. Here
> are
> some examples of the kinds of things I am thinking of in terms of
> goals; these may not be the actual goals of the project, they are
> just
> illustrations that I have invented.
>
> COSTS
> - goal: it should be less expensive to create the bibliographic
> data
> during the cataloging process
> measurement: using time studies, compare cataloging in MARC and in
> the new format
> - goal: it should be less expensive to maintain the format
> measurement: compare the total time required for a typical MARBI
> proposal to the time required for the new format
> - goal: it should be less expensive for vendors to make required
> changes or additions
> measurement: compare the number of programmer hours needed to make
> a change in the MARC environment and the new environment
>
> COLLABORATION
> - goal: collaboration on data creation with a wider group of
> communities
> measurement: count the number of non-library communities that we
> are sharing data with before and after
> - goal: greater participation of small libraries in shared data
> measurement: count number of libraries that were sharing before
> and after the change
> - goal: make library data available for use by other information
> communities
> measurement: count use of library data in non-library web
> environments before and after
>
> INNOVATION
> - goal: library technology staff should be able to implement
> "apps"
> for their libraries faster and easier than they can today.
> measurement: either number of apps created, or a time measure to
> implement (this one may be hard to compare)
> - goal: library systems vendors can develop new services more
> quickly and more cheaply than before
> measurement: number of changes made in the course of a year, or
> number of staff dedicated to those changes. Another measurement
> would
> be what libraries are charged and how many libraries make the
> change
> within some stated time frame
>
> As you can tell from this list, most of the measurements require
> system implementation, not just the development of a new format.
> But
> the new format cannot be an end in itself; the goal has to be the
> implementation of systems and services using that format. The first
>
> MARC format that was developed was tested in the LC workflow to see
> if
> it met the needs of the Library. This required the creation of a
> system (called the "MARC Pilot Project"[1]) and a test
> period of one
> year. The testing that took place for RDA is probably comparable
> and
> could serve as a model. Some of the measurements will not be
> available
> before full implementation, such as the inclusion of more small
> libraries. Continued measurement will be needed.
>
> kc
>
> [1] http://openlibrary.org/works/OL6774532W/The_MARC_pilot_project
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
Links:
------
[1] http://listserv.loc.gov/cgi-bin/wa?LIST=BIBFRAME
--
Karen Coyle
[log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
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