On 3/6/2015 10:59 PM, Ross Singer wrote:
> I've spent the last 20 years working to make computers understand AACR2.
> Theoretically, I could be "licensed librarian" in two (full disclosure:
> I am not a librarian). Are you saying that as a 20 year library
> technologist I can't crack the marc/aacr2 nut? If so, wouldn't that be
> more damning of MARC/aacr2?
>
> I guarantee that if you actually worked with the MARC records that are
> in the majority (and didn't have a stake in a company that supplies a
> subset of quality MARC data) you would never suggest relying on the
> fixed fields for this.
>
> Fixed fields could potentially help me limit to what's been published in
> England. If I'm not interested in things published in London, Oxford, or
> Cambridge (which, let's be realistic, will be the lion's share), the
> burden's on me to wade through the results to find what I want.
>
> And yet, all it takes is one interested (possibly non-library) person to
> identify the publishers in the West Midlands and all of the libraries in
> Birmingham, warwickshire, worcestershire, staffordshire, etc. has a
> curated set locally published resources.
>
> Something libraries are completely unable to do currently.

These are some revealing comments. I would like to analyze them since I
think they show some of the basic differences of a systems person vs. a
librarian/cataloger. I have discussed this problem at some length in a
podcast of mine, and also in a presentation I gave for students at La
Sapienza here in Rome.

You have asked a question: what has been published in West Midlands, and
then say that libraries are completely unable to answer that currently.
But is that correct? Can libraries provide that answer? Yes, but they do
it in a way different from how a systems person might expect.

To expect the library *catalog* to do it is actually using the wrong
tool. The catalog was never designed to answer such questions. It never
was designed to do it and (probably) never will. So, expecting the
library catalog to answer such a question is (to me as a
librarian/cataloger) much the same as expecting a hammer to help you
examine the rings of Saturn.

That comparison may be shocking and seem incorrect, but to expect a
library catalog to do what it is not designed to do is just as shocking
to the cataloger. It is unfair to expect a tool to do what it is not
designed to do.

It should be clear that if you want to examine the rings of Saturn, you
must use another tool--and if the hammer does not help you, you should
realize you are using the wrong tool, and not conclude that the hammer
is therefore worthless.

A catalog does *not* contain data in the normal IT sense of the word.
That is probably another strange idea, but it is nevertheless a fact. It
contains information (data) that will *help* you find the information
you want. In other words, it contains *directional* information to what
you want, but it does not contain the information itself. Let's see how
this works in reality.

Going through the process of answering your question as a reference
librarian can illustrate it. If you want materials published in that
area of the world, can the library catalog help?

Yes, but you need to know how to use it. There is a subject heading
"Publishers and publishing" that can be subdivided geographically. There
are also lots of narrower terms and a nice scope note as well.

Following these headings (i.e. by browsing), we eventually come to
"Publishers and publishing--England" with further geographic
subdivisions, and we should not forget "Publishers and publishing--Great
Britain". It is very possible that the "data" you want is in some of
these sources.

For movies, there is the subject heading "Motion picture producers and
directors" that can also be subdivided geographically. So yes, libraries
very definitely *can* do what you want. And they do it--every single
day. Your question is not at all unique nor especially difficult. But it
takes the *entire library* to do it and to focus only on the catalog is
incorrect, and unfair.

Then, let's add the idea of a new tool you suggested, i.e. the example
you give of the "... one interested (possibly non-library) person to
identify the publishers in the West Midlands and all of the libraries in
Birmingham, warwickshire, worcestershire, staffordshire, etc. has a
curated set locally published resources". How does the library handle this?

It would be handled in the following way. His/her work would be selected
by a library selector to ensure quality, and then the cataloger would
make a record, and at least one subject would be under "Publishers and
publishing" with the appropriate geographic subdivision. The cataloger
would not add the actual information from that work into the catalog
itself--because the catalog was never designed to work that way.

To be honest, I am not that great of a reference librarian--there are
many others who are much better than I am. They may be able to help in
better ways than I can, but I at least know there is this heading,
although there are probably others.

Of course, it's not easy for a user to find a heading such as
"Publishers and publishing". Everybody has know that from the beginning,
and the solution was the extremely important job of the reference librarian.

Therefore, a catalog and the collection are designed to work very
closely together, and to separate the two make both practically
unusable. Perhaps people don't like this, but that's the way it all works.

Still, your question illustrates the basic problem very well: you expect
the library *catalog* to do what the library *collection* is designed to
do. I agree that lots of people expect this too, and then we arrive at a
major problem for libraries and their catalogs in the 21st century: New
user expectations.

I think this shows how the "data" in the library catalog is
fundamentally different from the "data" in other kinds of databases. And
it also illustrates how the normal tools used for "data mining" and
"data extraction" that work fairly well in other venues are more or less
doomed to failure when applied to library catalogs. They contain a
different kind of data.

So, to compare the situation to earlier times, it is like someone who
wants to know what has been published in a certain part of the world,
walks into a library, thumbs through the catalog, and walks out angry
because they have decided that the information they want isn't there,
all without asking anybody anything.

Unfortunately, this happens all the time today with visitors on the web
so of course people have bad experiences. Times have changed and the
scenario I described--once the norm--happens less and less, so I agree
that something must be done. Do we conclude that the "directional
information" found in the catalog is a useless relic of the past? Or do
we try to re-imagine what can be done with the tools we have? Libraries
have always had lots of tools.

I would like to think people are trying for the latter, but it seems as
if the current trends are for the former. In either case, the first step
is to understand where the real problems are and then it may be possible
to find solutions--or maybe not.

There are many other related issues of course. What do we want from a
library catalog?

For a deeper discussion, there is my podcast "Cataloging Matters No. 17:
Catalog Records as Data"
http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2013/01/cataloging-matters-no-17-catalog.html,
and my presentation to La Sapienza (shorter) is at
http://blog.jweinheimer.net/2014/06/presentation-to-la-sapienza.html

James Weinheimer [log in to unmask]
First Thus http://blog.jweinheimer.net
First Thus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/FirstThus
Personal Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/james.weinheimer.35
Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesWeinheimer
Cooperative Cataloging Rules
http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Cataloging Matters Podcasts
http://blog.jweinheimer.net/cataloging-matters-podcasts
The Library Herald http://libnews.jweinheimer.net/

[delay +30 days]