cataloging: an exciting subject for exciting times

11
This article was downloaded by: [University of Tennessee, Knoxville] On: 22 December 2014, At: 02:10 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Cataloging & Classification Quarterly Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wccq20 Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times Robert P. Holley a a Library & Information Science Program , Wayne State University , 106 Kresge Library, Detroit, MI, 48202 E-mail: Published online: 23 Oct 2009. To cite this article: Robert P. Holley (2002) Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 34:1-2, 41-50, DOI: 10.1300/J104v34n01_04 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J104v34n01_04 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

This article was downloaded by [University of Tennessee Knoxville]On 22 December 2014 At 0210Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number 1072954 Registered office Mortimer House37-41 Mortimer Street London W1T 3JH UK

Cataloging amp Classification QuarterlyPublication details including instructions for authors and subscription informationhttpwwwtandfonlinecomloiwccq20

Cataloging An Exciting Subject for Exciting TimesRobert P Holley aa Library amp Information Science Program Wayne State University 106 Kresge LibraryDetroit MI 48202 E-mailPublished online 23 Oct 2009

To cite this article Robert P Holley (2002) Cataloging An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times Cataloging amp ClassificationQuarterly 341-2 41-50 DOI 101300J104v34n01_04

To link to this article httpdxdoiorg101300J104v34n01_04

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor amp Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the ldquoContentrdquo) containedin the publications on our platform However Taylor amp Francis our agents and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy completeness or suitability for any purpose of theContent Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor amp Francis The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses actions claims proceedings demands costs expenses damages and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content

This article may be used for research teaching and private study purposes Any substantial or systematicreproduction redistribution reselling loan sub-licensing systematic supply or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden Terms amp Conditions of access and use can be found at httpwwwtandfonlinecompageterms-and-conditions

Cataloging

An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

Robert P Holley

SUMMARY Cataloging remains a fundamental component of library and

information science and has many lessons to teach the architects of the

Internet age All students can benefit from taking a cataloging course espe-

cially if it stresses cataloging as one specific answer to the problems of

managing information and places cataloging within a larger context that

also includes indexing and Internet search engines Students deserve cata-

loging courses that combine theory and practice avoid memorization and

require them to show a mastery of core principles rather than picky details

This paper includes specific suggestions on how to make cataloging excit-

ing [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service1-800-HAWORTH E-mail address ltgetinfohaworth pressinccomgt WebsitelthttpwwwHaworthPresscomgtcopy2002byTheHaworthPress IncAll rights reserved]

KEYWORDS Cataloging education cataloging curriculum

MY BACKGROUND

I set myself the goal of becoming the best cataloging professor in NorthAmerica when I had the opportunity in 1993 to become a library educatorafter over 20 years as a practitioner I remember the first semester when I

Robert P Holley is Professor Library amp Information Science Program 106 Kresge

Library Wayne State University Detroit MI 48202 (E-mail aa3805wayneedu)

[Haworth co-indexing entry note] ldquoCataloging An Exciting Subject for Exciting Timesrdquo Holley Robert P

Co-published simultaneously in Cataloging amp Classification Quarterly (The Haworth Information Press an im-

print of The Haworth Press Inc) Vol 34 No 12 2002 pp 43-52 and Education for Cataloging and the Orga-

nization of Information Pitfalls and the Pendulum (ed Janet Swan Hill) The Haworth Information Press an

imprint of The Haworth Press Inc 2002 pp 43-52 Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee

from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH 900 am - 500 pm (EST) E-mail address

getinfohaworthpressinccom]

2002 by The Haworth Press Inc All rights reserved 41

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taught two sections of ldquoIntroduction to Technical Servicesrdquo to 50 studentsI did some things right and many other things wrong but I had a firm senseof what I wanted to accomplish Fate however intervened before my sec-ond semester because the Dean asked me to take over as Director of theWayne State University Library and Information Science Program WhileDirector I taught Advanced Classification and Cataloging but in themeantime the Program hired another professor to be the cataloging spe-cialist Thus I taught other non-cataloging courses and expect to do thesame now that I am returning to full-time teaching once again

Nonetheless I have thought very much about the debates that haveraged in the professional literature and within ALA Council about the im-portance of professional education in cataloging not only for catalogersbut also for all information professionals While I am aware of the pro-nounced tendency of graduates to flatter their former professors I havebeen pleased at the number of students who have taken the time to tell methat they still remembered a good bit of what I taught them in that one se-mester of cataloging Many hasten to add that they didnrsquot think at the timethat the course would ever be useful in their future careers and that theyconsidered me the ldquoprofessor-from-hellrdquo for requiring them to understandcataloging principles

I have a long background in cataloging and technical services In theearly 1970s I started my career in the Cataloging Department SterlingMemorial Library Yale University as a subject cataloger Soon after Iwas promoted to Assistant to the Head of the Cataloging Departmentwhere I had a major role in introducing OCLC I became Assistant Direc-tor for Technical Services at the Marriott Library University of Utah in1980 with responsibility for acquisitions serials and cataloging Irsquovebeen at Wayne State University since 1988 as Interim Dean AssociateDean Director of the Library and Information Science Program and Pro-fessor

My chief love has always been cataloging I remained intellectually in-volved even after I moved away from daily involvement in bibliographiccontrol I have been most professionally active in ALCTS where I was Pres-ident in 1994-1995 and have served on at least one ALCTS committee eachyear since the mid-1970s From 1981-1995 I held various offices in theIFLA Division of Bibliographic Control where I acquired a broader interna-tional perspective Finally I have been an active scholar with the majorityof my work on cataloging topics including frequent contributions to Cata-loging amp Classification Quarterly

42 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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2014

WHY TEACHING CATALOGING IS IMPORTANT

I hope to avoid the traditional clicheacutes in this section For example as aclassics major I always bristle when someone proposes learning Latin asa way to improve English vocabulary comprehension After all this is avery small advantage compared with acquiring a perspective on the worldview and literature of an important culture

Information Control Is the Foundation of Librarianship

I am using the more general term information control rather than biblio-graphic control because I will suggest later in this article that catalogingshould be presented as a specific case of the more general goal of control-ling information At the most fundamental level the main task of librari-anship and much of information science is to organize information oftenin large quantities in a way that is useful for information seekers Cata-loging and indexing are two principal means to achieve this goal Whilefull-text indexing and search engines have a role in information controlknowledge of cataloging and indexing helps understand their strengthsand limitations

Librarians Will Be More Effective If TheyUnderstand the Construction of Their InformationSeeking Tools

Librarians will be more effective in finding information both for them-selves and for their patrons if they understand the structure of rec- ords inthe online catalog the principles of authority control including cross ref-erences and the MARC format insofar as it affects indexing Often a suc-cessful search strategy requires understanding the type of entry to whichthe search term belongs according to cataloging rules Librarians shouldalso understand that the same records can be indexed retrieved and dis-played differently according to specific rules of various online catalogsThis is especially true since the Web allows searching multiple catalogswith multiple online systems that do not behave in the same way Evenwith a Z3950 connection librarians should know that certain searchesthat work in their online catalog may not be successful in another vendorrsquosonline catalog because that vendor does not support the same indexingstructures

Librarians provide better reference services if for example they know

A Matter of Opinion 43

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2014

bull the strengths and weakness of subject headings and classification as

subject retrieval toolsbull the impossibility of directly answering a patron query if the indexing

language does not provide the level of specificity requiredbull tricks for finding needed information through multiple searches that

build upon the structure of cataloging records andbull the required access points for special format material

More Patrons Use the Online CatalogThan Ask a Reference Question

I have often wondered why so little attention has been paid to the factthat relatively few users at least in public and academic libraries everask a question at the reference desk in comparison with those that use therecords in the online catalog or bibliographic databases For this reasonI would think that libraries would pay special attention to providing ac-curate cataloging records to selecting well-indexed databases and tochoosing the best retrieval tools available since these are excellent waysto assist users who are reluctant to ask for help at the reference desk andalso to make it less necessary that they do so The digital library furtherreinforces the wisdom of this strategy by distancing users from referencesupport and making them more dependent upon their own knowledge

Cataloging Has Valuable Lessons for the Internet Age

Traditional cataloging has much to teach the architects of the Internetage Experts who have the goal of taming the Internet and providing effec-tive access to its resources can learn much from the history and current prac-tice of cataloging because catalogers have attempted to solve similarproblems for over a century The goal of combining like items and distin-guishing unlike items is just as needed on the Internet as in any library cata-log though it will be much harder to achieve Catalogers have already facedthe issues of multiple languages non-Roman scripts and varying culturaltraditions of information creation and dissemination They therefore have im-portant lessons to share as information on the Internet becomes increasinglyavailable in languages other than English E-merchants are facing the issue ofsubject access and classification as customers with varying mental topologiesaccess their sites and will make a purchase only if they find what they arelooking for

44 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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SUGGESTIONS FOR CATALOGING PROFESSORS

Based upon my experiences as a cataloger reference librarian and edu-cator I make the following suggestions to improve the teaching of cata-loging in North American library and information programs Manyoverlap and are not mutually exclusive

Teach As If Your Students Are Not Goingto Be Catalogers When They Graduate

I believe strongly that a professor should not teach cataloging with theassumption that students will become catalogers when they graduate Todo so requires paying too much attention to the immediate cataloging en-vironment In any case a professor who attempts to create a trained cata-loger in one course is doomed to failure because there is too much to learnand because local practice which cannot and should not be taught in li-brary school is such an important part of any catalogerrsquos training for aspecific position By assuming that students will not be catalogers theprofessor will be able to concentrate on the parts of cataloging that arenecessary for success in any library and information science position

Students who intend to become catalogers should take an advanced cat-aloging course if one is available sign up for a practicum in a catalogingdepartment or seek a part-time position at any level that includes catalog-ing responsibilities Even if none of these suggestions are possible for anindividual student I hope that cataloging administrators will hire brightstudents who have a grasp of principles and show interest in learning thepracticalities

Donrsquot Allow Students with a PractitionerBackground to Skip the Course

On a related issue I would recommend not allowing students with cata-loging experience to test out of a beginning cataloging course if it is re-quired within the curriculum The course should present a theoreticalperspective that they may lack should show where cataloging fits withinthe profession and should help them distinguish between cataloging as aprofessional responsibility and local practice within their institution Inaddition their presence in the classroom can be used to enrich the experi-ence for others

A Matter of Opinion 45

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Teach Cataloging Within the Context of Indexingand Information Science

I believe that the current trend to have a course with a title such as ldquoOr-ganization of Knowledgerdquo is a step in the right direction towards enablingstudent learning In my own institution I supported a curriculum revisionthat created a course that would prepare students to specialize further in ei-ther cataloging or indexing To use an analogy cataloging is Newtonianphysics within the larger context of the Einstein universe that is the orga-nization of knowledge Cataloging and indexing standards are specific ex-amples of answers to more general problems of information control Evenif the course is called cataloging placing cataloging within this broadercontext will help students better understand the fundamental issues andget a better perspective on what are core issues in comparison with periph-eral concerns

Create and Grade Practical Exercises Within a Broader Context

Students should learn the truth that what looks simple in theory may be-come complex in practice The emphasis however should be on problemsolving and on understanding the larger issues rather than on masteringsmall picky points I am not suggesting that students should not be re-quired to complete practical exercises Cataloging without practice wouldbe like taking a computer-programming course without writing code Theprofessor should avoid teaching mechanical solutions that may work inthe short run but that do nothing to increase the studentsrsquo understanding ofthe principles involved For example choosing the correct access points ismuch more important than knowing how many spaces to put between dataelements especially now that the computer can handle these chores auto-matically At all costs the professor should avoid the horrible gradingpractice of requiring that everything be perfect before giving any pointsfor an answer that is fundamentally correct but inaccurate in some smalldetail

Stress the Goals of Cataloging Rather Than the Rules

I firmly believe that the goal of cataloging is to help users find whatthey need rather than to follow the rules blindly One of the main reasonsfor having rules is that skilled users can predictably find what they need byfollowing the patterns that they have learned from prior experience Stu-dents should come to understand the importance of rules that favor access

46 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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2014

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

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world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

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mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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Page 2: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

Cataloging

An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

Robert P Holley

SUMMARY Cataloging remains a fundamental component of library and

information science and has many lessons to teach the architects of the

Internet age All students can benefit from taking a cataloging course espe-

cially if it stresses cataloging as one specific answer to the problems of

managing information and places cataloging within a larger context that

also includes indexing and Internet search engines Students deserve cata-

loging courses that combine theory and practice avoid memorization and

require them to show a mastery of core principles rather than picky details

This paper includes specific suggestions on how to make cataloging excit-

ing [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service1-800-HAWORTH E-mail address ltgetinfohaworth pressinccomgt WebsitelthttpwwwHaworthPresscomgtcopy2002byTheHaworthPress IncAll rights reserved]

KEYWORDS Cataloging education cataloging curriculum

MY BACKGROUND

I set myself the goal of becoming the best cataloging professor in NorthAmerica when I had the opportunity in 1993 to become a library educatorafter over 20 years as a practitioner I remember the first semester when I

Robert P Holley is Professor Library amp Information Science Program 106 Kresge

Library Wayne State University Detroit MI 48202 (E-mail aa3805wayneedu)

[Haworth co-indexing entry note] ldquoCataloging An Exciting Subject for Exciting Timesrdquo Holley Robert P

Co-published simultaneously in Cataloging amp Classification Quarterly (The Haworth Information Press an im-

print of The Haworth Press Inc) Vol 34 No 12 2002 pp 43-52 and Education for Cataloging and the Orga-

nization of Information Pitfalls and the Pendulum (ed Janet Swan Hill) The Haworth Information Press an

imprint of The Haworth Press Inc 2002 pp 43-52 Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee

from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH 900 am - 500 pm (EST) E-mail address

getinfohaworthpressinccom]

2002 by The Haworth Press Inc All rights reserved 41

Dow

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2014

taught two sections of ldquoIntroduction to Technical Servicesrdquo to 50 studentsI did some things right and many other things wrong but I had a firm senseof what I wanted to accomplish Fate however intervened before my sec-ond semester because the Dean asked me to take over as Director of theWayne State University Library and Information Science Program WhileDirector I taught Advanced Classification and Cataloging but in themeantime the Program hired another professor to be the cataloging spe-cialist Thus I taught other non-cataloging courses and expect to do thesame now that I am returning to full-time teaching once again

Nonetheless I have thought very much about the debates that haveraged in the professional literature and within ALA Council about the im-portance of professional education in cataloging not only for catalogersbut also for all information professionals While I am aware of the pro-nounced tendency of graduates to flatter their former professors I havebeen pleased at the number of students who have taken the time to tell methat they still remembered a good bit of what I taught them in that one se-mester of cataloging Many hasten to add that they didnrsquot think at the timethat the course would ever be useful in their future careers and that theyconsidered me the ldquoprofessor-from-hellrdquo for requiring them to understandcataloging principles

I have a long background in cataloging and technical services In theearly 1970s I started my career in the Cataloging Department SterlingMemorial Library Yale University as a subject cataloger Soon after Iwas promoted to Assistant to the Head of the Cataloging Departmentwhere I had a major role in introducing OCLC I became Assistant Direc-tor for Technical Services at the Marriott Library University of Utah in1980 with responsibility for acquisitions serials and cataloging Irsquovebeen at Wayne State University since 1988 as Interim Dean AssociateDean Director of the Library and Information Science Program and Pro-fessor

My chief love has always been cataloging I remained intellectually in-volved even after I moved away from daily involvement in bibliographiccontrol I have been most professionally active in ALCTS where I was Pres-ident in 1994-1995 and have served on at least one ALCTS committee eachyear since the mid-1970s From 1981-1995 I held various offices in theIFLA Division of Bibliographic Control where I acquired a broader interna-tional perspective Finally I have been an active scholar with the majorityof my work on cataloging topics including frequent contributions to Cata-loging amp Classification Quarterly

42 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

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by [

Uni

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f T

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Kno

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10 2

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2014

WHY TEACHING CATALOGING IS IMPORTANT

I hope to avoid the traditional clicheacutes in this section For example as aclassics major I always bristle when someone proposes learning Latin asa way to improve English vocabulary comprehension After all this is avery small advantage compared with acquiring a perspective on the worldview and literature of an important culture

Information Control Is the Foundation of Librarianship

I am using the more general term information control rather than biblio-graphic control because I will suggest later in this article that catalogingshould be presented as a specific case of the more general goal of control-ling information At the most fundamental level the main task of librari-anship and much of information science is to organize information oftenin large quantities in a way that is useful for information seekers Cata-loging and indexing are two principal means to achieve this goal Whilefull-text indexing and search engines have a role in information controlknowledge of cataloging and indexing helps understand their strengthsand limitations

Librarians Will Be More Effective If TheyUnderstand the Construction of Their InformationSeeking Tools

Librarians will be more effective in finding information both for them-selves and for their patrons if they understand the structure of rec- ords inthe online catalog the principles of authority control including cross ref-erences and the MARC format insofar as it affects indexing Often a suc-cessful search strategy requires understanding the type of entry to whichthe search term belongs according to cataloging rules Librarians shouldalso understand that the same records can be indexed retrieved and dis-played differently according to specific rules of various online catalogsThis is especially true since the Web allows searching multiple catalogswith multiple online systems that do not behave in the same way Evenwith a Z3950 connection librarians should know that certain searchesthat work in their online catalog may not be successful in another vendorrsquosonline catalog because that vendor does not support the same indexingstructures

Librarians provide better reference services if for example they know

A Matter of Opinion 43

Dow

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by [

Uni

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ecem

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2014

bull the strengths and weakness of subject headings and classification as

subject retrieval toolsbull the impossibility of directly answering a patron query if the indexing

language does not provide the level of specificity requiredbull tricks for finding needed information through multiple searches that

build upon the structure of cataloging records andbull the required access points for special format material

More Patrons Use the Online CatalogThan Ask a Reference Question

I have often wondered why so little attention has been paid to the factthat relatively few users at least in public and academic libraries everask a question at the reference desk in comparison with those that use therecords in the online catalog or bibliographic databases For this reasonI would think that libraries would pay special attention to providing ac-curate cataloging records to selecting well-indexed databases and tochoosing the best retrieval tools available since these are excellent waysto assist users who are reluctant to ask for help at the reference desk andalso to make it less necessary that they do so The digital library furtherreinforces the wisdom of this strategy by distancing users from referencesupport and making them more dependent upon their own knowledge

Cataloging Has Valuable Lessons for the Internet Age

Traditional cataloging has much to teach the architects of the Internetage Experts who have the goal of taming the Internet and providing effec-tive access to its resources can learn much from the history and current prac-tice of cataloging because catalogers have attempted to solve similarproblems for over a century The goal of combining like items and distin-guishing unlike items is just as needed on the Internet as in any library cata-log though it will be much harder to achieve Catalogers have already facedthe issues of multiple languages non-Roman scripts and varying culturaltraditions of information creation and dissemination They therefore have im-portant lessons to share as information on the Internet becomes increasinglyavailable in languages other than English E-merchants are facing the issue ofsubject access and classification as customers with varying mental topologiesaccess their sites and will make a purchase only if they find what they arelooking for

44 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

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f T

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ber

2014

SUGGESTIONS FOR CATALOGING PROFESSORS

Based upon my experiences as a cataloger reference librarian and edu-cator I make the following suggestions to improve the teaching of cata-loging in North American library and information programs Manyoverlap and are not mutually exclusive

Teach As If Your Students Are Not Goingto Be Catalogers When They Graduate

I believe strongly that a professor should not teach cataloging with theassumption that students will become catalogers when they graduate Todo so requires paying too much attention to the immediate cataloging en-vironment In any case a professor who attempts to create a trained cata-loger in one course is doomed to failure because there is too much to learnand because local practice which cannot and should not be taught in li-brary school is such an important part of any catalogerrsquos training for aspecific position By assuming that students will not be catalogers theprofessor will be able to concentrate on the parts of cataloging that arenecessary for success in any library and information science position

Students who intend to become catalogers should take an advanced cat-aloging course if one is available sign up for a practicum in a catalogingdepartment or seek a part-time position at any level that includes catalog-ing responsibilities Even if none of these suggestions are possible for anindividual student I hope that cataloging administrators will hire brightstudents who have a grasp of principles and show interest in learning thepracticalities

Donrsquot Allow Students with a PractitionerBackground to Skip the Course

On a related issue I would recommend not allowing students with cata-loging experience to test out of a beginning cataloging course if it is re-quired within the curriculum The course should present a theoreticalperspective that they may lack should show where cataloging fits withinthe profession and should help them distinguish between cataloging as aprofessional responsibility and local practice within their institution Inaddition their presence in the classroom can be used to enrich the experi-ence for others

A Matter of Opinion 45

Dow

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by [

Uni

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f T

enne

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e] a

t 02

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2014

Teach Cataloging Within the Context of Indexingand Information Science

I believe that the current trend to have a course with a title such as ldquoOr-ganization of Knowledgerdquo is a step in the right direction towards enablingstudent learning In my own institution I supported a curriculum revisionthat created a course that would prepare students to specialize further in ei-ther cataloging or indexing To use an analogy cataloging is Newtonianphysics within the larger context of the Einstein universe that is the orga-nization of knowledge Cataloging and indexing standards are specific ex-amples of answers to more general problems of information control Evenif the course is called cataloging placing cataloging within this broadercontext will help students better understand the fundamental issues andget a better perspective on what are core issues in comparison with periph-eral concerns

Create and Grade Practical Exercises Within a Broader Context

Students should learn the truth that what looks simple in theory may be-come complex in practice The emphasis however should be on problemsolving and on understanding the larger issues rather than on masteringsmall picky points I am not suggesting that students should not be re-quired to complete practical exercises Cataloging without practice wouldbe like taking a computer-programming course without writing code Theprofessor should avoid teaching mechanical solutions that may work inthe short run but that do nothing to increase the studentsrsquo understanding ofthe principles involved For example choosing the correct access points ismuch more important than knowing how many spaces to put between dataelements especially now that the computer can handle these chores auto-matically At all costs the professor should avoid the horrible gradingpractice of requiring that everything be perfect before giving any pointsfor an answer that is fundamentally correct but inaccurate in some smalldetail

Stress the Goals of Cataloging Rather Than the Rules

I firmly believe that the goal of cataloging is to help users find whatthey need rather than to follow the rules blindly One of the main reasonsfor having rules is that skilled users can predictably find what they need byfollowing the patterns that they have learned from prior experience Stu-dents should come to understand the importance of rules that favor access

46 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

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by [

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t 02

10 2

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ber

2014

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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f T

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ssee

Kno

xvill

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t 02

10 2

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ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

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2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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2014

Page 3: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

taught two sections of ldquoIntroduction to Technical Servicesrdquo to 50 studentsI did some things right and many other things wrong but I had a firm senseof what I wanted to accomplish Fate however intervened before my sec-ond semester because the Dean asked me to take over as Director of theWayne State University Library and Information Science Program WhileDirector I taught Advanced Classification and Cataloging but in themeantime the Program hired another professor to be the cataloging spe-cialist Thus I taught other non-cataloging courses and expect to do thesame now that I am returning to full-time teaching once again

Nonetheless I have thought very much about the debates that haveraged in the professional literature and within ALA Council about the im-portance of professional education in cataloging not only for catalogersbut also for all information professionals While I am aware of the pro-nounced tendency of graduates to flatter their former professors I havebeen pleased at the number of students who have taken the time to tell methat they still remembered a good bit of what I taught them in that one se-mester of cataloging Many hasten to add that they didnrsquot think at the timethat the course would ever be useful in their future careers and that theyconsidered me the ldquoprofessor-from-hellrdquo for requiring them to understandcataloging principles

I have a long background in cataloging and technical services In theearly 1970s I started my career in the Cataloging Department SterlingMemorial Library Yale University as a subject cataloger Soon after Iwas promoted to Assistant to the Head of the Cataloging Departmentwhere I had a major role in introducing OCLC I became Assistant Direc-tor for Technical Services at the Marriott Library University of Utah in1980 with responsibility for acquisitions serials and cataloging Irsquovebeen at Wayne State University since 1988 as Interim Dean AssociateDean Director of the Library and Information Science Program and Pro-fessor

My chief love has always been cataloging I remained intellectually in-volved even after I moved away from daily involvement in bibliographiccontrol I have been most professionally active in ALCTS where I was Pres-ident in 1994-1995 and have served on at least one ALCTS committee eachyear since the mid-1970s From 1981-1995 I held various offices in theIFLA Division of Bibliographic Control where I acquired a broader interna-tional perspective Finally I have been an active scholar with the majorityof my work on cataloging topics including frequent contributions to Cata-loging amp Classification Quarterly

42 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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2014

WHY TEACHING CATALOGING IS IMPORTANT

I hope to avoid the traditional clicheacutes in this section For example as aclassics major I always bristle when someone proposes learning Latin asa way to improve English vocabulary comprehension After all this is avery small advantage compared with acquiring a perspective on the worldview and literature of an important culture

Information Control Is the Foundation of Librarianship

I am using the more general term information control rather than biblio-graphic control because I will suggest later in this article that catalogingshould be presented as a specific case of the more general goal of control-ling information At the most fundamental level the main task of librari-anship and much of information science is to organize information oftenin large quantities in a way that is useful for information seekers Cata-loging and indexing are two principal means to achieve this goal Whilefull-text indexing and search engines have a role in information controlknowledge of cataloging and indexing helps understand their strengthsand limitations

Librarians Will Be More Effective If TheyUnderstand the Construction of Their InformationSeeking Tools

Librarians will be more effective in finding information both for them-selves and for their patrons if they understand the structure of rec- ords inthe online catalog the principles of authority control including cross ref-erences and the MARC format insofar as it affects indexing Often a suc-cessful search strategy requires understanding the type of entry to whichthe search term belongs according to cataloging rules Librarians shouldalso understand that the same records can be indexed retrieved and dis-played differently according to specific rules of various online catalogsThis is especially true since the Web allows searching multiple catalogswith multiple online systems that do not behave in the same way Evenwith a Z3950 connection librarians should know that certain searchesthat work in their online catalog may not be successful in another vendorrsquosonline catalog because that vendor does not support the same indexingstructures

Librarians provide better reference services if for example they know

A Matter of Opinion 43

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t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

bull the strengths and weakness of subject headings and classification as

subject retrieval toolsbull the impossibility of directly answering a patron query if the indexing

language does not provide the level of specificity requiredbull tricks for finding needed information through multiple searches that

build upon the structure of cataloging records andbull the required access points for special format material

More Patrons Use the Online CatalogThan Ask a Reference Question

I have often wondered why so little attention has been paid to the factthat relatively few users at least in public and academic libraries everask a question at the reference desk in comparison with those that use therecords in the online catalog or bibliographic databases For this reasonI would think that libraries would pay special attention to providing ac-curate cataloging records to selecting well-indexed databases and tochoosing the best retrieval tools available since these are excellent waysto assist users who are reluctant to ask for help at the reference desk andalso to make it less necessary that they do so The digital library furtherreinforces the wisdom of this strategy by distancing users from referencesupport and making them more dependent upon their own knowledge

Cataloging Has Valuable Lessons for the Internet Age

Traditional cataloging has much to teach the architects of the Internetage Experts who have the goal of taming the Internet and providing effec-tive access to its resources can learn much from the history and current prac-tice of cataloging because catalogers have attempted to solve similarproblems for over a century The goal of combining like items and distin-guishing unlike items is just as needed on the Internet as in any library cata-log though it will be much harder to achieve Catalogers have already facedthe issues of multiple languages non-Roman scripts and varying culturaltraditions of information creation and dissemination They therefore have im-portant lessons to share as information on the Internet becomes increasinglyavailable in languages other than English E-merchants are facing the issue ofsubject access and classification as customers with varying mental topologiesaccess their sites and will make a purchase only if they find what they arelooking for

44 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

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by [

Uni

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ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

SUGGESTIONS FOR CATALOGING PROFESSORS

Based upon my experiences as a cataloger reference librarian and edu-cator I make the following suggestions to improve the teaching of cata-loging in North American library and information programs Manyoverlap and are not mutually exclusive

Teach As If Your Students Are Not Goingto Be Catalogers When They Graduate

I believe strongly that a professor should not teach cataloging with theassumption that students will become catalogers when they graduate Todo so requires paying too much attention to the immediate cataloging en-vironment In any case a professor who attempts to create a trained cata-loger in one course is doomed to failure because there is too much to learnand because local practice which cannot and should not be taught in li-brary school is such an important part of any catalogerrsquos training for aspecific position By assuming that students will not be catalogers theprofessor will be able to concentrate on the parts of cataloging that arenecessary for success in any library and information science position

Students who intend to become catalogers should take an advanced cat-aloging course if one is available sign up for a practicum in a catalogingdepartment or seek a part-time position at any level that includes catalog-ing responsibilities Even if none of these suggestions are possible for anindividual student I hope that cataloging administrators will hire brightstudents who have a grasp of principles and show interest in learning thepracticalities

Donrsquot Allow Students with a PractitionerBackground to Skip the Course

On a related issue I would recommend not allowing students with cata-loging experience to test out of a beginning cataloging course if it is re-quired within the curriculum The course should present a theoreticalperspective that they may lack should show where cataloging fits withinthe profession and should help them distinguish between cataloging as aprofessional responsibility and local practice within their institution Inaddition their presence in the classroom can be used to enrich the experi-ence for others

A Matter of Opinion 45

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Teach Cataloging Within the Context of Indexingand Information Science

I believe that the current trend to have a course with a title such as ldquoOr-ganization of Knowledgerdquo is a step in the right direction towards enablingstudent learning In my own institution I supported a curriculum revisionthat created a course that would prepare students to specialize further in ei-ther cataloging or indexing To use an analogy cataloging is Newtonianphysics within the larger context of the Einstein universe that is the orga-nization of knowledge Cataloging and indexing standards are specific ex-amples of answers to more general problems of information control Evenif the course is called cataloging placing cataloging within this broadercontext will help students better understand the fundamental issues andget a better perspective on what are core issues in comparison with periph-eral concerns

Create and Grade Practical Exercises Within a Broader Context

Students should learn the truth that what looks simple in theory may be-come complex in practice The emphasis however should be on problemsolving and on understanding the larger issues rather than on masteringsmall picky points I am not suggesting that students should not be re-quired to complete practical exercises Cataloging without practice wouldbe like taking a computer-programming course without writing code Theprofessor should avoid teaching mechanical solutions that may work inthe short run but that do nothing to increase the studentsrsquo understanding ofthe principles involved For example choosing the correct access points ismuch more important than knowing how many spaces to put between dataelements especially now that the computer can handle these chores auto-matically At all costs the professor should avoid the horrible gradingpractice of requiring that everything be perfect before giving any pointsfor an answer that is fundamentally correct but inaccurate in some smalldetail

Stress the Goals of Cataloging Rather Than the Rules

I firmly believe that the goal of cataloging is to help users find whatthey need rather than to follow the rules blindly One of the main reasonsfor having rules is that skilled users can predictably find what they need byfollowing the patterns that they have learned from prior experience Stu-dents should come to understand the importance of rules that favor access

46 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 4: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

WHY TEACHING CATALOGING IS IMPORTANT

I hope to avoid the traditional clicheacutes in this section For example as aclassics major I always bristle when someone proposes learning Latin asa way to improve English vocabulary comprehension After all this is avery small advantage compared with acquiring a perspective on the worldview and literature of an important culture

Information Control Is the Foundation of Librarianship

I am using the more general term information control rather than biblio-graphic control because I will suggest later in this article that catalogingshould be presented as a specific case of the more general goal of control-ling information At the most fundamental level the main task of librari-anship and much of information science is to organize information oftenin large quantities in a way that is useful for information seekers Cata-loging and indexing are two principal means to achieve this goal Whilefull-text indexing and search engines have a role in information controlknowledge of cataloging and indexing helps understand their strengthsand limitations

Librarians Will Be More Effective If TheyUnderstand the Construction of Their InformationSeeking Tools

Librarians will be more effective in finding information both for them-selves and for their patrons if they understand the structure of rec- ords inthe online catalog the principles of authority control including cross ref-erences and the MARC format insofar as it affects indexing Often a suc-cessful search strategy requires understanding the type of entry to whichthe search term belongs according to cataloging rules Librarians shouldalso understand that the same records can be indexed retrieved and dis-played differently according to specific rules of various online catalogsThis is especially true since the Web allows searching multiple catalogswith multiple online systems that do not behave in the same way Evenwith a Z3950 connection librarians should know that certain searchesthat work in their online catalog may not be successful in another vendorrsquosonline catalog because that vendor does not support the same indexingstructures

Librarians provide better reference services if for example they know

A Matter of Opinion 43

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by [

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ity o

f T

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xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

bull the strengths and weakness of subject headings and classification as

subject retrieval toolsbull the impossibility of directly answering a patron query if the indexing

language does not provide the level of specificity requiredbull tricks for finding needed information through multiple searches that

build upon the structure of cataloging records andbull the required access points for special format material

More Patrons Use the Online CatalogThan Ask a Reference Question

I have often wondered why so little attention has been paid to the factthat relatively few users at least in public and academic libraries everask a question at the reference desk in comparison with those that use therecords in the online catalog or bibliographic databases For this reasonI would think that libraries would pay special attention to providing ac-curate cataloging records to selecting well-indexed databases and tochoosing the best retrieval tools available since these are excellent waysto assist users who are reluctant to ask for help at the reference desk andalso to make it less necessary that they do so The digital library furtherreinforces the wisdom of this strategy by distancing users from referencesupport and making them more dependent upon their own knowledge

Cataloging Has Valuable Lessons for the Internet Age

Traditional cataloging has much to teach the architects of the Internetage Experts who have the goal of taming the Internet and providing effec-tive access to its resources can learn much from the history and current prac-tice of cataloging because catalogers have attempted to solve similarproblems for over a century The goal of combining like items and distin-guishing unlike items is just as needed on the Internet as in any library cata-log though it will be much harder to achieve Catalogers have already facedthe issues of multiple languages non-Roman scripts and varying culturaltraditions of information creation and dissemination They therefore have im-portant lessons to share as information on the Internet becomes increasinglyavailable in languages other than English E-merchants are facing the issue ofsubject access and classification as customers with varying mental topologiesaccess their sites and will make a purchase only if they find what they arelooking for

44 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

SUGGESTIONS FOR CATALOGING PROFESSORS

Based upon my experiences as a cataloger reference librarian and edu-cator I make the following suggestions to improve the teaching of cata-loging in North American library and information programs Manyoverlap and are not mutually exclusive

Teach As If Your Students Are Not Goingto Be Catalogers When They Graduate

I believe strongly that a professor should not teach cataloging with theassumption that students will become catalogers when they graduate Todo so requires paying too much attention to the immediate cataloging en-vironment In any case a professor who attempts to create a trained cata-loger in one course is doomed to failure because there is too much to learnand because local practice which cannot and should not be taught in li-brary school is such an important part of any catalogerrsquos training for aspecific position By assuming that students will not be catalogers theprofessor will be able to concentrate on the parts of cataloging that arenecessary for success in any library and information science position

Students who intend to become catalogers should take an advanced cat-aloging course if one is available sign up for a practicum in a catalogingdepartment or seek a part-time position at any level that includes catalog-ing responsibilities Even if none of these suggestions are possible for anindividual student I hope that cataloging administrators will hire brightstudents who have a grasp of principles and show interest in learning thepracticalities

Donrsquot Allow Students with a PractitionerBackground to Skip the Course

On a related issue I would recommend not allowing students with cata-loging experience to test out of a beginning cataloging course if it is re-quired within the curriculum The course should present a theoreticalperspective that they may lack should show where cataloging fits withinthe profession and should help them distinguish between cataloging as aprofessional responsibility and local practice within their institution Inaddition their presence in the classroom can be used to enrich the experi-ence for others

A Matter of Opinion 45

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

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xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Teach Cataloging Within the Context of Indexingand Information Science

I believe that the current trend to have a course with a title such as ldquoOr-ganization of Knowledgerdquo is a step in the right direction towards enablingstudent learning In my own institution I supported a curriculum revisionthat created a course that would prepare students to specialize further in ei-ther cataloging or indexing To use an analogy cataloging is Newtonianphysics within the larger context of the Einstein universe that is the orga-nization of knowledge Cataloging and indexing standards are specific ex-amples of answers to more general problems of information control Evenif the course is called cataloging placing cataloging within this broadercontext will help students better understand the fundamental issues andget a better perspective on what are core issues in comparison with periph-eral concerns

Create and Grade Practical Exercises Within a Broader Context

Students should learn the truth that what looks simple in theory may be-come complex in practice The emphasis however should be on problemsolving and on understanding the larger issues rather than on masteringsmall picky points I am not suggesting that students should not be re-quired to complete practical exercises Cataloging without practice wouldbe like taking a computer-programming course without writing code Theprofessor should avoid teaching mechanical solutions that may work inthe short run but that do nothing to increase the studentsrsquo understanding ofthe principles involved For example choosing the correct access points ismuch more important than knowing how many spaces to put between dataelements especially now that the computer can handle these chores auto-matically At all costs the professor should avoid the horrible gradingpractice of requiring that everything be perfect before giving any pointsfor an answer that is fundamentally correct but inaccurate in some smalldetail

Stress the Goals of Cataloging Rather Than the Rules

I firmly believe that the goal of cataloging is to help users find whatthey need rather than to follow the rules blindly One of the main reasonsfor having rules is that skilled users can predictably find what they need byfollowing the patterns that they have learned from prior experience Stu-dents should come to understand the importance of rules that favor access

46 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

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ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

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e] a

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2014

Page 5: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

bull the strengths and weakness of subject headings and classification as

subject retrieval toolsbull the impossibility of directly answering a patron query if the indexing

language does not provide the level of specificity requiredbull tricks for finding needed information through multiple searches that

build upon the structure of cataloging records andbull the required access points for special format material

More Patrons Use the Online CatalogThan Ask a Reference Question

I have often wondered why so little attention has been paid to the factthat relatively few users at least in public and academic libraries everask a question at the reference desk in comparison with those that use therecords in the online catalog or bibliographic databases For this reasonI would think that libraries would pay special attention to providing ac-curate cataloging records to selecting well-indexed databases and tochoosing the best retrieval tools available since these are excellent waysto assist users who are reluctant to ask for help at the reference desk andalso to make it less necessary that they do so The digital library furtherreinforces the wisdom of this strategy by distancing users from referencesupport and making them more dependent upon their own knowledge

Cataloging Has Valuable Lessons for the Internet Age

Traditional cataloging has much to teach the architects of the Internetage Experts who have the goal of taming the Internet and providing effec-tive access to its resources can learn much from the history and current prac-tice of cataloging because catalogers have attempted to solve similarproblems for over a century The goal of combining like items and distin-guishing unlike items is just as needed on the Internet as in any library cata-log though it will be much harder to achieve Catalogers have already facedthe issues of multiple languages non-Roman scripts and varying culturaltraditions of information creation and dissemination They therefore have im-portant lessons to share as information on the Internet becomes increasinglyavailable in languages other than English E-merchants are facing the issue ofsubject access and classification as customers with varying mental topologiesaccess their sites and will make a purchase only if they find what they arelooking for

44 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

SUGGESTIONS FOR CATALOGING PROFESSORS

Based upon my experiences as a cataloger reference librarian and edu-cator I make the following suggestions to improve the teaching of cata-loging in North American library and information programs Manyoverlap and are not mutually exclusive

Teach As If Your Students Are Not Goingto Be Catalogers When They Graduate

I believe strongly that a professor should not teach cataloging with theassumption that students will become catalogers when they graduate Todo so requires paying too much attention to the immediate cataloging en-vironment In any case a professor who attempts to create a trained cata-loger in one course is doomed to failure because there is too much to learnand because local practice which cannot and should not be taught in li-brary school is such an important part of any catalogerrsquos training for aspecific position By assuming that students will not be catalogers theprofessor will be able to concentrate on the parts of cataloging that arenecessary for success in any library and information science position

Students who intend to become catalogers should take an advanced cat-aloging course if one is available sign up for a practicum in a catalogingdepartment or seek a part-time position at any level that includes catalog-ing responsibilities Even if none of these suggestions are possible for anindividual student I hope that cataloging administrators will hire brightstudents who have a grasp of principles and show interest in learning thepracticalities

Donrsquot Allow Students with a PractitionerBackground to Skip the Course

On a related issue I would recommend not allowing students with cata-loging experience to test out of a beginning cataloging course if it is re-quired within the curriculum The course should present a theoreticalperspective that they may lack should show where cataloging fits withinthe profession and should help them distinguish between cataloging as aprofessional responsibility and local practice within their institution Inaddition their presence in the classroom can be used to enrich the experi-ence for others

A Matter of Opinion 45

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Teach Cataloging Within the Context of Indexingand Information Science

I believe that the current trend to have a course with a title such as ldquoOr-ganization of Knowledgerdquo is a step in the right direction towards enablingstudent learning In my own institution I supported a curriculum revisionthat created a course that would prepare students to specialize further in ei-ther cataloging or indexing To use an analogy cataloging is Newtonianphysics within the larger context of the Einstein universe that is the orga-nization of knowledge Cataloging and indexing standards are specific ex-amples of answers to more general problems of information control Evenif the course is called cataloging placing cataloging within this broadercontext will help students better understand the fundamental issues andget a better perspective on what are core issues in comparison with periph-eral concerns

Create and Grade Practical Exercises Within a Broader Context

Students should learn the truth that what looks simple in theory may be-come complex in practice The emphasis however should be on problemsolving and on understanding the larger issues rather than on masteringsmall picky points I am not suggesting that students should not be re-quired to complete practical exercises Cataloging without practice wouldbe like taking a computer-programming course without writing code Theprofessor should avoid teaching mechanical solutions that may work inthe short run but that do nothing to increase the studentsrsquo understanding ofthe principles involved For example choosing the correct access points ismuch more important than knowing how many spaces to put between dataelements especially now that the computer can handle these chores auto-matically At all costs the professor should avoid the horrible gradingpractice of requiring that everything be perfect before giving any pointsfor an answer that is fundamentally correct but inaccurate in some smalldetail

Stress the Goals of Cataloging Rather Than the Rules

I firmly believe that the goal of cataloging is to help users find whatthey need rather than to follow the rules blindly One of the main reasonsfor having rules is that skilled users can predictably find what they need byfollowing the patterns that they have learned from prior experience Stu-dents should come to understand the importance of rules that favor access

46 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 6: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

SUGGESTIONS FOR CATALOGING PROFESSORS

Based upon my experiences as a cataloger reference librarian and edu-cator I make the following suggestions to improve the teaching of cata-loging in North American library and information programs Manyoverlap and are not mutually exclusive

Teach As If Your Students Are Not Goingto Be Catalogers When They Graduate

I believe strongly that a professor should not teach cataloging with theassumption that students will become catalogers when they graduate Todo so requires paying too much attention to the immediate cataloging en-vironment In any case a professor who attempts to create a trained cata-loger in one course is doomed to failure because there is too much to learnand because local practice which cannot and should not be taught in li-brary school is such an important part of any catalogerrsquos training for aspecific position By assuming that students will not be catalogers theprofessor will be able to concentrate on the parts of cataloging that arenecessary for success in any library and information science position

Students who intend to become catalogers should take an advanced cat-aloging course if one is available sign up for a practicum in a catalogingdepartment or seek a part-time position at any level that includes catalog-ing responsibilities Even if none of these suggestions are possible for anindividual student I hope that cataloging administrators will hire brightstudents who have a grasp of principles and show interest in learning thepracticalities

Donrsquot Allow Students with a PractitionerBackground to Skip the Course

On a related issue I would recommend not allowing students with cata-loging experience to test out of a beginning cataloging course if it is re-quired within the curriculum The course should present a theoreticalperspective that they may lack should show where cataloging fits withinthe profession and should help them distinguish between cataloging as aprofessional responsibility and local practice within their institution Inaddition their presence in the classroom can be used to enrich the experi-ence for others

A Matter of Opinion 45

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Teach Cataloging Within the Context of Indexingand Information Science

I believe that the current trend to have a course with a title such as ldquoOr-ganization of Knowledgerdquo is a step in the right direction towards enablingstudent learning In my own institution I supported a curriculum revisionthat created a course that would prepare students to specialize further in ei-ther cataloging or indexing To use an analogy cataloging is Newtonianphysics within the larger context of the Einstein universe that is the orga-nization of knowledge Cataloging and indexing standards are specific ex-amples of answers to more general problems of information control Evenif the course is called cataloging placing cataloging within this broadercontext will help students better understand the fundamental issues andget a better perspective on what are core issues in comparison with periph-eral concerns

Create and Grade Practical Exercises Within a Broader Context

Students should learn the truth that what looks simple in theory may be-come complex in practice The emphasis however should be on problemsolving and on understanding the larger issues rather than on masteringsmall picky points I am not suggesting that students should not be re-quired to complete practical exercises Cataloging without practice wouldbe like taking a computer-programming course without writing code Theprofessor should avoid teaching mechanical solutions that may work inthe short run but that do nothing to increase the studentsrsquo understanding ofthe principles involved For example choosing the correct access points ismuch more important than knowing how many spaces to put between dataelements especially now that the computer can handle these chores auto-matically At all costs the professor should avoid the horrible gradingpractice of requiring that everything be perfect before giving any pointsfor an answer that is fundamentally correct but inaccurate in some smalldetail

Stress the Goals of Cataloging Rather Than the Rules

I firmly believe that the goal of cataloging is to help users find whatthey need rather than to follow the rules blindly One of the main reasonsfor having rules is that skilled users can predictably find what they need byfollowing the patterns that they have learned from prior experience Stu-dents should come to understand the importance of rules that favor access

46 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 7: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

Teach Cataloging Within the Context of Indexingand Information Science

I believe that the current trend to have a course with a title such as ldquoOr-ganization of Knowledgerdquo is a step in the right direction towards enablingstudent learning In my own institution I supported a curriculum revisionthat created a course that would prepare students to specialize further in ei-ther cataloging or indexing To use an analogy cataloging is Newtonianphysics within the larger context of the Einstein universe that is the orga-nization of knowledge Cataloging and indexing standards are specific ex-amples of answers to more general problems of information control Evenif the course is called cataloging placing cataloging within this broadercontext will help students better understand the fundamental issues andget a better perspective on what are core issues in comparison with periph-eral concerns

Create and Grade Practical Exercises Within a Broader Context

Students should learn the truth that what looks simple in theory may be-come complex in practice The emphasis however should be on problemsolving and on understanding the larger issues rather than on masteringsmall picky points I am not suggesting that students should not be re-quired to complete practical exercises Cataloging without practice wouldbe like taking a computer-programming course without writing code Theprofessor should avoid teaching mechanical solutions that may work inthe short run but that do nothing to increase the studentsrsquo understanding ofthe principles involved For example choosing the correct access points ismuch more important than knowing how many spaces to put between dataelements especially now that the computer can handle these chores auto-matically At all costs the professor should avoid the horrible gradingpractice of requiring that everything be perfect before giving any pointsfor an answer that is fundamentally correct but inaccurate in some smalldetail

Stress the Goals of Cataloging Rather Than the Rules

I firmly believe that the goal of cataloging is to help users find whatthey need rather than to follow the rules blindly One of the main reasonsfor having rules is that skilled users can predictably find what they need byfollowing the patterns that they have learned from prior experience Stu-dents should come to understand the importance of rules that favor access

46 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 8: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

such as providing a supplementary added entry to take care of an amper-sand (amp) in a title so that the user who has heard about the item does notneed to know the specific typography of the title page But students shouldalso realize that rules are made to be bent If researchers refer to an item asthe Trainer Report the cataloger should include this commonly used titleas an added entry with the appropriate note as justification

Mimic the Real World Wherever Possible

I strongly favor replicating the real world experience of practitionerswherever possible Rather than using structured exercises where the stu-dents progress from one cataloging principle to the next I had my classcatalog ten items that I chose from the materials put aside for the librarybook sale I took care to choose different types to avoid too many ldquoeasyrdquoitems and to make sure that current AACR2 cataloging was not availableon OCLC Both the students and I learned a great deal about these tenbooks as we progressed through the syllabusndashdescription name accesssubject access and classification Somewhat to my surprise a sound re-cording presented an ambiguous chief source of information where it wasimpossible to tell whether The Who Live at Leeds was a title or statementof responsibility plus title Since this recording was much harder to cata-log than anticipated we spent class time discussing the two ways to pro-vide access so that users would find the catalog record no matter how theyor the cataloger interpreted the chief source of information I also noticedthat easy items in one cataloging category were very difficult in others Abook with simple description and name access presented a thorny problemwhen assigning the Dewey Decimal Classification number

I realize that this approach will not systematically cover all the rules ona given topic but it avoids the artificiality of a structured exercise wherestudents quickly figure out which resource to use and move quickly fromone section to the next without much thought Using a set of real itemsmimics the actual cataloging experience where librarians sometimes en-counter surprising difficulties in cataloging items that look superficiallysimple

De-Emphasize Memorization

I believe that one of the main reasons that many students dislike cata-loging classes is the emphasis upon memorization As someone with anexcellent conceptual memory but a poor literal memory (numbers tagsetc) I strongly recommend that cataloging professors mimic the real

A Matter of Opinion 47

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Page 9: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

world by allowing students to use their notes and cataloging tools duringexaminations Catalogers and reference librarians are usually hired andevaluated not on how much they have memorized but rather on how wellthey can find the appropriate answers In my opinion a good examinationshould stress understanding concepts In any case students who have notmastered the material will spend so much time looking for the answersthat they will not successfully finish a well-crafted examination But stu-dents who know what they are doing but have forgotten a small factshould be able to look it up

Give Technology an Appropriate Emphasis

In my experience some students mistake technological competence forcataloging mastery They believe that the ability to input a record into abibliographic utility is the most important part of cataloging In someways this attitude is understandable because it is satisfying to see thecompleted bibliographic record as an end product Furthermore studentsmay get immediate valuable feedback if they make fatal errors in theMARC format in a system that is programmed to reject incorrect valuesThe professor should however emphasize that technology is only a toolThe important part is the validity and usefulness of the cataloging recordfor information retrieval

Encourage Students to Trust Their Own Judgment

Professors should encourage students to trust their own judgments andto work through their cataloging assignments on their own Compulsivestudents and I confess to having been one do not often resist the tempta-tion to check their assigned items on OCLC RLIN or some other sourceof cataloging data In general doing so ends up confusing students as theyencounter records created under earlier editions of the cataloging codethe classification scheme or the subject heading list that may or may notbe correct under current practice As I stated earlier in the section on prac-tical exercises grading should reinforce this trust by assigning majorcredit for important decisions and overlooking minor mistakes especiallythose that the student could not be expected to avoid I also let my studentsknow that I had looked at the available cataloging records and would bemuch less sympathetic in the case of errors made from copying them

48 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

enne

ssee

Kno

xvill

e] a

t 02

10 2

2 D

ecem

ber

2014

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

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Page 10: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

Require a Thought Paper and Include EssayQuestions in Examinations

To underline the intellectual component of cataloging a catalogingclass should include a brief thought paper and essay questions are quiteappropriate for in-class or take-home examinations The suggested topicsshould allow students to prove that they understand the concepts of cata-loging With the professorrsquos approval some students may even wish to in-vestigate a topic of special personal interest Added benefits will beincreased familiarity with the professional literature exposure to points ofview beyond what the professor has taught in class and first hand experi-ence with the intellectual foundations of cataloging

For example I might suggest the following questions for a thought pa-per or an essay question

bull Is main entry still needed in the age of online and Internet accessbull What are the relative advantages of subject access versus classifica-

tion at the reference deskbull Is authority control worth the costbull If you were able to design the ideal online catalog what retrieval

functions would you consider to be most important Please baseyour answer on the material covered in this class

Obviously grading should take into account the knowledge levels of stu-dents but I think that professors would be surprised at the sophisticationof many studentsrsquo thinking

Avoid Apologies for Teaching Cataloging

If professors donrsquot value what they are teaching neither will students Icringe each time I hear a speaker on a cataloging topic tell the audiencethat they can take a nap during the speech because it will deal with dull is-sues that focus on boring details These ldquodull issuesrdquo and ldquoboring detailsrdquooften make the difference in providing effective library service to usersAfter all these years and at some distance from day-to-day issues I remainexcited about cataloging and would hope to convey this excitement to mystudents

CONCLUSIONS

Much of what I have said above could be placed within the context ofthe perpetual debate between ldquotheoryrdquo and ldquopracticerdquo in library educationWhat I am suggesting is the potential for a synthesis of these two dichoto-

A Matter of Opinion 49

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mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

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2014

Page 11: Cataloging: An Exciting Subject for Exciting Times

mies The successful cataloging class should provide practical experiencethat will be useful to the new graduate in almost any library or informationscience position but this practice should be informed with theory Theprofessor should lead students to understand the theory behind the specificexamples and tasks encountered in class The professor should focus onldquowhyrdquo rather than ldquohowrdquo On the other side practice is also important forits role in undermining theory that sometimes overemphasizes certaintyand order The real world of cataloging is often messy Even experts candisagree over rule interpretations in specific cases Catalogers must oftenmake compromises to meet user needs or to deal with financial realities

Most of all learning cataloging does not have to be a dull exercise inmemorizing rules Bibliographic control is a key foundation of librarian-ship and information science The issues are complex and have occupiedsome of the best minds in librarianship The experiences learned in con-trolling a bibliographic universe of 48 million catalog records is a goodfirst step towards taming the Internet Why not allow our newest col-leagues to share the excitement that has kept us in the field

50 Education for Cataloging and the Organization of Information

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

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f T

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2014