Introduction to LIS512

Thomas Krichel

course resources

• Course homepage http://wotan.liu.edu/ home/krichel/courses/lis512b10a

• Class mailing list https://lists-1.liu.edu/mailman/listinfo/cwp-lis512-krichel

• Me. Write to krichel@openlib.org or skype: thomaskrichel.

today

• set the scene of the class topic• explain the method behind the madness in the

course structure• discuss assignments

LIS512

• There are many ways to deal with LIS512.• Basically, there are two views of the subject.• There is the practitioner’s view.• There is the theorist’s view.

theorist’s view

• This is embodied in the course title, which I think dates back from times when Richard Smiraglia was the “course leader” for the course at the Palmer School.

• This view insists that the course should be about basic principles. It should not be an applied cataloging course. Cataloging should be dealt with in less basic courses.

course title

• The course title is really problematic. “knowledge” is something that is in peoples’ head. It is not what is written down in books, or stored on computer disks.

• The latter is information.• We really should be talking about

“information organization”.

knowledge organization

• Librarians have been involved in knowledge organization, but only to a limited extent.

• Librarians have also been involved in setting up classification scheme. For example the Library of Congress Subject headings are a way to organize knowledge.

classification

• Classifying an item by assigning it a call number in a library, depending on an analysis of the subject, is not knowledge organization, it is organizing information.

• You will organize knowledge if you devise a scheme that allows users to classify items. – setting up classification codes– devise rules how codes can be found from items.

• Who of us will get into that?

practioner’s view

• “oh, it’s the intro to cataloging”.• Some times it has been a hands-on introduction

to cataloging.• This has been criticized as not being general

enough. • How many of us will get really involved in

cataloging. • Last time I asked class nobody wanted to become

a cataloguer.

cataloging

• Cataloging in libraries is in the process of tremendous change. – The old standard AACR2 is being phased out. – A new one is coming along, RDA.

• Copy cataloging solves most basic cataloging issues for common cataloging tasks.

cataloging critics

• Detailed cataloging is a tremendously expensive task.

• It is not an idiot’s task. • It does not scale beyond some library

materials. – For example, libraries have not usually done

article level cataloging of serials material.– They would just catalog what holdings they have

of what serial.

antiquated standards

• Some critics charge that the cataloging rules embody a thinking about card cataloging. They have not changed fundamentally since then.

• The same critics can not agree on changes.

invaders into cataloging

• There are some new kids on the cataloging front. – Amazon – LibraryThing

• They are not tied to all the past rules and make clever way of new technologies.

the future of books

• Printed books are ok to read but – they are very costly to update– they are difficult to search

• They may stay on for some leisure ready. Older books will be covered by the Google book project.

ebooks

• Ebook readers are slowly becoming popular. • The capacity of such readers will increase over

time. • In our lifetimes, we will see people with the

content equivalent of what is now a public library in their pocket.

• What will become of cataloging.

move towards networks

• There is a move, over time, from information being tied to physical assets.

• Libraries may be closest to our concern but they are not the biggest players that are in turmoil.– the music industry– the printed press

libraries are getting ready

• There is some very interesting work out there to publish library data (mainly cataloging data) as linked open data.– data is accessible on the web– it has very flexible usage condition– there is essentially one web address per item

• This would go beyond an intro course however.

libraries expand their remit

• Libraries took the lead in the development of Dublin Core, an effort to standardize descriptions of resources on the web.

• Libraries took the lead in the development of OAI protocol for metadata harvesting, a standard to exchange metadata.

• Libraries build digital repositories. • None of these efforts use traditional cataloging.

the big challenge

• It is ok for pieces of information to fly around. • What is there can be gone tomorrow. • The challenge is to make sure it stays at a

place where we can access it tomorrow. • This is what libraries have traditionally done.• But cataloging methods will bring little to this

task.

my own work

• I have close to 20 years experience in scholarly communication documentation work.

• I built two metadata formats a transport format.

• I have been involved in subject classification through subject experts.

• My main area at this time is name authority control.

the course

• The course tries to blend theory and practice and old and new.

• At this stage it is probably too theory heavy.• It may also be to “non-cataloging” heavy.• Let us look at the planned set of lectures.

entity-relationship model• The entity relationship model has been

developed in conjunction with relational databases.

• Basically, we define entities to be described and the relationships between them.

• Most formally structured information is held in relational database.

• This includes all the cataloging data we will create.

FRBR• FRBR are the fundamental requirements for

bibliographic records.• It is a document issued and edited by IFLA.• It is tremendously influential even outside

libraries. • Basically, it applies an entity relationship

model to the domain traditionally occupied by libraries.

• It is a fundamental conceptual framework.

characters records and identifiers

• In this class we discuss the basic tools of the trade that we need to build a descriptive environment like the one that is described in FRBR.

• These are fundamental concepts that we need to understand to build digital record sets such as the one contained in a library catalog.

MARC & koha copy cataloging

• MARC is the basic format common to almost all library catalogs.

• As part of the course, each of you will compose a library catalog containing 6 records.

• Five of the records will be composed by copying MARC records from LoC or others.

koha library and catalogs

• koha is an open source library cataloging system.

• I have a running installation of the staff interface at http://wotan.liu.edu/koha.

• It is a federated system allowing you to maintain various branches.

• Each of you gets a branch. • koha uses a relational database to operate.

XML based metadata & MARC XML

• Here I am looking at metadata formats other than MARC.

• Almost all metadata formats out there that have some relevance to the libraries are written in XML.

• I will illustrate XML by discussing MARC records in XML format (rather than the native, discussed earlier)

creating a bibliographic record

• Up until there , we have been looking at reading cataloging records.

• The remaining class time is spend on discussing what can be in the record.

• You may say: we have MARC.• Yes but MARC gives us only a form. • We need rules to fill out the form.

AACR2

• The Anglo American Cataloging Rules are used by most libraries in the English-speaking world.

• These rules are not 100% precise there is a lot of room for local interpretation, and there has to be.

• The problem is that the rules are not freely available but cost $80 to buy.

ISBD

• This is the International Standard for Bibliographic Description.

• It is an international version of what is AARC2.• It is downloadable but I don’t think it can be

printed. • It deals with description only.

access

• Within bibliographic records, access points are a complicated subject.

• Basically, once you have access point, you can find the bibliographic resources through the access point.

• names of authors, subject headings, and

subject headings

• Subject headings are a way to group items on the same subject together.

• This really comes into play when a consistent terminology is being used.

• The LoC have such a system at the classificationweb.net. Login as “palmerschool” with the password “logcata”.

classification• Classification, when used in the cataloging

world, means that we set a code for the item.• The code is constructed in such a way that

related item by subjects have codes that are close to each other by order of the code.

• It is a tool that is used to align similar items along a self close to each other.

• It is extraordinarily complex.• I intend to study the LoC classification scheme.

assignment

• Quizzes every week except next week and this week. – This makes 12 quizzes.– The two weakest performances are discarded.

• Copy cataloging exercise. Copy catalog 5 books (?), hopefully related, and report on your experience in 2 page paper.

• Create an original cataloging record.

Thank you for your attention.

Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel