First, many thanks to Karen for pointing out this highly important document. It seems as if everything libraries do is under attack now. Consistency has always been at the very heart of the library catalog, and even it is being questioned.
This report concludes that consistency is not worthwhile, and I think this paragraph (p. 17) sums it up quite well. "At the other end of the spectrum is metadata of judgement. In traditional cataloguing practice this is often called analytic cataloguing; it involves the description of an item's 'aboutness' the assigning of controlled vocabulary terms or classification numbers. This sort of metadata is highly subjective and very expensive to create since it usually requires subject and/or metadata experts (cataloguers). Moreover, it is extremely dependent on the intended audience of the metadata. One person who is describing an item for a learning objects repository may assign one set of terms, and another person describing the same item for a subject repository may describe it another way. Same item. Different experts. Different audience. Different metadata values. Given the expense and nature of this type of content, we believe it is not feasible to expect consistency with regard to metadata of judgement, except perhaps where it occurs in a tightly controlled, narrow and consistent environment such as a database of drug trials." Later, on p. 20 we read "brief judgemental records are the domain of humans (and maybe computers) but the content will often be thin and inconsistent; fuller and judgemental records are too labour intensive for all but clearly defined situations where ongoing costs have been accurately estimated and benefits are considered to outweigh them; and computer technology is not yet at a stage to replace human effort in this regard." So, what have we learned here? Subject analysis by catalogers is very expensive (presumably because they make too much money), and they dont do their jobs very well. Therefore, subject analysis is not worthwhile. Although retaining controlled vocabulary apparently is worthwhile. To me, the conclusions dont follow. When someone does a search on "Mark Twain," I believe they expect "the set of works" by or about Mark Twain. When they do a search on "WWII Battles" I believe they want "the set of works" about battles of WWII. I dont think this is an unwarranted assumption. In my experience, when users do these searches, they actually think this is what they are getting, but they definitely are not. Keyword searches are built in such a way that people may be "happy" with the results they get, but people do not understand what they are looking at. And this is the case whether they are searching keywords in a library catalog (lets even say a library catalog that is perfectly consistent) or in Google and Yahoo. I do not need to discuss to this group why this is the case. But a library catalog is structured so that a user should be able to easily navigate to the "set of works" organized by specific concepts. Therefore, all of the works by "Mark Twain" should be together, and since AACR2 states that he has different bibliographical identities, there should be a mechanism to bring these different identities together. The same goes for WWII Battles. All of this could be done now through the syndetic authority/reference structure, but the systems are still far too clunky and based too much on cards. Younger people today find this system very strange. In my experience, people are happy with the results of a keyword search of "wwii battles," that is, until they see the alternative of "find subject: world war, 1939-1945--Battles, sieges, etc. See: World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations.; World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns.; World War, 1939-1945--Naval operations." It is only then that people begin to see and understand what they are missing by their supposedly "simple searches" and suddenly they arent quite so happy with their Google results anymore. This is when they say they would like the syndetic structure to be extended about 10,000 times. I believe that if used to its full potential, the syndetic structure would absolutely blow peoples minds by its power. I have done some thinking about this, and I think the basic problem is a misperception in what we do. We do not really, as in the report above, " [assign] controlled vocabulary terms or classification numbers." This mischaracterizes what we do. Librarians who work with the public realize very quickly that many, if not most, of the so-called "access points" we make are anything but points of "access." In fact, a lot of the job of reference is "translating" someones natural language requests into the "language" of the catalog. People think of "insanity" or "madness" instead of "Mental illness" (authorized), but they still want the 'set of works" organized under the concept. Its the labels they find troubling (or as the report says it: the controlled vocabulary, itself). In fact, users may not even realize that what they *really* want is the set of works organized under: "Mental illness--Etiology--Social aspects." until they actually see it. This is why I think that what we do is much more in the realm of "organization" than of "providing access." To me, this is the essence of consistency. It is not some vague thing floating out there with "assigned controlled vocabulary." For subjects, consistency means insuring that when someone wants the "set of works on ??? concept, " they will get it. I assert that people still want this ability and often think they are getting it now. This is what they want when they do their searches. For example, here are the most popular searches from Google Trends for today: http://www.google.com/trends 1. flu symptoms 2. veteran s day 2008 3. tim lincecum 4. she by sheree 5. hope financial 6. goumba johnny 7. bake me a wish 8. melissa baker 9. lee atwater 10. jeb corliss You can see related searches too. For the heartbreaking, and frightening search: "hope financial" we see: "inchargedebtsolutions, incharge, in charge, in chargecom, in charge debt solutions" with links to websites promising financial hope. For "flu symptoms" you see: "flu, flu symptoms 2008, mono symptoms, muscle aches, flu map" In LCSH, flu becomes "Influenza" with all of its subdivisions, and "flu symptoms" could be translated (automatically?!) into "Influenza--Diagnosis" and get the WorldCat result: http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=influenza%20diagnosis. Quite nice results, especially since people can refine the results from here. In this case, everything works fabulously well. I can limit to "internet resources," and find the pamphlet "Is it a cold or the flu? by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (U.S.)" which you can download immediately. Im sure all of this could be improved immensely. I dont know what we would do for "hope financial"... Is there a role for us in this kind of world? I think shows that there is. Is it different from what we do now? Definitely. Where does RDA or FRBR fit in? I dont know. As far as consistency is concerned, I would hope that people would concentrate on the most efficient ways of achieving it and perhaps improving it instead of throwing up their hands in despair. Jim Weinheimer
