Re: [RDA-L] Time and effort

[Brenndorfer, Thomas]

Why wouldn't people in a library want to find/identify/select/obtain the 
resources they want?

To say that they don't would come as a surprise to many library patrons. In a 
public library setting we have library users who believe (rightly so in a 
sense) that they own the place, including the organizational tools such as the 
catalog. Their expectations and often vociferously stated needs shape the 
nature of our service, including our finding tools.

Why would they search Google to find resources in the library?

Certainly, accessible information tools have proliferated because of the 
Internet, but that leads people to the library to search out additional 
resources found in the library as much as it leaves people satisfied with the 
information they find on their own. Our circulation and reference desk 
statistics attest to that shifting dynamic as usage has climbed, and the sheer 
number and diversity of information sources hinders people as much as it helps 
them, leaving a tremendous ongoing need for reference service (and now training 
needs for all the new technology).

I do agree catalogers should interact with library users by doing reference 
work. It's like ongoing mini-case studies where user interaction with the 
catalog can be analyzed closely. There is also feedback from other staff and 
the library users themselves. But administrative issues for the catalog are 
also important, and so RFPs for new systems go into great detail about aspects 
that library users don't experience directly. The catalog has to serve a lot of 
needs from many different users, and RDA is on the right track because it's not 
as tied as AACR2 is to the needs of constructing card catalogs, with its 
"entries" and its bewildering mixture of access points to the work-- main and 
added entries, controlled and uncontrolled titles, related and analytical 
titles, references generated in authority records that are aggravatingly 
difficult to use effectively.

I like the structure and intent of RDA. Here's the work. Here's the identifier 
and its variants. Here are the attributes gathered in one place (finally), and 
here's how you connect the work to other entities. Done. It's too bad we're 
stuck with the scattered and overlapping fields in MARC to enter this 
information.

I always like to point out this quote from Part II of AACR2: "The rules in part 
II apply to works and not to physical manifestations of those works, though the 
characteristics of an individual item are taken into account in some 
instances." Distinctions about WEMI have always been implicit in cataloging. 
What's messy about this wording is that "item" really means the 
all-encompassing "resource," and the characteristics used in access points 
include expression elements (language) and manifestation elements (place of 
publication). RDA makes WEMI explict, finally, so we can get started fixing the 
problems of the past, and start thinking about new catalog designs built on a 
stronger foundation.

Most of the problems at the reference desk I've come across that are 
catalog-specific are WEMI related. The Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf was 
wanted, not any old translation (our brief paperback records don't specify). A 
particular filmed version of Frankenstein was wanted, not the one just grabbed 
off the shelf filed under DVD FRA. Library users have asked for expression 
groupings of large print, regular print and paperback records, because of what 
they're seeing in new user-friendly interfaces like OverDrive. They're 
frustrated by the hold system, since they really do just want the work and not 
a particular manifestation-- and they're required to go to staff to use the 
hidden "joint hold" feature that can span multiple bibliographic records so 
people can put the "work" on hold.

And people want the attributes we do have (language, date of publication, 
summary, format, nature of the work), and they want more attributes, such as 
tone and writing style, as found in NoveList. It would be great to add more, 
and I look forward to seeing efficient systems were they can be added to the 
WORK, or the EXPRESSION, or the MANIFESTATION as appropriate. We do have a 
NoveList link in our catalog, but it's linked to the equivalent of the 
manifestation record, not the work, which then is a disservice to our users. It 
should be a functional requirement of our bibliographic data that the link 
occur at the work level.

Why wouldn't we request those things of our catalog? Our users certainly are.

Thomas Brenndorfer
Guelph Public Library

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access
> [mailto:rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Weinheimer Jim
> Sent: September 2, 2010 4:50 AM
> To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA
> Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Time and effort
>
> When you say that 21st century catalogers (a group to which I, apparently,
> do not belong) are user-centric, born and bred, I personally haven't seen
> it. In fact, the cataloging community's declaration that what people want
> from information is to find/identify/select/obtain etc. is the most
> convincing evidence that I can supply. This is *ABSOLUTELY NOT* what people
> want when searching for information.
>
> How in the world can I state that so blatantly? Just by watching people and
> talking with them, something catalogers cannot do unless they also work as
> reference librarians. People prefer Google searching to searching library
> catalogs, I think there can be little dispute on that. And they say that
> they get better results. People *cannot* do the FRBR-type of searching or
> retrieval there, since there isn't even an option of searching by author,
> title, or subject searching, much less WEMI retrieval possibilities. Yet,
> people like it better and say they get better results. There is an obvious
> contradiction here, and makes the cataloging community look very backward,
> indeed.
>
> Instead of explaining away all of these contradictions or ignoring them, we
> need to understand what is going on and figure out new possibilities that
> will make a genuine difference to our patrons, and thereby to our own work.
>
> If catalogers insist that they know it all, woe be to everyone!
>
> James Weinheimer  j.weinhei...@aur.edu
> Director of Library and Information Services
> The American University of Rome
> via Pietro Roselli, 4
> 00153 Rome, Italy
> voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
> fax-011 39 06 58330992
> First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/