The peloponnesian war and the future of reference, cataloging, and scholarship in research Libraries

Journal of Library Metadata

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 53-100

  Mann, Thomas ^a  

^a Library Research Models   (United States)

Author keywords

Cataloging; Reference; Research; Searching

Indexed keywords

EID: 69549088023     PISSN: 19386389     EISSN: 19375034     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1300/J517v08n01_06     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. "Scope match" is the term used by Francis Miksa to describe the level of specificity aimed at in traditional subject cataloging; see his The Subject in the Dictionary Catalog from Cutter to the Present (Chicago: American Library Association, 1983). The term refers to the practice of Library of Congress catalogers to sum up the content of a book (or other record) as a whole in assigning subject headings. (In other words, subject cataloging did not aim to indicate the content of individual chapters within a book, or to bring to researchers' attention the level of detail found in the book's index.) Indicating the subject of the book as a whole, if it could not be done by a single subject term, could be accomplished by providing as few separate headings as possible that, in combination, covered the whole scope of the book (e.g., Finance, public; United States; History; Sources; etc.); or it could be brought about by creating precoordinated subject headings whose subdivisions, in combination, indicated the content of the book as whole in a single string (e.g., Finance, public-United States-History-1801-1861- Sources). See the ensuing discussion.
2. The Library of Congress is attempting to eliminate its costly subject-cataloging operations at the "scope match" level in exchange for digitizing more full texts at the granular level of keyword retrieval. "[U]sers increasingly want the content itself not a cataloging record"-Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services, in her testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, March 20, 2007. It is characteristic of Marcum to portray the digitization of full texts versus cataloging as a zero-sum game in which one can be done only at the expense of the other, rather than as complementary avenues of access that are both desirable. See Marcum's other, similar statements, and a review of the "Calhoun Report," commissioned and endorsed by her, in the several discussion papers at www.guild2910.org (accessed May 1, 2007).
3. The "Calhoun Report" on the future of cataloging (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhounreport-final.pdf accessed May 1, 2007), which was both commissioned and highly praised by Library of Congress management, explicitly calls for this in its Recommendation 4.3.5.
4. http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/ (accessed May 1, 2007).
5. "What Is Going on at the Library of Congress?" and "More on What Is Going on at the Library of Congress" at the Web site of LC's, professional union www.guild2910.org (accessed May 1, 2007).
6. The "Calhoun Report," ibid., explicitly calls, twice, for the elimination of LC subject headings (page 14: "eliminate LCSH"; page 18: "Abandon the attempt to do comprehensive subject analysis manually with LCSH in favor of subject keywords; urge LC to dismantle LCSH.").
7. For a summary of these studies see Thomas Mann, "'Cataloging Must Change!' and "Indexer Consistency Studies-Misreading the Evidence at Our Peril," Cataloging& Classification Quarterly 23 (3/4) 1997, 3-45.
8. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/endeca/ (accessed May 1, 2007).
9. "The Future of Cataloging," Library of Congress Information Bulletin, 65, 9 (September, 2006), 206.
10. See its recommendations on "What Can the Library Community Offer in Support of Semantic Interoperability?" www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/TDG_5.pdf (accessed May 1, 2007).
11. The continuing importance of being able to browse book collections is insisted on by scholars even today; see the list of user studies appended to my review of the "Calhoun Report" at www.guild2910.org/AFSCMECalhounReviewREV.pdf (accessed May 1, 2007).
12. For a good introduction to Library Thing see its site at http://www.librarything.com/ (accessed May 1, 2007).
13. "How Much Information?" http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-muchinfo-2003/print.htm, Table 2.3 (Accessed May 1, 2007).
14. The Oxford Guide to Library Research, third edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
15. See Notes 2 and 3, above.
16. For a scheme to integrate the cataloging of selected, high-quality Web sites in library catalogs, so that they show up in the same conceptual categories as book records, see "Is Precoordination Unnecessary in LCSH? Are Web Sites More Important to Catalog than Books? A Reference Librarian's Thoughts on the Future of Bibliographic Control,"
17. Proceedings of the Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium (Library of Congress, 2001); available online at: www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/mann_paper.html (accessed May 1, 2007).
18. Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/informationliteracycompetency.htm (accessed May 1, 2007).
19. Oxford Guide, ibid., Chapter 1, "Initial Overviews: Encyclopedias," and Chapter 8, "Higher-Level Overviews: Review Articles," offer other ways to gain overview perspectives.