Create, organize, manage, and discover information resources.
| Course: | LIS 605 Metadata Creation for Information Organization |
| Instructors: | Suzhen Chen and Margaret Joyce |
| Semester Completed: | Spring 2019 |
| Assignment Description: | LIS 605 Syllabus Bibliographic Record Creation Assignment Instructions |
| Artifacts: | Bibliographic Creation Assignment |
Reflection
*My artifact was developed as part of a cataloging class, so the SLO3 criteria that pertain to preservation, specifically #3 and part of #1, will not be addressed in my reflective essay.
I took LIS 605 Metadata Creation for Information Organization in my first semester of the LIS program and all the new jargon and concepts were overwhelming to me. It felt a little like I had registered for Spanish II without having completed Spanish I. Everyone was speaking a foreign language that I did not understand. Once I began to acclimate to the program and started becoming more comfortable with the jargon, the cataloging was not so overwhelming, and I found myself enjoying the intricacies of it. It reminded me of the programming classes I completed during my undergraduate degree. For example, knowing the authorized access points for the MARC fields was a lot like my Database Management class, which also required an access point in the database architecture to correctly search records. There needs to be a point through which you access the record for the database structure to work correctly, and the same applies to cataloging and MARC records. Also, programming was very specific about punctuation and spacing and the MARC fields were the same. For example, if there’s a 490 field for the record then there is a period at the end of the 300 field, but if there’s no 490 field in the record then there is no period at the end of the 300 field. I love programming because it is essentially all about organization and solving puzzles. I enjoyed that aspect of cataloging as well.
The focus of SLO3 is resources, specifically being able to create, organize, manage, and discover information resources. Cataloging applies to all of these, although I look it more as making resources discoverable than actually discovering them in cataloging. My artifact for this SLO is a Bibliographic Creation exercise in which I created full MARC records for fictitious materials in OCLC Connexion, including Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). The creation of my artifact was a culmination of the entire semester. Cataloging is like math in that it builds on itself. I started out the semester by learning how to create the records. I first learned about RDA (Resource Description and Access), the current cataloging standard which dictates the rules for description and access points. I also learned MARC 21, which dictates formatting, specifically which fields and subfields hold the data and how. For example, what constitutes a title is listed in RDA rule 2.3.2 and MARC 21 dictates that the title is entered into field 245 in OCLC Connexion. Learning how to work with both sets of rules and the specifics of the formatting, such as spacing and punctuation, was the most challenging part of learning cataloging.
Bair (2005) states that “Catalogers organize information by encoding” and explains the ethical implications. A cataloger is responsible for organizing information about the resource in such a way that the user can find it. Poor organization, encoding of information, or description can render that resource essentially lost. She refers to catalogers as “gatekeepers” and discusses the code of ethics that should drive every cataloger to ensure that resources are being described to the best of our ability, ensuring equitable access. I learned first-hand while working on another project the importance of organizing information, which you can read about in more detail in SLO4. For that project I created a digital library in Omeka S and used several metadata vocabularies to describe my items: Dublin Core, SKOS, Bibliographic Ontology, and Friend of a Friend. All these vocabularies and fields were necessary to organize my items properly and ensure my items could be discovered and accessed by users.
In addition to creating records, and organizing and managing the information in them, I also learned how to make resources discoverable. This is done via access points, like the title and author, and through subject headings and call numbers. The subject headings ensure the item’s discoverability in the catalog. The call number ensures it is findable in the stacks. What really impacted me was learning how Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) can be problematic. Knowlton (2005) explains that “many subject headings exhibit ‘bias’: that is, they use language that shows a prejudice in favor of particular points of view, and against others.” I learned in class that the subject heading “lynching”, which is now listed under “Homicide” was previously listed under “Criminal Justice, Administration of” (2005, p. 131). I was horrified. This was the first time in the program which I remember thinking that I wanted to be the type of librarian that would fight to change something like that instead of being someone who quietly cataloged books under that subject heading.
I only missed a few small things on this artifact, like a space or a comma, so overall I am very proud of it. It took many months of work to reach the point where I could enter this metadata correctly. However, MARC is an older standard and, as Kroeger (2013) explains, there are a lot of issues with it, not least of which is its difficulty to enter correctly. This creates a barrier so library professionals who are not trained in cataloging cannot enter the metadata into the system correctly, and resources are not as discoverable as they might be. It was also created primarily for physical resources and does not work as well for digital resources. The Library of Congress is in the process of creating BIBFRAME, which will incorporate linked data into cataloging records. This will allow records to be more discoverable within institutions as well as between them and will accommodate digital resources better. While I know it was not possible, because BIBFRAME was not finished yet, I find myself wishing I could have completed this project using BIBFRAME instead of MARC. While I am ready to embrace the new, I am happy I learned MARC. I saved all of my slides, notes, and handouts from the class and organized them into a binder. I still have the binder to refresh my memory for the future, so I will feel confident should my job include cataloging in my duties. More importantly, even if my job never directly requires me to catalog, I feel like knowing how information is organized will make it easier for me to find resources and will make me a more effective librarian.
References
Bair, S. (2005). Toward a Code of Ethics for Cataloging. Technical Services Quarterly, 23(1), 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1300/J124v23n01_02
Knowlton, S. A. (2005). Three Decades Since Prejudices and Antipathies: A Study of Changes in the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 40(2), 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1300/J104v40n02_08
Kroeger, A. (2013). The road to BIBFRAME: The evolution of the idea of bibliographic transition into a post-MARC future. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 51(8), 873–890. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2013.823584
Mandi Hull 