What is LibraryThing?

• 450,000 registered users
• 28 million books
• 37 million tags
• 50+ imitators
• LibraryThing is your friend 🙂

LibraryThing use often follows the pattern:

• Personal cataloging
• Social networking
• Social Cataloging

Social cataloging happens in both implicit and explicit ways.

Using examples of ‘Thomas Jefferson‘ and other famous users – where their library collections have been added to LibraryThing

LibraryThing has ‘common knowledge’ fields – things such as characters etc.

A page such as http://www.librarything.com/series/Star+Wars contains more knowledge about the Star Wars series of books than anywhere else in the world.

Showing the power of librarything – tags, bringing together editions etc.

The ‘tag war’ is over. Tim does not believe tags are ‘better’ than subjects – but tags are just great for finding stuff. If you care about finding stuff not asserting ontological reality – then tags are great – you just have to spend some time using them to see this.

The physical basis of classification:

• A book has 3-6 subject (‘cos that what fits on a card)
• Subjects are equally true (can’t express degrees of relation to a subject – either a book is about it or not – black and white)
• Subjects never change (once subjects are allocated you don’t go back – even if terminology changes on in the real world)
• Only librarians get to add subjects
• There is only one answer – someone ‘wins’
• You don’t get a say in how books are classified – you don’t want users writing on the cards – but not relevant in virtual environment
• Only books are cataloged
• Cataloging has to be done in the library
• Most librarian can’t help you, each other, themselves
• Libraries are NOT good at sharing metadata (contradicting Jennifer) – we tend to pull down records from a central source – very few libraries push back
• Record creating and editing can’t be distribute
• Record sharing can’t be shared freely

Two futures:

• The world ends
• You (catalogers) are paid less
• Programmers still get paid
• You move up the stack
• An IT-industry analogy – with open source software
• Demand increasing
• Low leve work and data becomes commoditized, distributed, free
• You move higher, get paid more

Tim wants a new shelf order:

• Replaces Dewey
• Free (Open Source)
• Modern
• Humble – not trying to model the whole world
• Decided socially, level by level
• Tested against the world
• Assignment is distributed
• I write the code
• You (cataloguers) be Jimmy Wales (audience asked – who is Jimmy Wales – one of the founders of wikipedia) – look over it, but has no power!

http://myee.bol.ucla.edu/

Can we preserve all the good stuff we have created with cataloging? We spend too much time doing ‘admin’ work to keep local catalogs under control. See potential in the vision of the ‘semantic web’

Martha summarising the concepts of the semantic web, RDF, RDFS, OWL, SKOS, URIs

As an experiment, Martha decided to create a set of cataloguing rules that are more FRBRized than RDA – details available at her website. Noting, she really doesn’t expect people to adopt these rules – it is an experiment

Questions:

1. Is it possible for catalogers to tell in all cases whether a piece of data pertains to the expression or the manifestation?
2. Is it possible to fit our data into RDF/RDFS/OWL/SKOS
3. If it is, is it possible to use that data to design indexes and displays that meet the objectives of the catalog (providing an efficient instrument to allow a user to find a particular work of which the author and title are known, a particular expression of a work, all of the works of an author, all of the works in a given genre or form, or all of the works on a particular subject)?

The overall question is:

• Can we do what we need to do within the context of the semantic web?

Some problems?

• Granularity issues – should we be more granular in some areas? Less granular in others?

Martha says that people who dislike MARC argue that it is too granular and requires too much of a learning curve. (I don’t agree – it is this simple, I believe we need to focus on what is important – in some areas this means more, and in others less, granularity – although I also don’t think this is the major problem with ‘MARC’ – the main problem is that others – outside libraries) don’t, and will never, adopt it)

• Is the internet fast enough to assemble a record from a linked set of URIs?

(I don’t agree with this either – Google’s model of crawling the web doesn’t require the web to be ‘fast’ – we can index/build in advance, not on the fly)

• Internet seems to be built on ‘free’ intellectual labour – only the programmers get paid

Martha feels this is a real problem – it costs money (it is expensive) to create cataloguing – takes intellectual labour

I think Martha’s experiment is fascinating – I think that many of her ‘problems’ are not actuall problems – but I think they deserve to be answered.

Some comments from the panel:

DH: Really appreciate the work that is being done by Martha – it is hard to get your head round this stuff. But some of the arguments are strawmen. Problems with the way that RDA looks at some of the problems – for e.g. false dichotomy between transcribed values and other values – no reason why both shouldn’t be accommodated.

JB: Need to make distinction between granularity and complexity. Records can be granular and interoperable – and people can decide how they can use that. Don’t need complex to be granular

I think the panel have picked up on the same things that I have. I think we all agree that the work that Martha is doing is great, and leading by example – we need more experiments like this – actual practical stuff, not just theoretical

 

Tim Spalding: Would challenge Roy’s assertion that only OCLC can do ‘web scale’ or ‘do a deal with Google’ – if you put stuff on the web, you are webscale

Diane Hillman: Need open data

Roy Tennant: Worldcat has been built ‘by you’ – it is a collective asset – need to think about how it can be used – OCLC is a membership collective – if the membership decides to open it up, then they need to OCLC

Martha Yee: Cataloguing data is ‘gold’ – took intellectual effort, and mustn’t ‘throw it away’ (can tell it is a cataloguing audience – this the only point so far that has been applauded)

Robert Wolven: Need to think about how metadata flows around – what controls are needed etc.

If you find out about things that you can’t get, then it is frustration. But, you can usually get stuff if you really want. How do we decide on scope of what we present to people?

RT: We need to do better job of presenting options to users. Users should know how difficult it is to get their hands on something – this is a set of concentric circles – what is local, what is regional, what is further afield (delivery times – immediate, days, weeks, etc.) Also can present purchase options – may be quicker and cheaper than ILL to buy on Amazon.

JB: XC looking at a facet for ‘availability’ – so that users can easily narrow search by how quickly they can get stuff, or by the amount of effort involved to them. But need to be able to get this information out of the ILS – some vendors better than others to work with on this.

RW: Is there a ‘local user’ anymore?

JB: Local may not be the right word – but users that ‘your institution cares about’

DH: We often don’t define ‘local’ very well. About user relation to the collection – if you do digitised photos of a geographic area, the ‘local’ users include the people who lived in the area at the time the photos were taken, even if they are no longer ‘geographically’ local.

RW: Local is a matter of ‘interest’ as well as ‘placement’

TS: Centralisation has suppressed ‘the local’. What goes into the ‘local’ catalog record can be there for the ‘local’ use – doesn’t have to necessarily be shared by everyone (although can be shared as widely as you like)

RW: Should we look at aggregating data at the ‘instituional’ level – e.g. bringing in museums, archives etc. from the wider institution (e.g. a University) – what levels of aggregation make sense between the library and the ‘network level’

RT: We need to separate out ‘inventory’ from ‘access’ – library systems are currently inventory and we have confused it with a list of ‘accessible’ resources. We could be pointing people off to GBS and OCA digitised books etc.

DH: Massive amounts of digitised material – funded by Google, Microsoft etc. But most of it is not available to us OR we haven’t integrated it into our systems. Even the people who funded it don’t seem sure what to do with it. Perhaps they have underestimated the problems?

I think I disagree (speculatively) with Diane on some of this. I think the point of the Google work was ‘lets do it, and deal with the problems later’ – essentially, there is a bottom line belief by the people at Google is having this stuff digitised is better than not – as long as you believe this then you may as well get on with it. Possibly Google also need to say ‘having it digitised is better than not, and we believe there will be profit in it’ – I’m not convinced about this.

MY: Making point that libraries have cataloguing backlogs, and digitisation increases the problem

DH: Need to get stuff out in the stacks by whatever method – fast cataloging, publisher data etc. We can always go back to stuff it needs to be refined later. Need to get rid of the idea that items are only touched once

RW: Who should invest in preserving stuff? e.g. Internet Archive providing access to stuff that no one seems to ‘own’

Jennifer is from the eXtensible Catalog (XC) project based at the University of Rochester. Jennifer’s slides are available online.

This is the ‘local’ approach, as opposed to Roy’s ‘network level’ – but she sees them as complimentary.

What is the eXtensible catalog?

• Set of open-source tools
• Facilitate resource discovery and metadata management
• Software due to release July 2009

The eXtensible catalog has/will have the following features:

• Empower libraries to customize/develop discovery solutions – lower the bar for creating applications on top of the XC s/w
• Integrate library content into various web environments
• Enabling sharing of metadata and software (we are good at the former, but not the latter Jennifer says)
• Expand the role of libraries

There are 13 fte working on the project, including 6 developers, with two metadata consultants (Diane Hillmann and Jon Phipps)

The XC is not an ILS, but will work alongside the ILS using OAI-PMH to move metadata around. There will be out-of-the-box user interface functionality, but Jennifer is stressing this is not the main point – XC is about a toolset.

XC will provide toolsets for customization, web application development, metadata enrichment; an infrastructure to go beyond MARC cataloging.

There is also the concept of the XC Network – moving metadat from the ILS and other repositories that hold metadata into a ‘Metadata Hub’, which can then push metadata out to other applications – the library website, learning environments or custom applications. Also from these external sites, metadata will flow back into the metadata hub when it is enhanced e.g. by user contributions

Alongside this there will be ‘metadata services’ that can be applied to any metadata moving through the hub – this is stuff like content enrichment. Jennifer is going to talk about this more.

The aim is that XC:

• Empowers libraries
• ‘Lowers the bar’ for local development
• works alongside network-level applications
• focuses attention upon needs of local users
• encourages user research

Jennifer saying we need more ‘user research’ to understand what they need, and the aim is that XC will let us focus on this.

There are new roles for catalogers/cataloging

• Design local applications
• Engage in user research

There are challenges – need to:

• Keep an open mind
• Present options, not objections
• Think broadly

We need to ‘make changes’. We need to look beyond what our standards ‘allow’ – rather say ‘the users need it – so how do we do it?’

If we integrate library content into web environments we can bring metadata to new users – more challenges:

• Perceived loss of control
• Rethink standards development
• Need to make legacy metadata as usable as possible

Jennifer noting that some of these have been difficult for her – can be uncomfortable to contemplate – but need to engage.

The XC metadata services will include:

• Normalizations
• Schema transformation
• FRBRization
• Authority enrichment
• Sharing metadata – post-MARC metadata (MARCXML, with enrichments) – includes sharing user generated metadata
• Share metadata enrichment services – libraries can develop and hare additional services

All this suggests new roles for catalogers:

• Design and test metadata services
• manage flow of metadata
• system/application design
• user research

Jennfier rejecting of ‘centralisation’ of cataloguers (note cataloguers not necessarily cataloging I guess)

Jennifer is from the eXtensible Catalog (XC) project based at the University of Rochester. Jennifer’s slides are available online.

This is the ‘local’ approach, as opposed to Roy’s ‘network level’ – but she sees them as complimentary.

What is the eXtensible catalog?

• Set of open-source tools
• Facilitate resource discovery and metadata management
• Software due to release July 2009

The eXtensible catalog has/will have the following features:

• Empower libraries to customize/develop discovery solutions – lower the bar for creating applications on top of the XC s/w
• Integrate library content into various web environments
• Enabling sharing of metadata and software (we are good at the former, but not the latter Jennifer says)
• Expand the role of libraries

There are 13 fte working on the project, including 6 developers, with two metadata consultants (Diane Hillmann and Jon Phipps)

The XC is not an ILS, but will work alongside the ILS using OAI-PMH to move metadata around. There will be out-of-the-box user interface functionality, but Jennifer is stressing this is not the main point – XC is about a toolset.

XC will provide toolsets for customization, web application development, metadata enrichment; an infrastructure to go beyond MARC cataloging.

There is also the concept of the XC Network – moving metadat from the ILS and other repositories that hold metadata into a ‘Metadata Hub’, which can then push metadata out to other applications – the library website, learning environments or custom applications. Also from these external sites, metadata will flow back into the metadata hub when it is enhanced e.g. by user contributions

Alongside this there will be ‘metadata services’ that can be applied to any metadata moving through the hub – this is stuff like content enrichment. Jennifer is going to talk about this more.

The aim is that XC:

• Empowers libraries
• ‘Lowers the bar’ for local development
• works alongside network-level applications
• focuses attention upon needs of local users
• encourages user research

Jennifer saying we need more ‘user research’ to understand what they need, and the aim is that XC will let us focus on this.

There are new roles for catalogers/cataloging

• Design local applications
• Engage in user research

There are challenges – need to:

• Keep an open mind
• Present options, not objections
• Think broadly

We need to ‘make changes’. We need to look beyond what our standards ‘allow’ – rather say ‘the users need it – so how do we do it?’

If we integrate library content into web environments we can bring metadata to new users – more challenges:

• Perceived loss of control
• Rethink standards development
• Need to make legacy metadata as usable as possible

Jennifer noting that some of these have been difficult for her – can be uncomfortable to contemplate – but need to engage.

The XC metadata services will include:

• Normalizations
• Schema transformation
• FRBRization
• Authority enrichment
• Sharing metadata – post-MARC metadata (MARCXML, with enrichments) – includes sharing user generated metadata
• Share metadata enrichment services – libraries can develop and hare additional services

All this suggests new roles for catalogers:

• Design and test metadata services
• manage flow of metadata
• system/application design
• user research

Jennfier rejecting of ‘centralisation’ of cataloguers (note cataloguers not necessarily cataloging I guess)

The fact that I’m about to attend a 4 hour session on cataloging on a Sunday morning may point to a streak of masochism in me. It will be interesting to see how much this overlaps or diverges from the view I heard yesterday in the afternoon session.

The moderator is Robert Wolven (Columbia)

The panelists are:

• Tim Spalding (LibraryThing)
• Roy Tennant (OCLC)
• Diane Hillmann (Syracuse)
• Martha Yee (UCLA)
• Jennifer Bowen (Rochester)

Robert Wolven is introducing the the session, noting that we both have predictions of the end of the catalog, and views that the catalog is an essential tool that represents the strengths of the library. Cataloging is seen by some as obscure, elitist, etc. and by others as an objective and beautiful (?) thing.

So, the panelists are going to explore these issues…

Robert starting with 3 anecdotes:

There was a TV programme called ‘What in the World’, in which a panel of experts tried to identify a mystery object

There were comic book versions of literary classics (Comic Classics). You used to be able to order stuff that was in stock, but because stock changed so quickly, you often got other issues instead of the ones you wanted

Kelly Freas – illustrator who did many Sci-Fi/Fantasy covers

A bit of different start to the afternoon – after an ‘acquisitions’ heavy morning, this is a LITA sponsored session.

The session is being moderated by Roy Tennant, with a panel of Joseph Janes, Karen Coyle, Stephen Abram and Karen Schneider. I’ve not come across Joseph Janes before, but the others I’ve read or corresponded with over time.

Might be more difficult to blog this session, as it’s a bit more free form, and any of the below should be seen as paraphrased in my words, but here we go…

What is the appropriate role of the library catalog?

KC: If we go back to the start the catalog was there to tell you if a book was in the library. But this was in a time when ‘the library’ was the only place you could go and get information. The catalog was essentially ‘inventory’

We still need inventory, but now we have a whole world of information available online – the library is just where you go when you think ‘can I pop downstairs and get that off the shelf’

SA: It’s good for librarians! Example of extreme anal retentive behaviour!

The catalog is no good for users – it doesn’t enhance learning, or add anything, it simply ‘retrieves’. If you walk into a bookshop they don’t point you in the direction of their inventory system.

We tell people what we have, rather than helping them find what they want.

KS: When the catalog works well, when you can put in a word and kind of get what you are looking for, and when the catalog covers a wide geographic area (e.g. statewide), it can be a real enabler

We just need it to be better. It should work with

JJ: Joseph starting by making sure we understand he may not mean anything he says (just in case I blog this…)

Thinks that Reference Librarians would tell you the catalog is a really useful tool. However, from the user perspective perhaps it isn’t good.

But Joseph says – perhaps this is how it should be – perhaps the catalog/inventory management system is a staff tool, and users shouldn’t have to dirty their experience (my words) with this.

Joseph noting that because of the vast amount of material, the catalog only represents a tiny amount of the ‘library’ collection

SA: Must change our ideas – we’ve invested huge amounts in these systems over time (perhaps more than anything else)

Why have we not all integrated Google Books into our catalogs – providing full text search. [surely we need to approach this the otherway around – if I want to search GBS, I’ll go there, and if/when I can’t get the full-text then I’ll go

JJ: But need to look at what we want. Lots of ways into the catalog – but not very many ways out – a dead end? Arguing that with the card catalog if you failed, then there was more ‘option’ for the next step – you were in the library, you could ask. But OPACs tend to just give you a deadend – no online reference, no links to elsewhere, no shelves to browse.

We focus on ‘what is in the library catalog’.

Library catalog clearly not the only game in town

WorldCat local and OpenLibrary has raised the idea of ‘one big catalog’ – is this a viable approach?

KC: No – we need lots of catalogs, but we need to stop being ‘place oriented’, but ‘resource’ oriented.

SA: If we don’t want catalogs, how does a big catalog help? If we are going to expose data, we need to let go of it.

KC: We have to let other people do stuff with it, even if we don’t like what we do

KS: Feel the need to contradict everyone today 🙂

But agree – Free the Data. Both what we release, and what we bring in.

Arguing that ‘place’ does matter – people like to walk into the library and find a book. What is bad is when the experience ends if they don’t find what they want.

KC: But do we need a catalog?

SA: WorldCat isn’t a catalog – it’s a information registry

How does it integrate into other stuff?

We are taking an 18th Century metaphor and stretching it to breaking point in the 21st Century

JJ: Worldcat is a catalog – we are a Worldcat local tester site. However, he says he doesn’t use it – just UW only catalog instead. Confusing for the patron though. Worldcat local is a really interesting idea, and at least in some ways it is a ‘catalog’

Not just about ‘one big catalog’ – but ‘one big resource’ – example of bus information (including next scheduled bus) integrated into Google maps.

[I’d note the point about Google maps is that they don’t necessarily need to ‘have’ the bus data – they can easily link it in given the right interfaces – this could have as easily been done by the bus information supplier as by Google]

KC: Google have announced they are going to do a ‘catalog’ – one record for every book

SA: Google also published list of books and copyright status

JJ: With these changes – what kind of things are will we do – it’s a different kind of institution and different kind of skills.

What do you want to tell catalogers about how we should go forward?

KS: Not about telling them what to do, but engaging them. Need to identify good practice and what does and doesn’t matter.

Making the point that people keep trying to solve this problem – any new attempt to record information about things turns into a cataloging project.

SA: Google, Yahoo etc. all making use of cataloguing skills – and catalogers doing great things – but for some reason all this work seems to have stopped at the OPAC – why?#

JJ: Ultimate aim is to link user to the resource they want. Perhaps we need a new set of ideas – might not look like MARC or like a catalog

KC: We have forgotten why we do what we do – got lost in the rules. For example – why don’t we use title case for titles in a catalog – no one seems to know for sure – we need to check that it still makes sense now. It made sense at the time, but does it still make sense?

KS: Broader problem than just cataloguers – librarians are a dogma based professions – not very evidence based.

I’m puzzled … this is all vision stuff and needs discussion, but we all have libraries to run in the meantime, and systems to keep going. Seems to be a tension between finding whats in the library, and finding stuff in the whole world of information. What kind of thing/system do we need? What practical advice can you give?

KC: We can help people find stuff in libraries, but have to give up the idea we’ll all do it using the ‘same system’. Really have to open up and allow experimentation. We are afraid to do something different – and we need to stop

JJ: What do you mean by different?

KC: For e.g. Scriblio built on WordPress – takes bravery

KS: Agree, we have passed the point where the monolithic catalogue is a necessity. We need to move ‘seamlessly’ across data – stop coming up short against library silos. Need to look at different data formats (not just MARC)

SA: We don’t need to host our systems – get rid of your server rooms! Need to use stuff from the cloud – SaaS. Look at examples where we do it ourselves we lose stuff – we aren’t good at this.

Have to take away some of the crap jobs that can be done better elsewhere

KS: Do we want ‘one big record’? Why do we have a zillion ‘local’ records. This needs discussion. It is extremely expensive

JJ: Any kind of transition has to be done with great care. Not just about ‘holy wars’, but even with ‘normal people’. Librarians are not ‘normal people’ – we are ‘information people’, and we’ve been entrusted with preserving aspects of cultural heritage – and we need to be careful – look at the reaction when we got rid of the card catalog – we mess with this stuff at our peril.

[Missed a load of debate here around effectiveness (or not – mainly JJ against and SA pro) of full-text searching due to a computer freeze]

JJ: Two great questions: “How does a book get better each time you read it” and “How does a library get better each time it is used”

KS: Need to look at what works and what doesn’t

JJ: Need to look at allowing people to ‘keep stuff’ – despite privacy issues and Patriot Act, we need to look at allowing opt in for some of this stuff to provide better service – netflix queues etc.

KS: 10 years ago I wouldn’t have believed I would put the details of my entire collection of books online – but I have, and I actively tell people about it

At what level does usage data need to accumulate?

KC: We need to be able to share it at a high level. Like MySpace or Facebook – need to be able to share not randomly – but with ‘your people’. Also true of cataloguing data – you want to see the catalogue record that your community is happy with.

E.g. all Law Libraries

SA: We don’t use our usage data. We don’t have enough statistical analytical skills in the profession – need to bring this in from outside.

Work to date shows that library users don’t behave in the same way as the ‘general public’

Does Open Source s/w provide a compelling solution?

KS: Yes! (she works for an Equinox who sell support for Open Source solutions). [missed her expanding on this]

KC: OSS is not good by default – some of it is pretty poor. We need to insist on good quality software

SA: Yes – but… SirsiDynix use a lot of Open Source s/w and lots of good stuff out there. Some things you need to be clear about – contracts, insurance, etc. If you are managing finance there are regulations – your system needs to be able to get through an audit – vendors spend a lot of money on this.

Need to have ‘real’ developers – either in-house or with a support company.

KS: Lots of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) about Open Source. You should always use good software.

SA: Quote Cliff Lynch ‘the stupidest thing we are doing is reinventing our internal operating systems, when we should be focussing on the user experience’

Where is the library systems market going?

SA: Will be lots of changes – mergers of companies etc.

KS: Employees of library systems vendors moving towards Open Source and OCLC. Energy crisis also having big impact.

SA: National debt rising – budgets will drop. Suppliers are impacted directly by this – they rely on income from publicly funded bodies

People stop travelling – stop driving to the library as well.

KC: Are we facing a future without libraries?

JJ: People turn to libraries as costs of buying goods go up – people may move from Amazon to libraries – is this an opportunity?

SA: You should already be this for this. Libraries already have loads of stuff you can use from home – need to get your marketing campaign in place now.

KS: Now at the point where a Prius is a financially sensible purchase. Green agenda also on the rise. Libraries are ‘green’ as they reuse the books. Seeing impact all over – this is a great opportunity. But we don’t want to be a choice for ‘bad times’ – this is what we should value – sharing resources and sharing community

KC: This is a time that we really need to know the cost of things. We need to make sensible decisions about what we do – we need to know cost vs benefit. We know that cataloguing costs us, but we don’t have a financial value on the benefit.

SA: When we do know what it costs, we should act on this. Some research that shows that for the top 1000 books requested on ILL they were available cheaper on Amazon used books – it would have been cheaper to buy it for the patron directly and let them keep it, than to do an ILL.

What would you like to have happen in the future – what would you change ‘one thing’ in the tools we have?

KS: Every single (s/w) product to be Open Source

SA: Our market develop and culture of innovation. Most libraries are 6 generations behind on their ILS. We have to be up to date.

KC: That systems separate library management from user service. Stop hindering good user service by linking them to complex management systems. Currently these needs compete.

JJ: Library software market to be bigger. If it were bigger – would suggest there was more demand – drives supply etc. virtuous cycle

There is a ‘homespun’ feel to the market. Would be great to merit the attention of major s/w players. Wouldn’t it be nice if Apple or Nintendo were developing s/w products for libraries. The largest threat to libraries is ‘indifference’

Roy imjagines the Wii interface to the library catalog – with a card catalog interface…

One thing you could do to help people find books/information better than they do now?

KC: Connecting people to each other.

SA: We keep trying to improve transactions. We need to look at the continuum of user need – they are trying to go somewhere, and we concentrate on ‘lending them a book’ rather than what their aim in borrowing the book is – education, better life etc.

JJ: Everyone gets their own personal Nancy Pearl. She represents ‘the community’ librarian – who ‘knows’ their users.

KC: User to user engagement. Mentioning ‘Bibliocommons’. People want to engage with each other – not with librarians

Final Words

SA: The best thing we can do is to get onto the most modern platform as quickly as possible, get over it, and start working on the user experience. How many of you have the ‘virtual’ branch staffed and managed to same extent as the physical branch?

JJ: Encourage people to work together. Put the drive of new people in the profession with the experience of people who have been in the profession for years – draw on the strengths of both. Combination of expertise, experience, tradition and innovation has lots of potential

KC: Give up our dogma (as KS said earlier) – need to look at what we do, and why we do it. Some of our practices are based on the card catalog. We need to engage with non-libraries and non-librarians – Google, Amazon, Internet Archive etc. All of these people should be in our environment.

We need to trust our users – when we think about tagging etc. Some of the people involved will have actually written the book!

KS: Too many discussions that put two things against each other (tagging vs traditional metadata, fulltext vs cataloguing) – these are not alternatives, but both have strengths.

As with KC – need to put our dogma aside and look at alternatives. We need to ‘weed’ our practices – and only when we’ve done this can we see the really good practices that we have, as well as new practices that we can put in place.

People love libraries.

This last talk in the session by Oliver Pesch from EBSCO Information Services.

The traditional role of the agent was around print:

• Central catalog of available titles
• consolidate orders
• process invoices
• etc.

Then came ‘e’

• Has print workflow but then a load of other stuff as well
• Trials
• Licenses
• IP ranges
• Registration
• Trouble shooting
• Link resolvers
• Usage stats

Oliver says that e-journals are the ‘more prickly’ types of e-resources  – I don’t really agree – e-journals are simple compared to e-books – because we have had them for longer, and understand them better, and have more in common with print counterparts than books.

With print

• Physical product
• Library controls collection
• Linear processes
• Assembly line

With e

• Virtual product
• Others control collection
• Troubleshooting, triage
• Non-linear processes
• Like an Intensive Care Unit – need different staff skills

We are not just managing print and managing electronic, but also managing the transition between print and electronic – so we have more to do!

All this has affected agents too. Oliver noting that agents spent a lot of time at conferences saying ‘there is value in an agent’ – sounds like the talk from YBP this morning re: e-books!

But – the goal has not changed.

The agent now has more tasks:

• Capturing data
• Influencing the processes
• Feeding other systems
• License details
• Access and registration data
• …

Agents have developed systems that facilitate management of both print and e

Some services that we might expect from agents and their systems:

• Supporting print and electronic on same platform (EBSCONET, Swetswise etc.)
• Managing the transition
• Publisher packages
• Handling various print and online models
• Collecting data about access and registration
• Capturing license details
• Introducing intelligent systems to track and assist with activation and registration activities
• Extending EDI/ILS interfaces to update costs information in ERM
• Populating other relevant data in ERMs
• Providing ERM functionality
• Offering access services
• Automatic updating of holdings into access services
• Extending integration to other services

A lot of what Oliver is saying sound good – but much of it isn’t there – from my point of view anyway – at the moment. So – I’m not aware that our agents are managing the information about our ‘big deals’ and how it effects print – we put this together ourselves (and it is labour intensive!)

Also, some of the functions that are there – e.g. ERM functionality, are difficult because we don’t necessarily have all our business with a single agent (although I think that EBSCO for e.g. can provide services for subs that they aren’t managing for you)

So in conclusion:

• Print and electronic are intertwined
• Needs and challenges of the electronic journal are significantly different to those of print
• Agents can help and add value!

This session by Lila Angie Ohler from Maryland  – she says “Libraries have done themselves a disservice by dealing with e-resources separately”

Some myths about e-resources:

• Why worry – e-resources just take care of themselves right?
• Placing the order and paying the invoice is just hte beginning
• E-Resource do not remain ‘on the shelf’ – access can drop or change
• E-Resource purchase require ‘special handling’
• Legacy from when e-resources were new
• Libraries built separate processes, and ended up with duplication and inefficient workflows
• Getting accurate access and information from vendors very difficult
• We ended up with unnecessary gatekeeper structures or special forms which prevent efficient subs management
• Moving to e-subs means no more print and saves costs
• Print has not gone away
• Most of the serials market place are still single titles
• More to do, not less
• E-Resources take less time and less staff resources
• Admin tasks for e-resources add on to print workflows, not replace them
• Many of these activities require input from professional librarians – meaning more expensive staff
• E-Resources staff spend the majority of their time reconciling serial data between different systems – this is NOT an automated process
• Only Librarians should manage e-resources
• Culture of ‘special handling’ creates bottlenecks around specific staff
• By not training print serial staff fro new e-resource work, means retaining staff for diminishing work
• Junior staff can be more comfortable with online resources and technologies

What has not changed?

• Acquisitions Data
• Acquisitiosn order and Purachse is (or should be) Record of authorig for all Library Purcahses
• Subs are still subs – e or p
• Title by title details are still the primary management unit – even if you buy them in packages
• Subs agents
• Vendors do work for you – e.g. renewals – still advantages over going with publishers
• Vendor reports help reconcile and track format changes, publisher changes, big deal titles lists
• This reminds me of a conversation about e-books and the fact that within packages we may get new editions etc. automatically added to the package – but the publishers are really bad at telling us – this type of service wasn’t mentioned by YBP or Coutts in this mornings session about e-books – they should look at it.

So overall – what’s new?

• Licnesing
• Access Registration
• Access Activation Alerts
• Troubleshooting Access prolems
• Maintain link resolvers
• …

Database maintentance

• Don’t try to do this all yourself manually – follow the 80/20 rule – save time for truly unique resources – you can’t do everything – this is a different size of problem to the print world
• Link Resolver Knowledge Bases help, but are independent of the catalog and require constant update
• Look for other services in the market to help (e.g. PAMS and MARC)

Serial Controls and Claims

• There are risks of leaving patrons to find the problems
• Troubleshooting access problems takes time – often outside the libraries control
• Adapt ILS servials controls for e-journals setting up a once or twice yearly ‘pattern’ which generates daily ‘claim’ lists
• From lists, staff found that 25% of those titles checked were not working properly – a shocking amount
• Note Lila not talking about aggregations here, which change too much to track reliably

Serial Acquisitions and Subs Management

• Adapt the ILS Acq order to reflect the format purchased and relationship to publisher deals
• Lincesing, registration, access, activation, troubleshooting are all part of the subs process

Cataloging

• Licenses can be catalogued
• Use existing ERM tools in new ways
• Database to record both full licenses and licensing expresssions
• URL through resource target level in SFX pushes ‘terms of use’ through to the end user for all titles from that publisher or hosting site
• This sounds like a really interesting project – they are talking about parsing the full-text licenses and extracting terms of use – would be very interesting to look at.

What should libraries do?

• Stop reinventing the wheel
• Keep up to date on market products, new tools from existing vendors and what other libraries are doing
• Repurpose data reported from existing information silos and combine it easily in new tools
• BUT with any tool selected, plan for change and interoperability – things change, and tools change with them
• Make information and the management process trasnparen, share data files and email lists
• Triage troubleshooting, designate a ‘Go To’ unit (like TAP mentioned in previous talk), don’t duplicate your efforts
• Provide a single help point for patrons

There is no magic system:

• Not all ERM tools are the same – evaluate what your ERM needs are before purchasing or building – and think about ERM as a set of tools – you may only need part of the toolset, and this may be cheaper than a all encompassing system
• Look at your staff resources in relation to duplication of effort – beware of systems that increase duplication, rather than making the systems simpler
• Beware both of maintaining outdated in-house systems AND the purchase of vaporware – test drive as much as you can

 

Q: What is the workflow for cataloguing licenses?

A: Research data in licenses. Figure out ways of bringing together data and doing something with them. Standardise language etc.

Q: Would you be willing to share how you do the SFX ‘Terms of Use’

A: Stole this from another library! (although not done at Maryland) – Washington Research Library Consortium

Q: We have a specialist team. The general ‘acq’ team not so familiar with e-vendors etc. What worked for us was a specialist team, but with other staff cycled through to share knowledge.

A: Recommend cross-training as much as you can. Can’t afford staff who don’t know the overall process.

Q: There’s been a lot of talk about communication – not always good in libraries, are there suggestions for tackling this?

A: Yes – talk to me after.

 

This talk by ? from III (Innovative Interfaces Inc.)

She is starting by asking what do the workflows have in common:

• Goals for staff
• Efficient and effective
• Selection and acq
• Maintenance
• Tracking subs and renewal informatin
• Reports on cost and usage
• Managing cancellation

Makes a huge amount of sense to have cross-training.

• Goals for patrons
• Efficient and effective
• Findability
• Browsability
• Availability
• Contextual linking
• Holdings information

“People do not come into a library to search, they come to find”

Patrons want what they want, they don’t care how it is held or delivered (I agree, although with some limitations – there are certain baselines that patrons want in terms of how they can use the resource I think – although these move over time – there was a point when people would use print in preference to electronic, but not now)

Now describing some stuff about print subs:

• Bib record for finding in OPAC
• Order record for tracking payments
• Holdings record to record retention or ownership
• Card (! I think she means virtual cards) to display receipt of individual issues
• Item records to circulate issues (at Imperial we don’t have these, and don’t circulate journal issues)

For e-subs:

• Resource record for fiding databases in OPAC
• License record to manage legal details
• Order record for tracking payments
• Bib record for individual titles in package
• Holdings record to show coverage

Ongoing maintenance functions

• Monitoring receipts – this is different between print and e
• Print subs
• virtual checkin card
• E-Subs
• Coverage span (note one of the really key differences between link resolvers and traditional systems is that coverage span in resolvers is typically stored in a machine actionable format – if only this was the case for print journals things would be a lot simpler)

Libraries need to optimize patron usage by making sure that patrons are finding what the library owns  – typically:

• A-Z lists of e-journals and databases
• Subject lists of e-journals and databases
• Resource records in OPAC
• OpenURL linking from citation sources
• Contextual linking from search or title records
• ….

We need to make e-resources as visible as possible.

I’ve lost the thread of this talk a bit – not sure where it is going…

Need to determing effectiveness of resources – is the stuff we are supplying doing any good? Usage reporting etc.