Contemporary metadata principles and standards tended to result in document-centric rather than data-centric; human-readable rather than machine-processable metadata. In order for libraries to create and harness shareable, mashable and re-usable metadata, a conceptual shift can be achieved by adjusting current library models such as Resource Description and Access (RDA) and Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) to models based on Linked Data principles. In relation to technical formats, libraries can leapfrog to Linked Data technical formats such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF), without disrupting current library metadata operations. This paper provides six key recommendations for libraries and standards agencies. These include rising to the challenges and embracing the opportunities presented by current technological trends, adopting minimal requirements of Linked Data principles, developing ontologies, deciding on what needs to be retained from current library models, becoming part of the Linked Data cloud, and developing mixed-metadata (standards-based and socially-constructed) approaches. Finally, the paper concludes by identifying and discussing five major benefits of such metadata re-conceptualisation. The benefits include metadata openness and sharing, serendipitous discovery of information resources, identification of zeitgeist and emergent metadata, facet-based navigation and metadata enriched with links.

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Linked data for libraries: benefits of a conceptual shift from library-specific record structures to RDF-based data models

Recent papers on the revision of cataloguing codes have also brought forth new discussions on the objectives of the alphabetical catalogue for author and title entries. As a rule the following three objectives are mentioned: 1) the rapid location of a particular book; 2) the Provision of Information concerning all editions, translations etc. of a given work äs far äs they exist in the library; 3) the provision of Information concerning all works by a given author äs far äs they exist in the library. In practice these three objectives will often conflict with one another, espedally äs far äs the first two are concerned. In order to make this Statement quite clear we shall examine the three objectives separately. We shall ftirthennore describe the general outlines of catalogues built up—in so far äs that is possible—on the basis of only one of these objectives. A catalogue designed for the first objective and neglecting the other two will have äs its basic element the individual book, i.e. the bibliographical unit. In such a catalogue the choice of the main headings äs well äs the compilation and arrangement of the main entries will have to be concentrated exclusively on that element. That is to say that, in such a catalogue, the main headings will be chosen from the particular book itself (i.e. various editions and translations of a certain anonymous work entered according to their particular titles regardless of whether the author can be ascertained or not; names of authors given in the form which appears in the particular book); the descriptions of the particular books will be

Literary unit versus bibliographical unit

Understanding FRBR: What It Is and How It Will Affect Our Retrieval Tools, Arlene G. Taylor. Copyright (c) 2007 by Arlene G. Taylor. Reproduced with the permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT.

FRBR and the History of Cataloging

SUMMARY The current state of graduate bibliographic control education in the United States is examined through reviewing the literature, analyzing Web sites for 48 LIS programs, and corresponding with and interviewing bibliographic control educators. In reviewing the recent bibliographic control education literature, six primary themes were identified: background/ contextual information, theory versus practice, responsibilities and skills needed by catalogers, relations between educators and practitioners, the universality of cataloging, and curricular issues. Each of these areas is examined in depth. The study conducted examined the number and types of bibliographic control education available in LIS programs in the US. It also collected information on which textbooks were being used in each course. It appears from the study that some courses are increasing in number. The primary areas of bibliographic control education examined include organizing information, technical services, classification theory, i...

A New Look at US Graduate Courses in Bibliographic Control

SUMMARY Continuous consideration of the curriculum and the environment is required to provide a cataloging curriculum responsive to an evolving profession yet grounded in solid theory and principles. The necessary competencies for future catalogers suggested by the cataloging community are examined. Fifty-two ALA-accredited library school programs are analyzed to determine the strength of cataloging within the curriculum and the degree to which the competencies are addressed. It is concluded that adequate education of future catalogers requires an expanded view beyond traditional cataloging courses. The recommendation is for a curricular syndetic structure that identifies relationships among courses and links courses with the concepts and competencies necessary for organizing information.

Cataloging Across the Curriculum: A Syndetic Structure for Teaching Cataloging

Preface Introduction Crisis in the Catalog Capital Punishment for Catalogers? Titles: Fifth Column of the Catalog Manual of Descriptive Cataloging Analysis of Current Descriptive Cataloging Practice The Cataloging of Publications of Corporate Authors Cataloging Rules and Principles Comments on Discussion of Cataloging Rules and Principles Development of Cataloging Rules Non-Author Headings: A Negative Theory Panizzi vs. the "Finding Catalog" Some Observations on Revision of the Cataloging Code The Current Revision of ALA Rules Fundamentals of Cataloging Code of Cataloging Rules: Author and Title Entry Smoke Over Revision The Function of the Main Entry in the Alphabetical Catalogue-One Approach On Teaching Cataloging Background and Underlying Principles Principles of Cataloging, Final Report. Idealogy of Bibliographic Cataloging: Progress and Retrogression The Fundamentals of Bibliographic Cataloging and AACR2 The Traditional Ideals of Cataloging and the New Revision On the Use of Form Headings in an Alphabetical Catalog

Seymour Lubetzky : Writings on the Classical Art of Cataloging

THE G R O W T H OF THE rules which shape library catalogs and determine their character and usefulness is susceptible of much more extended treatment than is possible here. What is attempted in the following pages is to point out present trends and to indicate their significance. Evidently the year 1941 marked the beginning of a new phase in the evolution of cataloging rules. The publication then of the preliminary American second edition of the A.L.A. Catalog Rules appears as the culmination of a movement inspired exactly one hundred years earlier by the issue of Panizzi's rules.2 The latter followed a very long period in which rudimentary methods of cataloging slowly evolved and the need of rules to systematize the work gradually came to be recogn i ~ e d . ~ As long as libraries were small and few books were published, the contents of a library could be recorded in any fashion that struck the fancy of the one in charge. Catalogs were made by librarians largely for their own use and had one simple function, that of an inventory or a collection of lists showing the holdings. The form and arrangement of the entries were arbitrary. As the holdings increased and the production of books rose, new functions were imposed and the old improvised methods became inadequate. When Sir Thomas Bodley set out to buy for the Oxford University Library, and sought to find from its catalog whether certain books were already on the shelves, he soon discovered that the entries were often vague in their descriptions and sometimes could not be found at all4 I t was well for inventory purposes, for example, to list a book bound with another book under the title of its companion; but when Bodley failed to find it under its own author's name he could escape buying another copy only by recollecting that it was already on hand. His letters to the librarian on the failings of the Ox-

Development of Cataloging Rules

On Teaching Cataloging

W E HAVE now looked at the development of cataloging in the past, we have glimpsed at the situation in cataloging abroad, we have followed a critical review of our own cataloging practice and have reflected on the need for a new code-without, at the same time, losing sight of the fiscal dimension of cataloging or forsaking the dream of a universal cataloging code. These are all parts of the panoramic setting of the problem that confronts those who look \"Toward a Better Cataloging Code.\" The problem itself-the achievement of a better code-is in the lap of the Code Revision Committee of the ALA Division of Cataloging and Classification, whose chairman has presented here a report of progress. And I am to join the other two speakers of this concluding session in an attempt to bring out a close-up of some aspects of the problem. In this attempt Mr. Henkle has surveyed the whole map of the problem of cataloging, pointing out shadowy areas here and there, and Mr. Custer and I were to follow him and examine more closely some of the points which we thought deserved particular consideration. This was at least my conception of our respective tasks, and I chose for comment a few points which I think relate to the core of the problem before the conference-the revision of our cataloging rules. My first point relates, as Mr. Henkle's does, to the outcome of the revision behind us-that of the descriptive cataloging rules. I think it was judicious of Mr. Henkle to begin his discourse with a retrospective look at the revision of the rules of description to see if there is something that could be learned from the experience which might benefit the prospective revision of the rules of entry. It appears that Mr. Henkle, who has done more than any other individual to bring about the revision of the descriptive cataloging rules, is considerably less sanguine about the outcome than some of the critics noted earlier by Mr. Dunkin. What troubles Mr. Henkle is the possibility that catalogers brought up in the tradition of the old rules may continue to follow the new rules only in the letter and not in the spirit; and \"the letter killeth\" applies equally to the new rules as it does to the old. But the rules of cataloging are an instrument to achieve a desired end, and the quality of an instrument is not to be measured by any unskilled use of it but rather by its potentialities. If the new descriptive cataloging rules are improperly applied, it is a measure not of the adequacy of the rules but of the people who apply them. It is a condition reflecting not on the merits of the rules but on the need of educational and administrative guidance of the staff. The critical consideration, it seems to me, is not whether the spirit of the new rules is being followed but whether or not there is a spirit in the new rules to follow. If under the old rules a tendency developed to follow the letter, it is perhaps

Some Observations on Revision of the Cataloging Code

The use of form and subject headings in place of author and title headings for the main entry of certain types of works has been fully considered by our professional forerunners and discarded for sound theoretical and practical reasons. While there is no case for reversing their decision, there is, however, reason for subdividing and grouping the entries under a given author-particularly where there are many with indistinctive titles-so as to facilitate the location of a given title.

Seymour Lubetzky

Papers

Seymour Lubetzky : Writings on the Classical Art of Cataloging

Development of Cataloging Rules

On Teaching Cataloging

Some Observations on Revision of the Cataloging Code

On the use of form headings in an alphabetical catalog