Cataloging

About: Cataloging is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4770 publications have been published within this topic receiving 32489 citations.

The Illusion of Omniscience: Subject Access and the Reference Archivist

Abstract: Current theories of subject and information retrieval are predicated on the experience and needs of libraries and information centers and do not effectively address the needs of archives. Both libraries and archives seek to aid users in locating information. The problems faced by the two institutions, however, are as different as their materials, organizing principles, and descriptive techniques. A comparison of the two institutions illustrates some of the difficulties facing the reference archivist seeking subject retrieval of archival and manuscript materials arranged according to the principles of provenance and original order. Archives and libraries differ most obviously in the materials they collect. For the most part, libraries collect books and other published materials which are produced in multiple copies in relatively uniform sizes and formats. Generally, a book is created quite deliberately by an author, as a literary product treating a particular topic. On the other hand, archives accession unique documents w ich vary widely in size and format. The documents are usually created by many authors as the byproduct of personal and organizational activity. Rarely are they self-conscious literary productions. Unlike a book, which can stand alone as an author's thoughts on a single topic, archival documents generally make sense only as part of a group of records. Record groups reflect the many activities which created them and may be useful for many subjects. Retrieval of individual books relating to a specific subject is a primary goal for the library, and librarians have devised both classification and cataloging techniques to accomplish subject retrieval. On the other hand, subject retrieval of individual documents has not been a primary goal for most archivists. Library classification brings books treating the same subject together on the shelf, thereby creating one important and powerful mode of subject access. The classification notation gives

A Virtual International Authority File.

Abstract: A pool of authority records for bibliographic entities (persons, corporate bodies, works/expressions, concepts objects, events, and places) to use on the Internet is of interest not only to libraries and their users but also to publishers, copyright and rights management organizations, museums, and archives. This paper will explore how this all might actually work. Authority control remains the most expensive part of cataloging, but through cooperative efforts like NACO, SACO, and IFLA initiatives, the research done in one library can be shared internationally to lower the cost. It has often been observed that the current Web is chaotic for finding information. It needs help and we can provide it! Introducing an element of authority control to the Web environment would help meet these objectives: • to facilitate the sharing of the workload to reduce cataloguing costs and our community has expanded, especially in Europe these days, where libraries are viewed with archives, museums, and rights management agencies as “memory institutions.” Shared authority information will reduce costs overall. Other objectives for authority control are • to simplify the creation and maintenance of authority records internationally and • to enable users to access information in the language, scripts, and form they prefer or that their local library provides for them. The virtues of authority control have been debated and restated for decades. When we apply authority control in the Web environment, we are reminded how it brings precision to searches, how the syndetic structure of references enables navigation and provides explanations for variations and inconsistencies, how the controlled forms of names and titles and subjects help collocate works in displays, how we can

The Future of Cataloging

Abstract: This paper explores cataloging in the Age of Google. It considers what the technologies now being adopted mean for cataloging in the future. The author begins by exploring how digital-era students do research--they find using Google easier than using libraries. Mass digitization projects now are bringing into question the role that library cataloging has traditionally performed. The author asks readers to consider if the detailed attention librarians have been paying to descriptive cataloging can still be justified, and if cost-effective means for access should be considered. ********** My career in librarianship has included work in cataloging, which I have always understood to be a major part of library functioning. But I did not fully realize how major until I made a discovery when I became associate librarian of the Library of Congress. The discovery was--financial the Library of Congress is investing in cataloging at the rate of $44 million a year! You can well appreciate that a cost of that magnitude really got my attention. If such an expenditure produces great benefits for the Library of Congress, libraries across the country, and others around the world, then we can justifiably argue that the $44 million is well spent. But in the age of digital information, Internet access, and electronic key word searching, just how much do we need to continue to spend on carefully constructed catalogs? That is the question I have come here this evening to pose--how should we think about cataloging in the Age of Google? I have not come to say that we no longer need the cataloger-produced bibliographic entry. I recognize that my own institution, the Library of Congress, created the bibliographic structure that is used by nearly every library in this country and by many around the world. Before starting any revolution against that structure, I want to take care to consider the potential consequences. But I have many questions about cataloging, and I believe we must face them together and begin answering collectively. I therefore welcome the invitation to speak here as an opportunity to begin that discussion. I need your advice, your judgment, and that of others in the library and research communities to consider what the technologies that all of us are now adopting mean for cataloging in the future. I ask you to think of this evening as the first step in a longer exploration of a difficult issue. Using the Library versus Googling Let me begin with a practical demonstration of the question's importance--an example of how digital-era students work. Let us suppose that you are a librarian at a small college near the middle of the continental United States. Let us even suppose that yours is the library whose Web site I recently picked at random to see what digital resources it was offering. I am pleased to tell you that I was impressed. In addition to an electronically searchable catalog of your own physical holdings, I found that you offer fourteen EBSCOHost online databases, thirteen online databases from OCLC FirstSearch, eleven InfoTrac online databases, five Lexis Nexis online databases, three Proquest online databases, and at least nine other online resources, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, electronic books, and materials for research on current issues. Consequently, users of your library have online access to literally hundreds of scholarly journals and other resources on all kinds of topics in a wide range of academic fields. Now let us suppose that I am one of your college's students with a term paper coming due. Let us also suppose that I have been assigned to write about the foreign policy of President Fillmore. In the old days, I might have walked to your library, looked in an encyclopedia there for "Fillmore," searched your paper card catalog to identify books on Fillmore, located these books by call number on a shelf, and looked through their tables of contents and maybe indexes to find what they contained on foreign policy. …

Apparatus and method for cataloging data

Abstract: A method of cataloging data is provided. The method includes identifying a data source having data representative of a web page, reading, from the data source, source code representative of the text displayed to a viewer of the web page, identifying, based on the source code, whether at least a portion of the data source corresponds to a predetermined search category, and cataloging the data source in accordance with the identifying. An automatic cataloging device is also provided. The automatic cataloging device includes a data storage device and a processor. The processor of the automatic cataloging device obtains an address of a web page having data from the data storage device, reads source code from the web page, identifies data from the source code that corresponds to a predetermined search category, and saves data related to the corresponding data in a predefined category within the data storage device.