Resource Description and Access

About: Resource Description and Access is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1859 publications have been published within this topic receiving 10957 citations. The topic is also known as: RDA & Resource Description & Access.

Liberating Knowledge: A Librarian's Manifesto for Change

Abstract: FALL 2010 83 Though students flock to libraries as places to socialize, study, and work on research, and librarians are doing their best to meet their needs and the needs of scholars working in their labs, offices, and (who knows?) their cars as they commute from one officeless work assignment to another, the identity of the library as an intellectual commons, an enlightened and morally uncompromised public sphere where ideas mingle and give rise to new knowledge, is endangered. According to the most recent study of faculty attitudes conducted by Ithaka, the Libraries are an interesting instance of the radical transformations that higher education is experiencing. The neoliberal turn that has led to the commodification of what scholars do—teach and create knowledge—has had a profound effect on the academic library. But the political economy of the transformed library is invisible to many if not most faculty. The current financial problems libraries face—escalating cost of subscriptions to journals and databases, a shrinking budget, and cuts in both professional staff and student employment hours that lead to locking the doors early (in at least one case leading students to set up their own outdoor study area during finals in front of a closed library in protest)—are a natural outcome of the trend to treat students as consumers, the faculty as individuals contracted to teach courses but to leave the management of the university to a growing cadre of administrators, and knowledge as intellectual property to be monetized. Liberating Knowledge: A Librarian’s Manifesto for Change

Defining, Assessing, and Rethinking Quality Cataloging

Abstract: Definitions of “quality cataloging” may differ from cataloger to cataloger and from institution to institution. If an objective definition of quality is elusive, how can an institution assess the quality of cataloging work? This article discusses definitions of quality cataloging in the literature and different ways it has been evaluated and measured. Academic library catalogers' perceptions of quality cataloging will also be explored, as well as how these perceptions are formed. The article concludes by suggesting ways cataloging departments can approach the creation and evaluation of quality cataloging in an ethical manner.