An interesting post over on LibraryJuice.

I’ve often wondered if LibraryThing users know where all those nifty descriptions come from. While Amazon is the default source, there are many titles still out there with little or no metadata in Amazon. As Rory notes in his post,

The functionality of LibraryThing is enhanced because of the fact that it makes use of cataloging that has already been done by professional catalogers. Data in LibraryThing that comes from Amazon is not as rich or as accurate as the data from research libraries, but in most cases it is quicker to get, and it is still based on essentially the same Z39.50 standard, which is in turn based on cataloging standards.

There’s a certain “I’m not quite dead” (delivered in your best Monty Python and the Holy Grail voice) feeling to this. We know that use of the traditional catalogue, as in OPAC, is declining. At the same time, we have a rich trove of bibliographic metadata on items that will never appear, or at least will never be as fully described, in Amazon.

LibraryThing’s use of bibliographic data retrieved through Z39.50 points to a future role of cataloguing. Not in trying to perfect the OPAC or push users back to it, but in finding ways to mine our data to support multiple services and position the information where our users want it.