If you haven’t yet read Janet Swan Hill’s guest editorial in the latest issue of Library Resources & Technical Services, it’s well worth the time (and yes, that goes for all you non-technical services folks, too).
In it, she traces a path from the “Old Universe” of libraries, where funding and staffing levels were more robust and libraries generally seen as a public good in and of themselves, to the “Alternate Universe” in which we find ourselves today. Janet is a frequent and well-regarded commentator on cataloguing and technical services issues, and makes a number of good points in her commentary. One of the reality-shifts that I think she correctly identifies is a new focus on the “weird”–rare books, archives and manuscripts, audio-visual materials–the unique things that our libraries hold. The irony, as she notes, is the timing:
As the amount of copy [pre-existing catalogue records] we could find through bibliographic networks or other sources increased from 50 percent to 70 percent to 90 percent and above, we decreased our local workforce, and leaned on LC and on the other members of our networks. Maybe we should have taken the staff we saved by using copy, and put it to handling materials that we had not paid much attention to before–such as government publications, maps, special collections, scores, audio recordings, and archives, but for the most part we did not. The realization that we should have done so has come a few decades too late.
Though our staffing and funding levels in technical services areas are not what they once were, the availability of cataloguing copy and vendor services for mainstream materials should have us thinking about the place of our rare and unique materials in the cataloguing workflow. Believe me, I know this is easier said than done… If you’ve followed my blog or those of my colleagues, you know McMaster’s libraries have been in a significant change process for the last couple of years. But even after all this time, I still find myself banging my head against this question. It’s not because I think we need to craft the perfect MARC record for everything (though I do think we should maintain some basic quality standards) or that rare books and archives aren’t important (my background, after all, is special collections). Rather, it’s finding the right balance of time (i.e., people), skills, and services to do both the “weird” and the routine. With the WoGroFuBiCo report’s call for greater emphasis on special and “hidden” resources, I hope this is something the larger cataloguing community can figure out together.
Hill, Janet Swan. “Entering an alternate universe: some consequences of implementing recommendations of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control.” Library Resources & Technical Services 52.4 (Oct 2008): 218(9). Available online in Gale Academic OneFile.
