Cataloging In Academic Libraries Research Articles

Implementing Bibliographic Enhancement Data in Academic Library Catalogs: An Empirical Study

This study examines users’ needs for bibliographic enhancement data (BIBED) in academic library catalogs. Qualitative data were collected through 30 academic users’ activity logs and follow-up interviews. These 30 participants were recruited from a public university in the United States that has over 19,000 students enrolled and over 600 full-time faculty members. This study identified 19 types of BIBED useful for supporting the five user tasks proposed in the IFLA Library Reference Model and in seven other contexts, such as enhancing one’s understanding, offering search instructions, and providing readers’ advisory. Findings suggest that adopting BIBFRAME and Semantic Web technologies may enable academic library catalogs to provide BIBED to better meet user needs in various contexts.

Cataloging Quality and the Views of Catalogers in Hellenic Academic Libraries

This study focuses on cataloging quality and how it is defined by information professionals, specifically university library catalogers. Although there is no single and objective definition of ‘cataloging quality,’ research aims to specify its core characteristics. The goal is to define the modern cataloging environment, as well as the tools and opportunities it provides, and to improve the success of academic library services for both professional catalogers and users, who are the final consumers of the information. Regarding methodology, a sample survey was chosen. The survey results revealed that the quality of cataloging is determined by several factors, including technical features of the data, adherence to standards, the cataloging process, user satisfaction, and the development of a general quality culture.

Adding LCMPT Terms to Local Catalog Records for Notated Music for Voice and Piano

ABSTRACT Medium of performance is a valuable way to find music materials, but it is challenging to search by medium in library catalogs. Songs for specific voice types are especially difficult to look for using legacy metadata such as subject headings. This article describes a project to add terms from Library of Congress Medium of Performance Thesaurus for Music to records for scores for songs with piano in an academic library catalog. Appropriate terms are identified by examining subject headings and uncontrolled fields in the records. Adding these terms can enhance discovery and enables deeper analysis of the collection.

What Metadata Matters?: Correlation of Metadata Elements with Click-Through Rates for E-Books and Streaming Video in the Academic Library Catalog

ABSTRACT The relationship between metadata and a user’s ability to effectively locate and select a given resource has been a primary interest of library and information professionals. Important questions about how metadata can best meet emerging search behaviors require continuous and engaged analysis. This paper describes such an analysis of click-through rates for e-book and streaming video resources, attempting to correlate use rates with the presence and character of metadata elements in their associated records. We found no strong correlation between the length of a metadata record, or the presence of individual fields, and higher use rates. A discussion of the implications of these findings for further research is presented.

Enhancing bibliographic records in academic library catalogs: An empirical study

AbstractThis poster presents preliminary findings of a study which examines users' needs and requirements for bibliographic enhancement data (B.E.D.) in academic library catalogs. Qualitative data were collected through eight participants' activity logs and follow‐up interviews. This study identified 17 types of B.E.D. useful for supporting the user tasks defined in the Library Reference Model and in six other contexts, such as enhancing users' reading interpretation. Participants reported nine quality criteria important for B.E.D. Findings suggest that adoption of BIBFRAME and Semantic Web technologies may enable academic library catalogs to provide B.E.D. to support users in various contexts.

De-Professionalization of Cataloging and Classification Practitioners in the Digital Environment: Retooling and Reskilling Issues in Academic Libraries in Nigeria

This article discusses issues of de-professionalization that is fast eroding cataloging and classification practices in academic libraries in Nigeria. It focuses on the factors that led to de-professionalization, its effect on cataloging and classification practices, and the need to re-strategize by retooling and reskilling the cataloging librarian in order to continue to remain relevant in the digital environment.

Ebook Sharing Models in Academic Libraries

As ebooks make up an ever-larger portion of academic library catalogs, it is becoming increasingly problematic that licensing agreements, digital rights management (DRM), and technical issues make it difficult to share them between libraries. This column examines some of the various models libraries and consortia are using to find ways to share ebooks despite the existing barriers.

Hebraica Catalogers and Cataloging Roles in North America: Today and Tomorrow

This study looks at current workflows, practices and preparations for the future among North American Hebraica catalogers in academic, government and other special libraries and archives, The survey explores the demographics of the Hebraica cataloging community. Questions were asked about what types of materials this group processes, workplace responsibilities, and metadata practices and trends. The author was very interested to know what steps and types of training Hebraica catalogers are undertaking to learn about new technologies and tools being developed to describe bibliographic and digital resources.

The search value added by subject descriptors in journal databases

Gross et al. (2015) have demonstrated that about a quarter of hits would typically be lost to keyword searchers if contemporary academic library catalogs dropped their controlled subject headings. This paper reports on an analysis of the loss levels that would result if a bibliographic database, namely the Australian Education Index (AEI), were missing the subject descriptors and identifiers assigned by its professional indexers, employing the methodology developed by Gross and Taylor (2005), and later by Gross et al. (2015). The results indicate that AEI users would lose a similar proportion of hits per query to that experienced by library catalog users: on average, 27% of the resources found by a sample of keyword queries on the AEI database would not have been found without the subject indexing, based on the Australian Thesaurus of Education Descriptors (ATED). The paper also discusses the methodological limitations of these studies, pointing out that real-life users might still find some of the resources missed by a particular query through follow-up searches, while additional resources might also be found through iterative searching on the subject vocabulary. The paper goes on to describe a new research design, based on a before-and-after experiment, which addresses some of these limitations. It is argued that this alternative design will provide a more realistic picture of the value that professionally assigned subject indexing and controlled subject vocabularies can add to literature searching of a more scholarly and thorough kind.

Making Metadata Maker: A Web Application for Metadata Production

Cataloging and metadata operations in academic libraries are focusing on original cataloging of their unique and hidden collections that have not been available to users because of a lack of metadata. However, creating MARC format metadata is an expensive process; libraries need professional catalogers with appropriate experience and knowledge or must train staff to do the work. To improve the cataloging and metadata creation workflow, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library developed a web application, Metadata Maker, which allows anyone to create metadata in four different formats, including MARC21 for an online public access catalog, regardless of their familiarity with metadata standards or systems that utilize the metadata. Released as an open source application, Metadata Maker supports diacritics and Unicode non-Roman language encoding, and creates metadata records that ensure discovery and access of unique library collections.

RDA in Turchia: percezioni e aspettative sull'implementazione

Integration of user-generated content with library catalogs is a remarkable point with the developments in web technologies and semantic networks. In the light of these developments, library catalogs are linked with open data resources like VIAF, DBpedia and amazon.com with the aim of bibliographic description via URI based structures. On the other hand Resource Description and Access (RDA), as a new cataloging standard, supports libraries for their bibliographic description studies by increasing access points. Furthermore, many initiatives have been launched by countries who would like to keep themselves up-to-date by using and implementing RDA in their library catalogs. In this context, developing catalogers' opinions and perceptions regarding of RDA implementations is of great importance. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the requirements, awareness and perceptions of catalogers in academic libraries in Turkey about RDA implementations. The contents of this paper were originally presented at the international conference FSR 2014 Faster, Smarter, Richer: Reshaping the library Catalogue, held in Rome, 27-28 February 2014.

Awareness, Perceptions, and Expectations of Academic Librarians in Turkey about Resource Description and Access (RDA)

Resource Description and Access (RDA), as a new cataloging standard, supports libraries in their bibliographic description processes by increasing access points. The increasing importance of RDA implementation requires adaptation to a new bibliographic universe. Furthermore, many initiatives have been launched by countries who would like to keep themselves up-to-date by using and implementing RDA in their library catalogs. This study points out the awareness and expectations of catalogers in academic libraries in Turkey about the transition from Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition (AACR2) to RDA and their potential problems in adapting RDA. The situation in Turkey in terms of academic libraries is evaluated and reported.

Digital Humanities: The Continuing Role of Serendipity in Historical Research

The move towards the digital humanities will see a growing interest in digital tools, such as Ebooks. This study examines the opinions and perception of historians about how Ebooks and other digital tools affect the research process. Findings indicate that historians are concerned that the digital environment reduces the possibility of chance encounters with a text. They continue to recreate the environment that encourages serendipity to occur within their field, and would readily welcome tools that facilitate this.Le passage vers les humanités numériques ira en grandissant, grâce à la popularité des outils électroniques et des livres électroniques particulièrement. Cette étude examine les opinions et les perceptions des historiens quant aux livres électroniques et autres outils numériques dans le cadre de leur processus de recherche. Les résultats indiquent que les historiens se soucient du fait que l’environnement électronique puisse réduire les possibilités de découvertes fortuites dans les texte. Ils continuent de récréer un environnement qui suscite la sérendipité dans leur domaine et adopteraient volontiers un outil qui leur faciliterait la tâche à cet égard.

The Relationship of Metadata to Item Circulation

This study analyzes the relationship between online public access catalog (OPAC) searches entered in a small academic library's catalog and the circulation of items during the same time period. Rather than identifying all searches resulting in a reasonable number of retrievals as successful, searches in this study were determined most useful if items on the results list were subsequently borrowed from the library. This comparison of search results with subsequent material checkouts indicates which metadata elements seem most useful to searchers, and suggests ways libraries might use this knowledge to enhance their users’ search experiences.

Beyond Failure: Potentially Mitigating Failed Author Searches in the Online Library Catalog Through the Use of Linked Data

Linked data stores house vetted content that can supplement the information available through online library catalogs, potentially mitigating failed author searches if information about the author exists in linked data formats. In this case study, a total of 689 failed author index queries from a large Midwestern academic library's online library catalog were re-run in seven linked data sources (Open Library, DBpedia, Freebase, New York Times Linked Open Data, NNDB, Virtual International Authorities File, and the Library of Congress Name Authorities), with 534 (78 percent) of the failed catalog queries yielding at least one hit in one of the repositories. Over half of the failed online library catalog queries examined were incorrectly formulated (n = 369), implying that some searchers of online library catalogs are unclear about the mechanics of left-anchored searching in author indexes. As a first step in becoming part of the linked data information ecosystem, librarians should consider providing access to existing linked data stores through the online library catalog as a way of mitigating failed author searches for personal names. Librarians should also consider facilitating author searches by only permitting keyword searches of the author index, continuing to carefully maintain authority records for authors in their collections, and facilitating discovery and the explicit statement of relationships through the future use of linked data in library catalogs.

FRBR—The MAB2 Perspective

FRBRizing legacy data has been a subject to research since the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model was published in 1998. Studies were mainly conducted for MARC 21, but in Austria, Maschinelles Austauschformat für Bibliotheken (MAB2), a data format based on the rules for descriptive cataloging in academic libraries, mainly in Germany and Austria, is still in use. The implementation of Primo, an Ex Libris software, made research in FRBRizing MAB2 records necessary as Primo offers the possibility of building FRBR-groups by clustering different manifestations of a work. The first steps of FRBRizing bibliographic records in MAB2 at the Vienna University Library and the challenges in this context are highlighted in this article.

RDA and the Copy Cataloger

Catalogers in academic libraries are facing a fundamental change in our guidelines and instructions on formulating descriptions for our library resources. A new cataloging standard, Resource Description and Access (RDA), has been developed as a replacement for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. This new standard is based on the conceptual models of FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Data) and FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data). The new standard and its online toolkit were tested over a 9-month period ( July 1–December 31, 2010) by the Library of Congress and 26 additional partners. The Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, and National Agricultural library announced in June 2011 that they have decided that RDA should be implemented no sooner than January 2013. However, that does not mean there are not already RDA bibliographic records in our cataloging utilities with plans in the offing to add more. This paper gives a review of RDA development along with a description of how the University of Kansas prepared and trained copy catalogers to handle RDA bibliographic and authority records during the RDA test period (October 1, 2010–January 1, 2011) and our plans for ongoing training during this interim period prior to full implementation.

Electronic Journals: Cataloging and Management Practices in Academic Libraries

The growth and availability of electronic journals offer libraries the opportunity to provide end users with quick and easy access to more journals than ever before, thereby creating a complex new workload in academic libraries. Libraries have addressed the evolving challenges unique to electronic resources by creating new policies and workflows and dedicating staff to work on the processes, despite the lack of best practices. In the fall of 2009, a survey was distributed to ninety-five libraries at peer institutions to gather information about their policies and practices for cataloging and managing electronic journals in order to gauge the current status of electronic journal management among these peer institutions. This paper reports on the survey findings related to cataloging approach, sources for bibliographic records, methods for identifying problems, and the staff and staff hours dedicated to electronic journals.

Electronic Journals: Cataloging and Management Practices in Academic Libraries

The growth and availability of electronic journals offer libraries the opportunity to provide end users with quick and easy access to more journals than ever before, thereby creating a complex new workload in academic libraries. Libraries have addressed the evolving challenges unique to electronic resources by creating new policies and workflows and dedicating staff to work on the processes, despite the lack of best practices. In the fall of 2009, a survey was distributed to ninety-five libraries at peer institutions to gather information about their policies and practices for cataloging and managing electronic journals in order to gauge the current status of electronic journal management among these peer institutions. This paper reports on the survey findings related to cataloging approach, sources for bibliographic records, methods for identifying problems, and the staff and staff hours dedicated to electronic journals.

Exploring User-Contributed Metadata's Potential to Enhance Access to Literary Works

Academic libraries have moved toward providing social networking features, such as tagging, in their library catalogs. To explore whether user tags can enhance access to individual literary works, the author obtained a sample of individual works of English and American literature from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from a large academic library catalog and searched them in LibraryThing. The author compared match rates, the availability of subject headings and tags across various literary forms, and the terminology used in tags versus controlled-vocabulary headings on a subset of records. In addition, she evaluated the usefulness of available LibraryThing tags for the library catalog records that lacked subject headings. Options for utilizing the subject terms available in sources outside the local catalog also are discussed.