Activity 5: Article Response #3

Perceptions of the Future of Cataloging: Is the Sky Really Falling?
Ivey, Robert T
Cataloging & Classification Quarterly , 2009, Vol. 47, Issue 5

First of all, I must apologize that I just now discovered the publication "Cataloging & Classification Quarterly" so this article will be more directly related to the contents of this course. Because of the length of this article I'm going to read and respond to it in sections.

In general, the article discusses the current and future role of the library cataloguer, especially in the context of reduced budgets, increased digital resources, and the popularity of search engines. The article poses the question of what is the role of the cataloger, and what does the future hold for this profession? The article begins with a brief history of the cataloguing position, names some of the predictions for issues that would affect the profession (such as a decreasing of material resources, and an increase of digital resources, and an increasing variety of resources that the cataloger is responsible for). In my own library I can see evidence of this. Even over the past 3 years that I have worked in the school, I have noticed more and more non-fiction resources being pulled off the shelves, and not physically replaced (as I assume they are now purchased in digital format).

The article also mentions the "outsourcing' of catalogers responsibilities. I wonder if this applies to the fact that all of our library cataloging is now done at the district office, when at one point in time it must have been done by each individual librarian in each school.

I found the section "Catalogers in the Digital Age" to be very interesting. The discussion of search engines shifting the control from the cataloger to the user (and the response by some catalogers) was thought provoking. In the article, Lombardi is quoted as saying "students have little patience with the formal organizational structure of the library and the authority of the librarian". But others argue against the search engines, such as Gorman who states "we have allowed resource description to be dragged down to the customer's level". Personally, I fall into the category of the student with "little patience for the formal organizational structure of the library", and I certainly prefer google over organized catalogs such as the UBC library. However, I am learning that a lot of significant time can be wasted with the google method because it is so random. I personally don't want to be bothered learning all the intricacies of a catalog, however I know that it would be worth it to do so, because in the long run it will make my life a lot easier. I won't pretend that I actually understand everything being proposed in this article, but the idea that the concepts of the search engine and the catalog will come together makes a lot of sense.


Later in the article, it is noted that "many students and even many scholars resort first to Internet keyword searches before going to the library catalog or bypass the catalog entirely", and "this initial preference has motivated publishers and libraries to make increasing amounts of material available digitally on the Web, where it is discoverable outside the usual catalog search."

I am wondering what would happen in the context of LIBE 465 if all journal articles were posted directly on the web, instead of in the UBC catalogue. Starting from scratch (as I was), would I have been able to find any of the articles I am currently commenting on? I wouldn't have known the name of any of the journals. Of course then there is also the difficulty of distinguishing "academic" articles. Who regulates the Internet? How would I find "legitimate" sources for "academic" discussion? Finally, if I had typed in the word "library" or "catalog" into google, most of the information that came up would have been irrelevant to my current assignment. So in this context I can certainly see the need for some form of cataloging. However the need for simplicity and speed is demanded by today's student. "Users have become accustomed to simplicity and immediate results in searches and the current library catalog is poorly designed for these aspects" I think there must be a way to combine catalogs with the web.

I realize that this article is targeted at an audience of professional catalogers. Most of the discussion lies outside the scope of a general high school teacher-librarian, and I would expect that the future holds a combination of "floating" catalogs and indexes on the Internet that can be accessed with search engines such as google. As a high school librarian I predict that I will spend more time helping students navigate the Internet than my library catalog.