Demonstrate understanding of basic principles and standards involved in organizing information such as classification and controlled vocabulary systems, cataloging systems, metadata schemas or other systems for making information accessible to a particular clientele.
The technological revolution occurring over the past 20 years has made access to information easier than ever. With the advancement in communications, internet, mobile computing and smartphones, information is never more than a few clicks away. However, with access to so much information, the true obstacle can be finding the specific information you want. Luckily, humans have an inert desire to make sense of information, store it, sort it and have access to it at a later time. By extension, libraries have the same goal, if perhaps to a more clinical degree. Information professionals are tasked with making sense of the information, cataloging it in a way that makes logical sense, and then disseminating it to their respective communities and patrons.
Cataloging Standards
Many cataloging standards have been created and refined over time to help organize and retrieve information. Traditionally, libraries and institutions of information relied on a physical card catalog system to organize and retrieve items. An information seeker would have to physically sort through cabinets of cards to locate a specific item at one particular location. With the aid of technology, systems have matured, and electronic records have been created to aid users in information retrieval, making it easier and faster to locate records and items.
One of the most widely used standards for cataloging is the Machine-Readable Catalog (MARC) system. Established in the 1960s and continuously updated, MARC 21 has been a cornerstone for cataloging. So, what does it mean to be "machine-readable"? A bibliographic record that is "machine-readable" is a record whose data can be read and interpreted by a machine, or computer. This is important because catalogs in libraries and archives no longer rely on printed catalog cards. Records are electronic, so it is necessary for the bibliographic records to be readable and identifiable by a machine.
A cataloging standard has three broad categories: content standards, encoding standards and exchange formats. Blaster identifies that, "content standards provide rules or instructions for describing the contents of materials that catalogers catalog (2018, p. 151). The main descriptive content standard is Resource Description and Access (RDA). Introduced in 2010, RDA provides instructions and guidelines for creating bibliographic records, and replaced the aging Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, second Edition (AACR2). RDA is intended mainly for use in libraries, museums and archives, but can be used in many types of organizations. Overall, RDA is more intuitive and makes better use of semantic language, a limiting factor with AACR2, and relies on the FRBR conceptual model, which “uses an entity-relationship model of metadata for information objects, instead of the single flat record concept” (OCLC, 2020). It is intended to make better use of linked records and libraries.
Encoding standards are used to create the record based on the content standards. There are various types of encoding standards that contain diverse sets of information. In the case of MARC 21 standards, there are elements to describe and date the item, as well as multiple numeric and alphanumeric fields and subfields to define headings and classifications. An example of another encoding standard would be Encoded Archival Description (EAD), used for encoding archival finding aids and records.
The last category of cataloging standards is exchange formats. Simply, exchange formats are the models that allow the metadata for the records to be exchanged between different institutions. MARC 21 records act as their own exchange formats, and it is the most widely used and de facto exchange format for libraries. Because it has clearly defined fields and subfields, the information can be easily read by other entities. Other examples of exchange formats are MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) and ONIX (Online Information eXchange).
As was discussed earlier, technology keeps advancing and user needs change. It is because of this that a replacement for MARC 21 is already on the horizon. In 2011, the Library of Congress announced the BIBFRAME (Bibliographic Framework) Initiative, with a stated purpose of replacing MARC 21. Balster states that “The scope of BIBFRAME is the library, archive, and museum world, which is similar to MARC 21’s scope, but BIBFRAME is built in such a way that it should be interoperable with outside ontologies or data models and is intended to allow metadata to exist on the web in a linked data environment” (2018, p. 152). MARC 21 currently has a single purpose format, and there is no way to share data between records. BIBFRAME aims to correct that issue and integrate newer technologies.
Classification Systems
In the United States, there are two main classification systems, the Library of Congress (LCC) and Dewey Decimal (DDC). A third system, the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), is a multilingual classification scheme and used in international libraries. There are subtle differences between the classification systems, but all share a standard of broad topic classification and refining the specificity within subsections. The systems allow for subject classification and relative indexing, meaning later entries can be added within the existing construct.
DDC assigns Arabic numbers to ten broad categories / summaries, further divided into another ten sections with multiple subdivisions, allowing for faceted classification. It was first introduced in 1876 and has seen 23 revisions, most recently in 2011. It is used primarily in public libraries and schools. LCC, originally created in 1897 to organize the Library of Congress, uses the Roman alphabet for 21 broad categories / classes, and further categorizes subtopics with two to three letter codes and an enumerative designation. It is used more prominently in academic libraries and government institutions.
While DDC remains the more popular classification system in libraries internationally, academic libraries, particularly in the United States, consider DDC to be outdated and restrictive. Research conducted revealed that only 18.9% of academic libraries use DDC, and half of that are 2-year colleges or former Teachers Colleges (Agbaji & Lund, 2018, p. 657). When further refined, the statistics show that only 10% of 4-year universities employ DDC in their libraries. This information shows a steady decline from 25% in 1996 and 42.8% in 1975 (p. 658). Further reasons for the trend is that DDC is thought to be suited for children's literature, while LCC works better for social and physical sciences.
Metadata
What is metadata? Simply, metadata is data about data. There are three main types of metadata: descriptive, structural and administrative. Descriptive metadata provides information for discovery and identification, such as title, author, ISBN and keywords. Structural metadata describes the container of information and how that container is organized, such as page numbers within a chapter, and describes the relationship between materials. Finally, administrative metadata provides technical information about the asset, such as file type, creation date, intellectual property rights and hardware/software used to create the item, such as scanner information and editing software.
Metadata is important because it helps organize items and assets, allowing for easy navigation and quick retrieval. Additionally, it is essential for long-term preservation of data sets. For example, if referencing a photographic archive record, seeing the image by itself would not have context and the significance or importance would be meaningless. However, with proper metadata, information about the image is included. Author, location, date, etc. would be known and the image could be included in a specific collection and properly referenced.
Supporting Evidence
My first evidentiary assignment is my LCC/DDC MARC Record Set assignment from INFO 248: Beginning Cataloging and Classification. The assignment tasked me with creating MARC records for 20 non-fiction books from my personal collection. I created MARC records in OCLC in accordance with RDA standards. The MARC records reflect current best-practices, as well as Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal Classification Systems. Included are also access points and subject headings. This assignment highlights my ability to create bibliographic records using an accepted standard and demonstrates my understanding of descriptive, structural and administrative metadata.
The second piece of evidence is a Management of Cataloging assignment from INFO 248: Beginning Cataloging and Classification. I explored OCLC and investigated fifty MARC records of print books, paying attention to subject headings, dates, record types, and fixed and variable fields. In the paper, I highlight the limitations of both Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems, citing examples of how each one is no longer adequate in a modern setting. This assignment illustrates my understanding of how bibliographic records are created, organized and classified. I also highlight my understanding of RDA standards and different classification systems.
Conclusion
Assigning metadata to items, cataloging the information and storing it in a coherent manner is necessary for information retrieval. Specific cataloging standards and classification systems have been used for a long time, but just as technology and access to information keeps advancing, the systems that catalog and classify the records must also advance. RDA incorporated modern vocabulary and new media and replaced the antiquated AACR2. BIBFRAME is on track to replace MARC 21 as the default cataloging standard as it incorporates web access and interoperability of systems. The next big development must be to update the outdated classification systems. The current systems are misleading as information is not properly categorized due to limited subject categories. One such example is history about the Cuban revolution. Dewey Decimal has no current field for Caribbean history, and has it instead lumped in with Mexico and Middle America. The classifications cannot be summarily assigned to adjacent geographic areas. It is and will be slow-going, but it is imperative that these standards are updated as information continues to evolve.
References
Agbaji, D., & Lund, B. (2018). Use of Dewey Decimal Classification by academic libraries in the United States. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 56(7), 653-661. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2018.1517851
Balster, K. (2018). BIBFRAMEing for non-BIBFRAMErs: An introduction to current and future cataloging practices. The Serials Librarian, 74(1-4), 151-155. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2018.142847
OCLC. (2020). OCLC research activities and IFLA's functional requirements for bibliographic records. OCLC Research. https://www.oclc.org/research/activities/frbr.html