The Future of the Libraries'
Catalog:
July 2000
There
is increasing interest in the future of the Libraries’ online catalog that has
been sparked by a number of factors.
The creation of the Digital Registry and the Information Gateway
provided a new means of access to Web resources. The migration of the library catalog to Innovative’s Web product
has done the same. In addition, new
consortial possibilities and sets of electronic records available for purchase
have expanded the range of materials that can be added to the catalog. All of these developments, on top of the
explosion in the number of electronic texts, have raised the question of how
the library catalog best fits into our plans for providing information to
users.
As
a beginning point for a broader discussion within the Libraries, the Cataloging
Policy Committee met to talk about this on two occasions earlier in the
year. The following is a summary of the
topics that were raised. By no means
were any conclusions reached, but a number of issues were explored and some
focal points of agreement were outlined.
There
was general agreement that the catalog should go beyond the traditional
"inventory" function and provide access as a "gateway" to
information in the form of full text, electronic journals, etc. Several problems with this were noted,
however. How will URLs be maintained
when they change? How will an
electronic version of the text be preserved, so that it does not go away at
some point in the future? How can
navigation be improved, so users do not get so lost? For example, can links be opened in another window, so that the
catalog can be easily found again? Or
can there be a warning when users leave library webspace? Questions about access for various
categories of users were raised, in particular, whether online access for
non-affiliated users will not be as available as access to the print
collection, or whether some affiliated users may have less access online than
for print.
One
problem is the differing needs of users, e.g. undergraduate vs.
researcher. A configurable catalog that
allowed various groupings of functionality would be desirable. Even better is one that would identify the
individual user and provide the proper level (My Catalog).
Holdings: Whose Should They Be?
Concerning
whether the catalog should focus solely on our holdings, or include those of
cooperating institutions, it was noted that initiatives to include other
libraries are already underway. Of
course, the inventory function for our own holdings will continue, but the
question is how many other things will be added. Currently, holdings for the Miller Library at the Center for
Urban Horticulture are being input, Cascadia Community College is in the
planning stages, and the UW Rome Center Library is under consideration. Interest in having the holdings of the UW
Law Library in our catalog was expressed because users do not always find that
catalog. There was also substantial
interest in the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), although a number of
technical questions were raised concerning the de-duping of records, authority
control and the ongoing costs of maintenance.
It would need to be clear that CRL materials are not held on campus and
there should be an obvious link to a request form in the catalog. The question of how our catalog relates to
the statewide union catalog with regard to Law and CRL holdings was raised.
In
some areas the catalog provides the same access to titles within sets as
A&I services that we purchase (e.g. Congressional Universe and some
microform analytics). Library staff
keep cheat sheets to remind themselves where things are indexed, and users may
easily come to expect more from the catalog than is really there. Another example of this question is a
collection of 500 photographs of Mt. St. Helens. Should the catalog contain one record for the collection, or 500
records, one for each photograph? A super
search engine that spans the catalog and all of our databases would be nice, so
users could see the full range of materials that are available. This would have its own problems, though,
since retrieval sets may easily be too large to be usable.
It
was suggested that we look at the functionality that cannot be provided by the
catalog, and then decide whether we want these features enough to develop them
ourselves. A distinction was drawn
between the pathfinder, as a selection of the most important materials
on a subject, and the catalog as a means to find all materials in the
collection. Each serves a different and
valid purpose, and we need tools to support both. The cost of maintaining hand-built pathfinders, especially as the
number of e-resources grows, was noted.
It
was noted that the lines are blurring between the catalog and other access
mechanisms such as interlibrary loan.
As more materials are not held locally, and requested through the
catalog, ILL policies affect what can actually be retrieved, in particular,
practices concerning what is "research" material and what is not.
There
was a lively discussion of whether it is good to link from the library catalog
to a commercial supplier, such as Amazon.com, as some libraries are beginning
to do. An Amazon affiliate program
allows libraries to make a small commission on sales when the user enters from
the catalog. Feelings ran strongly
against links to Amazon for a number of reasons. There was concern about linking to any single commercial source
because it is just one point of view.
Also, a link to a vendor could be seen as an endorsement, which we would
not want to make: it would be better instead to have a choice or list of
vendors. Questions were raised about
the ethics of earning money from our users.
Staff time used to create and maintain such links would take away from
other valuable activities. The Internet
is commercial, and the library should hold out against commerce driving
intellectual freedom. Finally, students
will think of Amazon by themselves. We
don’t need to lead them to it, but rather to things they would not find on
their own, and to teach them to evaluate sources.
A
related topic is what links to review sources should be in the catalog. While reviews are a useful feature of sites
such as Amazon, they are often not scholarly or simply not available for many
valuable titles. It would be more
useful to explore providing better review sources, or a list of sources. Reviews are also available online for
videos. For books, tables of contents
can be very useful. There is also
interest in links to biographies for authors.
Several
questions recurred throughout CPC’s discussion. One is that we need to know our users and what they want. For example, do they turn to us for “better”
information, or is convenience (quick and dirty) what we need to provide. One approach is to use focus groups or
surveys in order to better understand their needs. Also, we in the library need to be clear on our own values and to
not lose sight of what we do best.