Activity 5 Three Articles on Current Issues

1. Enriching Traditional Cataloging for Improved Access to Information: Library of Congress Tables of Contents Projects.

Having used the Library of Congress Site consistently throughout the course I was immensely impressed with their Online Catalogue Site. The article that I found was extremely insightful and reflects the high degree of professionalism and foresight on the part of the LC’s Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT).

The journal article outlines some of the initiatives the team has implemented to improve access to the online electronic resources for patrons in this digital age. This topic was expressly discussed in Week 9 of our course outline.

Early on in their work the team discovered the importance of adding the TOCs (Table of Contents) to the bibliographic record. The article cites many studies that indicate that including the TOCs produced more results when retrieving records. Back in 1998 the LC had only 1.2% of their records include content notes. It was determined that the TOCs complement the subject cataloguing. (Pappas and Herendeen, 2000). The article also cites another research that indicated that the odds of a resource being used increased by 45% if it included an online table of contents (Morris 2001).

The article then describes how the team when about including TOC information in the bibliographic records. What was of interest was the fact that a software program was developed between 1993 -1994 (TCEC- Text Capture and Electronic Conversion) enabling them to manipulate text and adds the result to the bibliographic records. This is in the MARC 505 field. The program formats it according to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. It gets technical here, but the result is that they are able to quickly add chapter titles without errors. Of course there are considerations. Would adding the chapter titles enhance the record? Would it be too long with many entries? The MARC 505 field would have to be of value. Going through our Workbook of examples there were only a few examples of the MARC field of 505, an example being a sound recording, Navidad. The MARC 505 lists all the songs on the CD.

The article then explains that the BEAT’s next project was to create “a Web-based TOC record for nearly all E-CIP records that contain TOCs.” (Byrum & Williamson, 2006, pg. 2). In 2005, a Yahoo search for “contents of library of congress control” yielded 242,000 results- all linked to the TOC records.
Another project is to make a Digital Table of Contents- D-TOCs, which enable Web users to find the many resources that the LC has to offer. In their words, “bring Web users back to the library.” (Byrum & Williamson, 2006, pg.3). This is achieved by a number of ways:

“The record provides hot links to other related works
by authors, editors, or others represented by added
entries through the related names link(s), as well as to
other books on the same topic(s) through the subject
link(s). In addition, the searcher can virtually browse the
LC shelf by using the call number link to see other books
similarly classified, thereby providing entry to other
resources of their interests."(Byrum & Williamson, 2006, pp. 3-4).

The third project, is perhaps the less interesting as far as I am concerned and that is the ONline Information eXchange (ONIX)- TOC application, which pertains to “… extracting TOC data from publisher-supplied ONIX files. ONIX is an XML (extensible
markup language) DTD (document type definition).” (Byrum & Williamson, 2006, p. 4).

Publishers use this information to give to dealers and retailers about their publications and in turn the dealers and retailers can use this information for their promotions.
The important issues raised in this article are how the LC has used its expertise in cataloguing to enhance their bibliographic records to bring their catalogue to users and researchers. By enriching their bibliographic access by including keyword- rich information they have affirmed that libraries provide users with many resources and as well provide them with a “gateway of additional information.” (Byrum & Williamson, 2006, p. 8).





2. Why Isn’t Information Literacy Catching On?

This article grabbed my attention since it describes the situation that is occurring in most of our schools. It delineates the plight of a library media specialists, Karen Hoth, who encounters blank stares when it comes to what information literacy. As well, many teachers do not see the value of working with the specialist. Many as Hoth discovered did not really place much importance of properly accessing, using and evaluating information. (Whelan, 2003).

In fact, School Library Journal conducted a survey of over 700 schools in the US and determined that 30 percent of teachers and 14 percent of students did not know what skills were involved in accessing information literacy. This is at the heart of the dilemma of why there is a great difficulty in understanding the role of the teacher-librarian.

One of the greatest impediments perhaps as the article explains that the term “Information Literacy” is “amorphous phrase which is difficult to grasp” (Whelan, 2003, p. 2). Many media specialist agree that it is constantly evolving to include technological literacy, multi-cultural and media literacy.

Interesting as well that in the same survey library media specialists were asked to rank important tasks, information literacy came in third. I have included the information below:

Priorities of the Media Specialist
Here's how those surveyed rated the importance of the following tasks:

Providing students and teachers with
the source materials they need 97%

Collection development 94%

Recommending materials 88%

Information literacy planning and 76%
instruction

Professional development 62%

Circulation and cataloging issues 59%

Booktalking/storytelling 42%

Technology/troubleshooting 42%


The difficulties arise since many teacher-librarians rarely collaborate with teachers in teaching these skills. The reasons given in elementary school were that the teachers viewed the librarians as babysitters, or that they were too preoccupied with teaching the students to read. While in the older grades the article cited high school librarians who felt that high school teachers like to take ownership of their subject and call the librarian in only to locate resources.

Collaboration by Type of School

Percentage of teachers that collaborate with media specialists on information literacy skills.

Elementary School 15%

Middle School/Junior High 21%

High School 21%


A valid issue raised is the lack of assessment that actually tells the library media specialist whether the student has achieved the information literacy skill being taught.
At the time of this article there were some plans to setting up benchmarks. Although, with our very own, Asselin, M., Branch, J. & Oberg, D. (Eds.). (2003). Achieving Information Literacy., standards are available, but an actual assessment tool is not.

The greatest impediment to achieving information literacy in schools is the lack of time for cooperation between librarians and teachers. The hands-on-approach is advocated by Bill Derry, a media specialist at Green's Farms Elementary School in Westport, CT. He collaborates with one teacher at a time and “shows” them what exciting things can be done and what can happen in the library.

The following results were also quite revealing:

Barriers to Information Literacy in the Curriculum

Lack of buy-in and support from teachers 64%

Lack of understanding in general about the 59%
educational efficacy of information literacy

Students not motivated to act, since 44%
information literacy is not part of their grade

Lack of support from principal/administrator 29%

Other (lack of time) 25%

The following statement concludes the article and I feel it is important to include it here as well. AASL's Roscello states: "They need to know what added value school librarians bring to the picture-and information literacy is one of them."


3. The Future of Cataloging:

Although my experiences with cataloguing will be limited, I am interested in keeping abreast with the latest technologies especially since the article mentioned “cataloguing in the Age of Google.” We are all aware of students preferring to use the Internet rather than using the library’s catalogue. Therefore, what insights does this paper have into problems that libraries face everyday?

Deanna B. Marcum, who is Associate Librarian for Library Services Library of Congress, examines the fact that today many people use the Internet to provide them with the information they need. We do not need the statistics to verify this fact. She outlines the scenario of a college student who needs to do research on President Fillmore. The library of the college that this student attends provides an impressive array of various online databases, encyclopedias etc. To be brief, there are hundreds of scholarly papers and resources available to the student without even checking out the print resources in the various library holdings. However, this student opts instead to use Google to acquire information for his/her topic on President Fillmore. Indeed, she cites a study that reported that students preferred using the Web over the university’s OPAC. Even though students were aware of the pitfalls of using sites like Google, Alta Vista, etc., they preferred using the Web because it was easier to locate information. Many students appreciated the fact that their libraries included the latest up-to-date information, nevertheless, 80% of the students reported using the Internet to complete “every, or almost every assignment.”(OCLC White Paper on the Information Habits of College Students: How Academic Librarians Can Influence Students’ Web-based Information Choices,” 2002, as cited in Marcum, 2006).

The question then arises should the library move to digital form and can everything be in digital form? Many older books and other items have been digitized and many librarians have been surprised at how often this item has been visited, compared to it previous history of never having being moved off the shelf ( Marcum, 2006, p 3).

She describes Google’s plans to digitize many materials of a number of participating libraries. Google and has been able to digitize a vast amount in comparison to what libraries have been able to do so in the past. Google’s partnership with various universities has both commercial and educational implications. Ads and links to purchase the books will be many, but universities like Michigan state that it is a huge financial benefit to partner with Google in order to digitize “many of the world’s printed treasures” and make it “universally accessible.” (Coleman, as cited in Marcum, 2006, p 4).

Marcum makes the case that Google plans to create a digital library. The skills of the cataloguer will be needed and the work that cataloguers have accomplished to date is impressive. However, she believes that the future is clear. Libraries will have to team up with (which the LC is already doing), publishers and software companies to focus on access by subject and other computer systems that will capture bibliographic information and develop more useful metadata.

It seems that she feels it is inevitable that the resources of a library will become fully digitized in the future. Even as an elementary school librarian, I can visualize this for the future when even elementary students will want to conduct inquiries for research purposes and accessing all our resources online.

When I first read the article, I thought that she might propose something radical. Perhaps it is radical that the advances in cataloguing will lead to completely digitized libraries. She raises four points pertinent to cataloguing issues, but more importantly, for all of us as librarians and future librarians she concludes that in the future people will increasingly turn to the internet for information- either library websites or Google, but:

“The library, up until now, has been viewed as the
place for reliable, authentic information. The catalog linked the
users to vetted resources. Can we rethink cataloging to achieve
something similar in the world of Google? I hope so.” (Marcum, 2006, p 5)

References

APA Citation Style

Byrum, Jr. J. D., & Williamson, D.W. (2006). Enriching traditional cataloguing for improved access to information: Library of Congress tables of contents projects. Information Technology & Libraries, 25(1), 4-11. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=20006755&site=e.

Marcum, D. (2006). The future of cataloguing. Library Resources & Technical Services, 50(1), 5-9. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=19547591&site=ehost-live

Whelan, D.L. (2003). Why is information literacy not catching on? School Library Journal, 49(9), 50-53. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=10824493&site=ehost-live.