union catalogs as institutions of culture henryk hollender lazarski university sept. 4, 2012 1
TRANSCRIPT
Union Catalogs As Institutions of
CultureHenryk HollenderLazarski University
Sept. 4, 2012 1
A cultural remark on „Union Catalogs As Institutions of Culture”.
This paper was initially intended for the Polish audience. When we hear „institutions of
culture”, we understand, in a sense, „cultured institutions” or, first of all, „institutions of
[appropriate, desired, mainstream] culture”. And indeed, we like „instytucje” to be „kultury”.
This is not necessarily what a native speaker would probably assume; her/his uderstanding
would be more anthropological, like „institutions characterized by their cultural
features or aspects”. 2
Union catalogs as institutions of culture?
What is cultural about union catalogs?
Obvious:
•Cultural contents: books & stuff
•A catalog can support research and leisure
Unobvious, perhaps:
•Catalog as source of standards, patterns, practices
•Catalog as a story (image? map?) of a national (regional, professional) culture
•An organization behind the catalog may engage in diversified cultural activities
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For. Maria Burchard, http://wyborcza.pl/51,90889,5311351.html?i=0
When we think of NUKAT…
• Pioneering• Standard-driven• Unifying, consolidating• Strict, austere• Disseminating bibliographic
rationality and excellence• Clear, user friendly, simple• The front line of essential
bibliographic discussion and decision in Poland
• Open and inviting • A general problem with
subject headings… addressed. But solved?
• Processing external data and gradually withdrawing from control of cataloguing quality
Nadia Caidi on national union catalogs (2004):„Like any socio-technical system, a union catalog embodies the values, beliefs and practices of its producers, along with their broader social and cultural contexts.”
This includes, among others:
• Power issues• Cultural issues (choices and values
that are embedded in the design and use of information, its agencies, and its technologies )
• Trade-off between globalization and localization
• Disseminantion or protection: language and cultural heritage issues 5
Does this thing communicate? Union catalog as a culture-specific creation
• Decisions, financing, organizational structure (formal and informal), management, organizational culture
• Priorities on contents and method
• „National” dimension: a monument or a utility. Heritage issues. Politics of memory
• Professional dimension. Is the information community able to learn from the undertaking? Follow it? Shape it? Oppose it?
• Public image and social function. The union catalog awareness in education and research
• Taxonomies, vocabularies and mapping: how catalog organizes knowledge and language (thesauri, indexes, terminology, classification, scripts)
• „Plenty of everything”: media, formats, technologies, genres. Completeness and lacunae
• Order and beauty: design, Website ergonomics, search functions, usage enjoyment, editorial taste and skills
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Scope of responsibilities of a central bibliographic utility: a case of ABES (France, 1994)
• Publisher of SUDOC (Système Universitaire de Documentation): 10 million bibliographic records, 32 million copies, 24 million public queries in 2010
• Manages and promotes the pooling and sharing of resources and strengths. Managerial mosaic: network of ca. 1,800 libraries; groups, committees, tasks, numerous links to the world of government and politics; complex issues in efficiency, transparency, and control.
• Increasingly working on the Semantic Web
• Theses portal: Fichier Central des Theses + STEP – Referencing Theses in Progress
• Negotiating and acquisitions of national licences and grouped orders
In Poland – probably the most difficult area 7
Union catalogs: hottest bibliographic and computational issues
• Authority control and the beginings of NUKAT
• Multiple physical contents
• Enhanced data, languages, alphabets etc. Diversified discourse units.
• Statistics that describe the catalog usage or contents (may lead to quantitative study on distribution of cultural phenomena, like a region’s publishing output)
• Global Library Manifestation Identifier (OCLC)
• Virtual International Authority File (OCLC)
• Duplicate records vs paralell records. New approach to record uniqueness, record linking, and record/holdings linking. (See the next slide)
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„The days of reliance on just one master record in WorldCat for a given publication are now over, and it is time for a new approach to clustering metadata and holdings information.” (WorldCat Quality: An OCLC Report, 2011, p. 11)
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Most widely held works by O. V. de L Milosz
Audience Level
Related Identities
Useful Links
Associated Subjects
Languages
Cultural lessons from THE union catalog, interoperation and connectivity
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oskar_Mi%C5%82osz_-_portrait.jpg10
„Magisterium” of a union catalog
• Authoritativeness of data
• Hub for processing and metadata of all that is published (cf. national catalog – national bibliography issue)
• Managerial excellence and patterns: speed, efficiency, routines, leadership and working habits
• Importance of „is in” and „is not in” for all that is published
• Giant record of the nation’s (state, region, network etc.) history and identity
• Contents information: how to combine neutrality, precision, and moral standards
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A case in presentation of material of high cultural importance (1). A union catalog record: a trimmed record from the local catalog?
Important note. But this is what the title actually mentions. The title could be more articulate – why not extend it, we are no longer restricted with the catalog card size, are we?
Even with shared cataloging, the union catalog is under a pressure from bibliographic cultures of contributing libraries.
• Isn’t ownership note copy-specific rather than edition-specific?
• Does NUKAT/WorldCat user deserves provenance info? If so, in what format?
• Bibliographic source: surely yes. But what „BSZ” actually means?
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Digital library – library catalog complementarity
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Union catalog and the language policy (1)
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Union catalog and the language policy (2). Transliteration, transcription, and respect for scripts other than Latin. In Poland?
Wydaje się, że w czasach obecnych, gdy znikały żelazne kurtyny i kruszone były betonowe mury, nadszedł czas na pełne respektowanie piękna kulturowego innych narodów i zaniechania niesławnych praktyk przeszłości. Wyzwaniem czasu nie jest całkowite zarzucenie transliteracji i transkrypcji, lecz wprowadzenie jednolitych zasad dodatkowego posługiwania się językiem oryginału w systemach informacyjnych i jak najszybsze wdrożenie ich w codzienną praktykę.
Jurand B. Czermiński: Cyfrowe środowisko współczesnej biblioteki, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2002, p. 144. http://www.ug.edu.pl/pl/?id_wyd=3413
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Scripts other than local/national are now common in union catalogs.
BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY
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Каталог старопечатных книг (изданных с 1450 по 1830 гг.)
RUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY
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There is more to catalog
contents than its adopted
coverage
Civil war in Poland; The Bell Curve: Meager presence in libraries, and no translations into Polish
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And now subject headings: could they be sharp, informative, and unbiased? Assigned to fiction?
Supplemented with genre headings?
+ Goodreads reviews
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Different cataloging rules? Different understanding of the librarian’s role? Different understanding of the
analyzed text? Mitchell, Margaret: Gone with the Wind
O’Hara, Scarlett (Fictitious character) -- FictionGeorgia – History – Civil War, 1861-1865 -- FictionWomen – Georgia -- FictionLove storiesPlantation life – Fiction+ Summary
Israel Shahak: Jewish history, Jewish religion…
Israel – politics and governmentOrthodox Judaism – Israel – Controversial literatureZionismPalestinian Arabs – Israel
Mitchell, Margaret: Przeminęło z wiatrem
Stany Zjednoczone – 1861-1865 (Wojna secesyjna) – powieści
Gatunek/forma: Powieść amerykańska – 1900-1945 -- tłumaczenia polskie
Israel Shahak: Żydowskie dzieje i religia…
Kwestia żydowska – historiaJudaizm – pisma polemiczneJudaizm – zwyczaje i praktykiŻydzi – moralnośćŻydzi – obyczaje i zwyczajeŻydzi – sposób życia 22
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Culture – a librarian’s* perspective
Mission and performance of the national union catalog
What professional values and competences are present at the country’s library scene
The culture: elites and the general society
Global culture * [email protected]