ALA Midwinter 2012: Heads of Cataloging

Cataloging IS a Public Service: Repositioning Cataloging and Metadata Services

Heads of Cataloging IG, ALA Midwinter 2012

ALA Midwinter 2012, Jan. 23, 2012

Five speakers shared their experiences in running and reorganizing their cataloging departments. Common themes that ran through the four presentations were doing more with less staff, moving staff into working with non-MARC metadata, involving cataloging staff with library operations outside of technical services, and bringing flexibility and dynamic change to what might have been a formerly staid work environment.

The first speaker was Jee Davis, Head of Cataloging and Metadata Services (CMS) at the University of Texas Libraries. Davis came from outside the organization and needed to re-evaluate the department due to loss of positions through attrition (10 fewer positions) and wanted to change the sometimes negative reputation about the department that others in the library had. She defined the core functions of CMS using the FRBR user tasks, and how CMS would need to describe information to support these tasks. The three distinct units of monographic cataloging, serials cataloging and music were restructured so that all units worked together and participate in non-MARC metadata creation. Davis also improved communication to other library units so that CMS would be more aware of end-user needs. She set some work prioritization and training standards:

• New work standards
• Rush/request (24 hrs)
• Newly purchased (within 3 days)
• Gift/backlogs (project-based)
• New staff training
• Core training (fundamentals of cataloging & metadata)
• Routine training (changes in cataloging and metadata practices)
• Special training for special projects

Davis concluded with a description of the continuing challenges for cataloging units and suggestions for tackling them.

• Declining budgets and less staff mean cataloging units need to assess/reassess and resdesign workflows around different staffing levels but also need to convice administrators of the importance of the work. Outsourcing option can help with decreasing staff, but still need to consider the needs of the users.
• Demands in user-centered catalogs involve frequent changes in software and data needs, so cataloging units need to get involved in the decision making process. As such, there should be an increased emphasis on digital resources and understanding various non-MARC metadata, which may result in new training programs.
• RDA is coming, so start planning!

The second speaker was Jina Wakimoto at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She framed cataloging as an unmediated public service: it facilitates users’ self-sufficiency and enhances user experience. She wanted to have the Cataloging Department, which became the Cataloging and Metadata Services fit its work into the CU Boulder strategic plan for the library: a client-centered focus, emphasis on library as destination, and provide the optimal organizational structure. The new department redeployed staff and reassessed positions, based on a user-centered focus and expanded metadata services. Reorganization is complete, but tweaking of the structure continues as necessary. As an example of the reorganization, the Serials Cataloging changed to the Electronic Reosurces and Serials Access Team, which became a combination of cataloging and acquisitions. It manages serials acquisitions, knowledge base maintenance, the ERM, and link resolver. The unit works with Acquisitions, Collection Development, Public Services, and directly engages with users.

To determine the proper reorganization Wakimoto felt she needed a better understanding of trends in the library in order to assess and perform data-driven storytelling. She also needed to demonstrate the return on investment for support for the department. She reviewed and performed a 5 year update on trends in the library. As a result of this work, she identified that digital scholarship and digital materials were increasingly important and hired a new metadata librarian in 2011. The new role of data management is critical for libraries and this area needs to be supported by metadata librarians. Standards and interoperability will help establish a common framework for understanding data and data structures. In general, Wakimoto is pushing the department to demonstrate our values to the university. As Lorcan Dempsey said, “if libraries want to be seen as experts, then their expertise must be seen.” Some other examples for getting out beyond the department include: librarians as the metadata experts for local course management tools; work on data conservancy software; and work on a data management task force. The reorganization continues: effective February 1, the department will be called Metadata Services.

The third speaker was Teresa Keenan of the University of Montana. She described the work of integrating non-MARC metadata into the library’s cataloging staff and routines. The need was instigated by a digitization program to digitize primary source materials of various tribes of Montana called NOMAP (Natives of Montana Archival Project). The project, based on SWORP (Southwest Oregon Research Project), includes digitized materials from multiple sources, including the National Archives. The Mansfield Library provided training with digitization and metadata and uploaded objects to the Montana Memory Project. Keenan described the first three years of the project, 2009-2011. Each year, the workflow was adjusted and input from the cataloging department increased, leading to greater integration of processes over time.

• 1^st year: minimal inputting from cataloging department, and workflow was not sustainable
• 2^nd year: metadata librarian spearheaded metadata creation and loaded into CONTENTdm, with copy catalogers creating metadata
• 3^rd year: all post-processing handled within technical services with one support staff is responsible for quality control and loading into CDM

Training has been crucial to the project and has been done as large group, small group, and one on one training. There was a time-lag between initial training and then implementation of work. One on one training was done after the group training, but turned out to be crucial to consistent metadata creation. The follow-up training reviewed Dublin Core, a local application profile, common types of errors, adjusted the data entry form and parts of the workflow, and updated the FAQs. Documentation was provided on a wiki.

Keenan did identify three obstacles to the project and provided some examples of ways of overcoming them:

1. Technology: Staff had wide variety of familiarity and comfort with computers and had to work with different programs: Excel, Access, CONTENTdm, general file structure and maintenance. The lack of familiarity with some of these programs was surprising. The department utilized campus IT department short courses for training on general programs and a series of webinars on CONTENTdm. Keenan also varied what staff can do based on skills and continues to offer ongoing technology training.
2. Attitude: Perceptions that work was temporary, and not AACR2, so just not that important. The length of the project and ongoing training and support from management have helped adjust this attitude. Providing training that includes looking at digital collections from a users’ perspective has also been helpful. New job descriptions now include metadata as a job responsibility.
3. Time: Limited staff and too much work. Basically this required some adjustment of departmental priorities to include metadata. Management had to show importance of projects, because more metadata work meant that other things would not get done. The integration of metadata into positions descriptions was also helpful.

The forth speaker was Jennifer O’Brian Roper, Head of Cataloging at University of Virginia. She has been head since 2008 and discussed some management classes she took in 2010 to help manage change and articulate direction in the department. The departments traditional duties and set-up included: multiple technical services units within multiple locations, but central cataloging services, emphasis on MARC cataloging, batch-loading of records into the ILS, coordination of maintenance across locations, and sporatic involvement in non-MARC metadata work. Roper also described some trends occurring within the library that led the need for change: reduction in print materials, reduced or eliminated backlogs, increase in shelf-ready materials, collaboration with special collections cataloging, and the need for centralized non-MARC expertise that comes from the perspective of sound data policy. Recently the library replaced the user interface from a traditional ILS to the Blacklight interface that merges metadata from multiple sources and started an electronic theses and dissertations program.

Roper attended university management class that taught the Strategic Framework. The Strategic Framework consists of four parts:

• Vision: Description of a future state
• Mission: Action for realizing vision
• Values: Shared beliefs as a department organization
• Strategy: End goals for and means for realizing the vision

When Roper began reorganization work, a full vision was not clear, so she focused on mission to reorganize department. The revamped mission statement was “Cataloging and Metadata Services is committed to providing timely and accurate access to library managed content” and removed the word “quality” from the statement, which some staff found disturbing. To get staff by-in, she had staff create a departmental charter. The department had an opportunity to contribute to service-oriented cataloging and identified the following themes (documents will be available ALA Connect).

• Purpose: providing and maintaining metadata; facilitate discovery; provide expertise; contribute to the larger cataloging community
• Final products: metadata; description, classification, controlled headings; organized and distinct access to content
• Success: users find what they are looking for and more; provide services in a timely proactive manner; happy, engaged, and proud

Roper used mission and value statements to create departmental, but was still missing the vision statement. The vision statement developed about a year and half after the mission and values statement and Roper felt this time-delay was helpful in determining the appropriate vision. Staff found it a little grandiose and harder to connect to daily routine, but as a manager, Roper liked having the vision statement as something to aspire to and refer to when new opportunities come up. The statement has themes for stewardship for metadata, deep understanding of metadata models for storage and discovery, and a flexible and service-oriented approach.

With the Strategic Framework in place, the department was ready for a development of strategy to achieve the end goals. This included being less centralized, building strategic partnerships, performing experimentation, ongoing education, and becoming more wholly involved in the mission of the library. The new structure of the department allows for flexibility for allocating resources to manage pressure points. Users can drive decisions about where, when and how to provide and enhance metadata. One example that Roper provided was in managing the 4^th year Science and Engineering student theses. These are managed by science and engineering library, and now catalogers are going over to the library to quickly catalog the materials, which leaves them still accessible. In another example, rather than dictating a single solution, the department presented a choice of options to the video staff, but allowed the video staff to determine the best way to get notes into catalog records and followed their preference. Staff are encouraged to go to meetings on broader topics, which will both increase awareness that the expertise in the department and demonstrate that staff can add to the larger conversations in the library. For example, staff are now taking a leadership role in the development of user interfaces, which is critical because the department holds expertise in data structures and content. On the whole, staff enjoy the challenge of looking at data from actual use, and the new structure has fostered a culture of learning, inquiry, and risk-taking, and moved away from simply looking at statistics as the chief means for measuring success. As with other speakers, Roper noted the ongoing nature of the process: she will be revisiting the department charter this year, share statements via intranet, and continue to refer to them and update as needed.

The final speaker was Sharon Wiles-Young of Lehigh University, who presented about technical services involvement with new services in the library. She began with some context about Lehigh: staff are organized into teams with merger of libraries into Library and Technology Services. There is a technical services team that is a combination of professional and paraprofessional members, which is unusual, as most teams are professionals only. There are 19 total professional librarians at Lehigh.

As with other universities, a big change has been the transition to electronic/digital information. This has made access services the top issue, so technical services needed to set up direct communication with help desk, which opened the door for expertise to be seen in the public area. The serials team updates SFX and link resolver, manages cataloging, and works with ILL and circulation to resolve access problems. Technical services has also become involved in the institutional repository and archive to support institutional memory.

Digital information and unique collections provided opportunities to get into new responsibilities, but also meant existing practices need to change. Wiles-Young asked the question: What can we let go of as new staff pick up new responsibilities? To assist, circulation staff now handle gift books and copy cataloging, but the theme of withdrawing collections to increase space for users keeps traditional management roles as a big part of some positions. Lehigh is also using more students and increased shelf-ready processes to free up time. Additionally, as based on the report, “Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services,” by the University Leadership Council, higher responsibilities have been assigned to staff.

Wiles-Young provided two examples of new roles for technical services:

1. Lehigh is using a CLIR post-doc fellow to build their institutional repository and the Head of Cataloging worked with IR committee to build the repository. The Fellow trained staff on metadata techniques, examined different vendors for IR and collected feedback from all librarians. This helped expand knowledge in the library of value of technical services.
2. Lehigh moved to using VuFind for its catalog interface (they have a Sirsi backend). The initial role-out did not get any tech services buy-in, but then work expanded to include catalogers who had knowledge of data structure and MARC and could help identify issues and suggest ways to resolve them. One big issues has been serials display, which is improved, but still has some problems with holdings display.

Lehigh is continuing to build new partnerships to expand and share skills and anticipates future projects and reorganizations to support them. Wiles-Young is still struggling with what processes to eliminate and how to shift responsibilities to others and expand roles in other areas. New projects continue to come up too, for example the department will be involved in the Kuali/OLE open-source ILS development.

The session ended with questions from the audience. One question was: What should we do for ourselves as cataloging managers to make ourselves equipped for change? Jennifer Roper went to university management classes, which was not library specific – talked about management principles and how they could be applied broadly. She tries to attend at least one class a year. Erin Stalberg recommended the Triangle Research Libraries Network Management Academy as another option for training. Other panelists also recommended going to relevant conferences to bring back ideas. They recommended librarians stretch themselves as conferences, even if certain sessions are outside of scope or beyond your knowledge. Look at higher education trends, like SPARC (Scholarly Publications & Academic Resources Coalition) and open access, or technology trends. They also recommended attending strategy planning and making sure technical services is involved at the management level—there is a need to understand big picture in library and see how the department fits in. Another recommended class is the Pacific Northwest Library Association Leadership. Finally because succession planning is a very important job of managers, get reports to go to management/leadership training.

Another question came up about how to make the transition if staff are too busy and shrinking. The panelists suggested that if you want to get rid of something: 1. have a reason as to why it is no longer important, and 2; have a methodology for how to change it.

Submitted by Kristin Martin