Why We Need Non-LC Metadata
April 21, 2007 at 12:21 am | In libraries | 1 CommentOK, I’m still officially in hibernation, but I’m in a cross mood and my library catalog has shown me quite clearly why we need tagging (or something) to allow for additional, non-cataloger-generated access points. So I’m reading the Yale Press Log about the Annals of Communism series, and I quickly check our catalog to make sure we’ve got this to some degree. Thankfully, we do, so I’m browsing the records and come across the record for Enemies within the gates? : the Comintern and the Stalinist repression, 1934-1939 / William J. Chase ; Russian documents translated by Vadim A. Staklo. Take a look at the subject headings for this (I’ve linked to Open WorldCat): none of them give any indication that this is part of a series of documents (that is, primary sources) relating to the Soviet Union. So if I find myself helping students searching for primary sources regarding Stalin and the purges, either I already know about this series and tell them to look for the series specifically and browse through the records; or, more likely, I tell them to do keyword subject searches with terms like Stalin sources or Soviet Union sources, or whatever. These searches would not yield this book. So if my catalog had the ability to add tagging, I could see this and quickly tag it with “primary sources” and “Soviet Union.” Or even tag it with a course number if there is a course offered that would regularly make use of something like this.
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You know, I had a similar problem cataloging for archival collections. The LC system seems focused on the information contained within whatever you have at hand, be it a book (and I think LC has an in-built assumption that you are describing a book) or a document or a video. They had very little room for describing what type of thing contains that information, which is a huge problem in describing a collection that might have volumes of various sorts, letters, photographs, and so forth. That seems to be the key problem that you have: the record says what the information is about, but not what the information itself IS (i.e. primary documents).
I also had a problem with LC in that it was constructed by and, seemingly, for catalogers. You have to think like a cataloger to make the most effective use of it. Most users don’t think that way.
So, yeah, I agree with you: you need some way to tweak the record for your own institutional use.
Comment by Clio Bluestocking — April 22, 2007 #