[Metadatalibrarians] ALA Midwinter 2019 ALCTS CaMMS Cataloging & Classification Research Interest Group Program

[Sai Deng]

***Please excuse cross-posting***

ALA Midwinter 2019 ALCTS CaMMS Cataloging & Classification Research Interest Group Program Announcement
The ALCTS CaMMS Cataloging & Classification Research Interest Group is pleased to announce its program at the ALA Midwinter Conference to be held in the Washington State Convention Center, Room 2A, Seattle, WA, on Saturday, January 26, 2019, from 3 to 4 p.m.
This year's theme is "Research on Cataloging and Classification and Its Applications within and beyond the Library" featuring four presentations that will address a variety of topics including research on archival description and metadata, discovery and archival systems, authority control and vocabularies, as well as the changing and retrospective practices in cataloging and classification in the library community.
Regular Talks (15 minutes each)

More than LCSH: Enhancing the Discovery of Archival Resources

Whitney Buccicone, Special Collections Cataloging Librarian, University of Washington Libraries

Charlene Chou, Coordinator for Distinctive Collections Technical Services, University of Washington Libraries



Archival materials are highly valuable primary sources that users need to complete research on a daily basis. Relying on finding aids is a great way to start said research but so much more can be done by catalogers and other metadata professionals to increase accessibility to these unique resources. This presentation will focus on the metadata of print, visual and digital resources in ArchivesWest and its inconsistent use of metadata, especially of controlled vocabularies, which causes issues with search results, in addition to other related issues of discovery portals. We will compare these issues across different case studies showing how material types, names, subjects, and related objects are displayed in different discovery portals, e.g. Primo, ArchivesWest, CONTENTdm, Social Networks and Archival Context and Wikimedia, etc. The end of the presentation will be a series of recommendations on how to improve metadata for these materials, suggestions on implementation for any size of metadata or archives team and how quality metadata supporting better discovery portals with features such as data visualization and so on.

LCGFT Ten Years Later: A Survey on Genre/Form Vocabulary Usage
Colin Bitter, Music Cataloger/Repository Librarian, R. Barbara Gitenstein Library, The College of New Jersey
Yuji Tosaka, Cataloging/Metadata Librarian, R. Barbara Gitenstein Library, The College of New Jersey

Since the Library of Congress began development of the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT) in 2007, a small body of research has been generated regarding the implementation of the vocabulary within various cataloging communities. While much of this research has successfully traced the history of genre and form application within bibliographic records, little has been done to show the prevalence of LCGFT vocabulary in library catalogs. In order to examine this question we designed a comprehensive survey for wide-scale distribution in early 2018. Although several LCGFT project areas have been completed, neither OCLC nor the Library of Congress have retrospectively converted bibliographic records to add genre form terms; as a result, summer 2018 (approximately ten years after the first LCGFT terms were available) seemed to be an appropriate time to conduct such a survey. The survey, distributed on all major US cataloging email lists, aimed to measure the extent to which LCGFT has been adopted at a variety of institutions, understand why catalogers have or have not adopted the vocabulary, measure application of LCGFT terms by format, garner information about LCGFT training, and determine how institutions are displaying/indexing LCGFT in discovery systems. Collecting over 500 responses, the presenters will share some of the key results from their survey and provide much needed insight on the current state of genre-form terms in library catalogs.

Light Talks (6 minutes each)

Benchmarking Vended Authority Control Practices in ARL Libraries

Rebecca Mugridge, Dean of University Libraries, University at Albany, SUNY

Nancy Poehlmann, Head of Cataloging and Metadata Services, University at Albany, SUNY



In this presentation the authors will share the results of a study designed to benchmark the use of vendors to support authority control activities in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries. Such activities include updating authority or bibliographic records, sourcing authority records, participation in cooperative cataloging efforts, and more. The authors designed a survey and sent it to the Heads of Cataloging or Authority Control Librarians of ARL Libraries. The survey investigated whether and how responding libraries used vendors to create and maintain an authority file and process current cataloging records. The survey gathered demographic and other information about the libraries, and the authors identified trends and correlations between these and other factors. Data gathered included information about how current cataloging is managed, how authority files are kept up to date, future plans regarding the use of vendors for authority control functions, and more. The authors will share their findings, note trends in vended authority control processes, and make recommendations for further research.

Finding Religion in RDA
Elliot Williams, Digital Initiatives Metadata Librarian, University of Miami

A surprising number of cataloging rules in RDA deal explicitly with religion. There are rules for how to choose a preferred title for religious texts, how to create access points for religious leaders, when a religious leader is considered the creator of a work, etc. However, the frequency with which religion is mentioned in cataloging rules is not often discussed in cataloging research. This presentation will explore the ways in which RDA addresses religion, in order to better understand how cataloging practice has evolved to deal with this subject area. Through close reading and text analysis of selected RDA rules, I will explore when and why religion appears in RDA, as well as what religions and faith traditions are most explicitly discussed. By sharing some preliminary findings on this topic, I hope to raise broader questions about how library cataloging practice has adapted to the requirements of specific communities and types of resources.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you in the session!


CCRIG Co-Chairs, 2018-2019

Sai Deng  sai.deng at ucf.edu<mailto:sai.deng at ucf.edu>

Becky Skeen  becky.skeen at usu.edu<mailto:becky.skeen at usu.edu>



CCRIG Co-Vice Chairs, 2018-2019

Amy Bailey  abbailey at indiana.edu<mailto:abbailey at indiana.edu>
Jianying Shou  jianying.shou at duke.edu<mailto:jianying.shou at duke.edu>