Tensions in Cataloging: Observations on Standards and Implementation

IntroductionIt is usually agreed that the general objectives for the creation of library catalogs as stated by Cutter in 1876 (1889) and Lubetzky in 1961 (1963, 139, 1st objective) are still valid and relevant, despite the fact that these bibliographic tools are constantly evolving and transforming. The Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records model (FRBR) requires that bibliographic data allow end-users to find, identify, select and obtain documents that correspond to expressed search criteria (IFLA, 1998, 8-9). A library catalog can be described as a type of bibliographic file that has the distinctive feature to gather descriptive records for a given library collection, be it physical or virtual. Thus the principal function of a library catalog is to provide bibliographic control for a collection of documents, i.e., to perform the operations by which the information is organized and structured according to one or several established standards in order to render this information easily identifiable and available. The two fundamental objectives of catalogs, identification and retrieval, are usually achieved by creating standardized descriptions by analyzing the content in order to describe the intellectual content, by classifying the items in order to group them in meaningful categories, by adding a variety of controlled access keys, and indexing, in total or in part, the textual content of these descriptions. The fulfillment of these objectives is undoubtedly guided by the creation and the maintenance of bibliographic description and encoding standards (AACR, LCSH, MARC), but is also influenced by the development of new features of online information retrieval systems. As a result, even if the objectives for the creation of library catalogs remain more or less stable over the years, the means available to fulfill these objectives evolve rapidly. Recently, the improvement of text information retrieval techniques and the development of hypertextual interfaces have facilitated the development of more and more sophisticated retrieval features in library catalogs.Coordinating the development and the application of bibliographic dards, on one hand, and the development of text retrieval systems, on the other, is not a small task. The encounter of these two worlds is fairly recent and greatly suffers from a lack of communication and understanding. The rapid developments in the world of text information retrieval bring new opportunities to information systems designers and allow greater freedom to system managers for the local implementation of these systems. Adding new retrieval features often improves the search capabilities in online catalogs. It also seems that the implementation of these new retrieval functions can sometimes have a negative impact on the quality of retrieval, because these features are not always specifically designed for the type of data contained in library catalogs. Unfortunately, these retrieval features are not standardized and may vary considerably from one system to another. It is not possible to adapt bibliographic standards according to every system's design. Nevertheless, there has been an attempt in past years to develop minimal display standards for bibliographic records in catalogs to provide a standard to guide system designers and managers in their work (IFLA, 2003). The perfect system does not exist and it is always necessary to adapt bibliographic standards locally in order to comply with the constraints and restrictions imposed by the system. The parameters selected and applied during the local implementation of these systems will also have an impact on the manner that data are displayed and used, and this in turn may also require internal modifications to the local metadata creation procedures. We are in an evolutionary environment that focuses increasingly on data exchange and collaboration between organizations, where data and system system interoperability is crucial. …