| [ TAF Home ] | Proceedings of the Taxonomic Authority Files Workshop, Washington, DC, June 22-23, 1998 |
An Overview of Training Activities in the Program for Cooperative Cataloging
Text boxes contain supplementary remarks delivered by the author at the workshop (transcribed and slightly edited). I've included them because I feel they add significantly to the comparison between the two communities—catalog librarians and compilers of taxonomic authority files.–Ed.
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Before I get started I wanted to tell you a bit more about my background. I started out as a musicologist, in English Renaissance music. What attracted me to the library profession was the opportunity to do authority work—to try and categorize and bring together many works by a number of composers. The same kind of work that you do with plants and animals is the kind of work that I was interested in doing with music. I spent many years involved in that work, and in many ways I still think that's where I would prefer to spend my time. |
The Program for Cooperative Cataloging charged the Cataloger Training Task Group to develop a plan to promote the values of timely access and cost-effectiveness in cataloging, and to expand the pool of catalogers who cataloged to mutually-accepted standards. As it began its work, the Task Group assumed that it was important to maintain an adequate supply of original cataloging; to encourage the acceptance of a national cataloging standard; to increase acceptance of cataloging copy; to avoid duplicative cataloging; and to increase the timeliness of contribution to national databases.
The Program urges a style of training that encourages trust in the decisions of others. It encourages close working relationships between technical service and public service staff in identifying needs and developing cataloging models. The Program encourages the development of new more efficient work-flows and recognizes that value of automating some of the more redundant aspects of cataloging. Finally, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging recognizes the importance of cataloging, the value it adds, and the importance of catalog librarians.
| To help you understand the Program for Cooperative Cataloging and it's training activities, I think it's important to review what we've done up till now. I also want to say that I work with the chairs of the standing committees on automation and standards. We're all part of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and the training component wasn't developed in isolation from the rest of the Program. |
| This was a dramatic change from our old cataloging philosophy, which placed an incredible amount of emphasis on near perfection and completeness. That isn't to say that perfection isn't good, but we became so obsessed with it that our huge backlogs of uncataloged material remained huge because we spent so much time nit-picking over things that in our new, on-line environment were not terribly important. If you've spent anytime in the library community you'll know that there has been a lot of talk about proper punctuation, for example, and this was not the most effective way for us to move forward. In our old model, we had little accountability for time. Many catalogers came into the profession from a strong subject or language background, and it was an opportunity for them to spend time working with the materials that they really liked. We allowed them to do that, and that was a good thing, but we didn't place a lot of accountability on how they used their time and recognizing that we needed to get through a certain body of material. The introduction of large bibliographic databases lead to a large emphasis on accepting copy from other libraries, and in many or our institutions, original cataloging—subject specialist, language specialist—really fell by the way-side, and now we're having to rebuild from that. |
| The Program for Cooperative Cataloging has accepted a distributed or shared model for training, rather than Library of Congress supporting it all. That really was the case in the past. When we joined one of these programs, NACO for example, we sent one person off to the Library of Congress and they came back and shared with their colleagues the wealth of knowledge that they gained in their one or two weeks in training. But we found that that wasn't the perfect solution; that the LC training programs were very much specific to the Library of Congress way of doing things; very rigid and somewhat out of touch with the issues facing academic libraries, where in fact a large part of this work was being done. |
| As you can imagine, this is not a cheap process. It really doesn't make that much difference whether you send somebody to the Library of Congress for two weeks, or bring somebody to your own institution (though we bring somebody to our own institution for much less time these days). What happened in the past was that an institution would send probably their principal cataloger, somebody who knew the rules inside and out, and they would go through the Library of Congress training program. They weren't necessarily always the best trainers though. So when they came back home to provide training for their peers it wasn't always the best dynamics. They would have to write documentation and procedures, do training and revision. Very often, especially in large institutions where there are many catalogers, they became power centers. It really upset the balance of who did what in many institutions. The new training model allows for a pool of trainers, who go off and train at different institutions, with a prepared curriculum that they can follow. One of the best things we've done in the last 8-9 years was the creation of the NACO Program for Cooperative Cataloging Participants Manual, which has made it possible for institutions to use documentation developed elsewhere rather than having to prepare it at their home institution. The trainers that go out to individual institutions go with some experience. We're making possible that the first time they go out that they go as a helper. We're finding that libraries tend to be more accepting of training from outside trainers than from their in-house staff. It seems easier to accept someone from the outside as an expert, than the person who's been sitting next you for the last twenty years, even if they've gone off to a training program. So we've seen a lot of success from this model and we’re working to expand it. |
| We used to spend years and years just recataloging things that somebody else had done. We revisited many, many decisions made by our peer institutions. At many libraries, especially RLG libraries, there was a list of accepted libraries cataloging that you could use. We were snobs in probably some of the worst ways, and some of that still exists. Some libraries have been more successful at introducing copy cataloging operations than others, but certainly when you have higher-level staff reviewing things, it's very easy for them to say well I would do it this way, or I would do it that way, or I think this subject isn't brought out in the record. We still do a fair amount of that kind of work, but we're getting better and raising the level of trust in the decisions of others. One of the things that is key to this program is that the records created by Program participants are coded in such a way that they can and should be accepted with a higher level of trust. We have always held the Library of Congress cataloging in high regard, so much so that some cataloging units in our libraries would just accept Library of Congress with virtually no review at all. The idea behind the program is to increase that pool by adding Program records—created by Program for Cooperative Cataloging members—to that mix so that they don't go through that same review process. |
| What we've learned in the last four years I think is the role of values as a motivating force for catalog librarians. (And this has a lot to do with the way that catalog librarians have been trained.) Catalog librarians have focussed on that part of the work that they found most satisfying. We had for many years in libraries a training style that rewarded perfection and agonizing over those little details, and in fact we created huge departments of catalog librarians, very highly trained, who cataloged along the same ideas. What the Program for Cooperative Cataloging is trying to do in its training program is to shift the values of catalogers from what they find most rewarding to the values of the Program; timeliness and cost-effectiveness. We are promoting the notion that books out on the shelf, fully cataloged, are far more useful to our users than books not represented in our catalog and sitting in our backlogs; that books with only minimal access are far less useful than are books that are more fully cataloged with authority control attached to them. We're having some success there and in fact what we've done is really to change the ground rules for cataloging in the last ten years, and maybe even more so in the last five years. Our expectations of our professionals have changed dramatically. Many of them came into the profession 20-25 years ago because it did afford them the opportunity to spend time with the materials of either their subject or language interest, and while we still want to encourage that, we also want to make a connection with our end users, who are using our materials, who will really benefit from our doing our job better. One of the things that Beacher referred to was the key phrase that became associated with the Program: "more, better, faster, cheaper." That became overworked very quickly, but it still is in fact what we're trying to do. |
| We’ve also learned a lot about training trainers. Where in the past a lot of emphasis was placed on having trainers that knew all the rules, knew where every piece of punctuation needed to go, we now recognize that training skills are very important, understanding adult learning theories is very, very important, learning how to deal with people who fear change is important. Certainly for many of us who have staffs that have been around for a long time, change is kind of threatening. We've discovered that we need to work on presentation skills; that it's important to balance expertise with good presentation. Facilitation skills are really useful—learning how direct discussions, keep things moving—is important in training. Also we need people who are well grounded in the philosophy of the program, that have bought in and are committed to it. |
Developing a catalog librarian training philosophy is just the first step in creating a new cataloging culture. There is still much work for the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, for catalog librarians and for our constituents.
We must define and articulate a new definition for a quality cataloging record; one framed in terms of usability, not only to other catalog librarians, but usability to our service staff and our library community.
We also need to define a new standard for quality cataloging that recognizes the importance of the catalog and the bibliographic record in supporting the collection.
The work of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging has helped to create a cataloging culture that values the cataloging process, and especially the creation of original cataloging, and places a value on catalog librarians to the organization. The Program seeks to authorize catalog librarians to choose from a portfolio of cataloging levels, the one most appropriate for the item in hand (full, minimal, core, collection level, DCRB, etc.).
The Program urges a style of training that encourages trust in the decisions of others. It encourages close working relationships between technical service and public service staff in identifying needs and developing cataloging models.
The Program encourages the development of new more efficient work-flows and recognizes the value of automating some of the more redundant aspects of cataloging.
Finally, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging recognizes the importance of cataloging, the value it adds, and the importance of catalog librarians.
Joan Swanekamp is currently Chief Catalog Librarian and Head of the Catalog Department at Yale. She previoisly held positions at Columbia University and the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.
She has served on the ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access, both as a member and Chair. She also serves as Chair of the Standing Committee on Training of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging.