ALCTS CaMMS Cataloging & Classification Research Interest Group at ALA Midwinter Atlanta
Date: Sunday, January 22, 2017
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Location: A315, Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC)
In this year's meeting, the CaMMS Cataloging and Classification Research Interest Group offers two presentations and discussions of cataloging-related research and projects.
"Hello From the Other Side: A Stacks Navigation Survey," presented by Autumn Faulkner, Head of Copy Cataloging, and Emily Sanford, Serials Catalog Librarian, Michigan State University
What role does shelf-browsing play in bibliographic discovery? Especially in our current environment where a patron's default assumption may be, "everything's online," it's natural to assume that our users do not heavily rely on serendipitous shelf-browsing any more. But is this really true? The answer to that question has implications for catalogers investing significant time and intellectual energy in current subject analysis and classification practices, metadata professionals of all types developing and preparing for linked data practices to partially replicate browsing, and anyone interested in the user's experience in navigating physical collections. In order to research user behavior in resource discovery and obtainment, and to better inform MSU Libraries' resource description, our space, and our signage planning, we developed a short exit survey. The survey gathered data about online catalog searching vs. shelf-browsing, the usage of call numbers, and the helpfulness of navigation aids in the stacks. This presentation will examine the results of the exit survey and discuss our findings.
"Ostriches, Minotaurs, Ghosts and Fossils in the Brave New Metadata World," presented by Kelley McGrath, Metadata Management Librarian, University of Oregon
Linked data promises to make library metadata more accessible and powerful. Clearly-defined URIs will form chains that lead to new connections and insights. These are heady promises, but is there an inherent conflict between the binary values demanded by linked data and the fuzzy gray of real life? While analyzing the content of MARC video records in an attempt to extract machine-actionable data, it became apparent that there are many situations described in bibliographic records that are difficult to map to structured data. This presentation will look at some of these challenges and their implications for linked data.
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