The Competencies and Education for a Career in Cataloging Interest Group is excited to host three presentations during
Core Interest Group Week 2026.
The program will take place on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, from 11:00 AM-12:00 PM Central Time.
Don't Panic!: Practical Approaches to Teaching and Learning Official RDA / Elizabeth Hobart
The Official RDA Toolkit differs from the original RDA Toolkit in almost every respect, requiring significant time for retraining. The vocabulary, organization, and application of Official RDA are, in many respects, more difficult than original RDA. While learning Official RDA may seem intimidating, with time and attention, it is both learnable and usable. This presentation will share practical approaches to teaching and learning the Official RDA Toolkit, including developing local documentation and creating bite-size instruction sessions that can be embedded in other catalog training.
Following a pattern / Jill Strykowski
While it is extremely important that new catalogers receive training in foundational cataloging manuals (RDA, AACR2, LCSH, etc.) for structuring description, Jill Strykowski emphasizes a different priority during on-the-job training with student assistants and new catalogers. She encourages them to focus more on identifying and following patterns of data within their repository's catalog.
A cornerstone of Strykowski's cataloging philosophy is the belief that appropriate collocation is key to discovery. In her view, metadata should structure relationships between items in a repository in ways that are meaningful first and foremost to that collection's users. In many cases, this approach may require loosening strict adherence to descriptive manuals and call number rules-or, at times, abandoning them altogether.
She will present examples illustrating how and why she teaches cataloging in this manner.
The Core Competencies in Job Postings, 2019-2021 / Mike Monaco
In 2023, just 14% of survey respondents reported referring to the original Core Competencies for Cataloging & Metadata Professionals (CCC&MP) when constructing job descriptions. Suspecting that the CCC&MP might be implicitly confirmed more widely than that by actual job descriptions, Mike Monaco collected 109 job ads for cataloging and/or metadata positions posted from 2019-2021 to determine whether and how often the 2017 CCC&MP appeared among the requirements and qualifications. He also noted some other qualifications that were the subject of previous job studies, such as fluency in a second language or a second advanced degree. Monaco will present his findings and how they vary among types of libraries (public, academic, and special/other), types of positions (administrative vs. non-administrative), and whether the position title contained "catalog," "metadata," both, or neither.