Bridging the Gap: Balancing MARC and Non-MARC Workflows in the Workplace
The long road towards BIBFRAME and digital browsing environments has seen many cataloging/metadata departments splitting staff time between description for the public catalog and description for digital collections materials. This often (but not always) results in dividing technical service labor between those working with traditional MARC cataloging and those implementing non-MARC workflows. As a result, a natural tension can arise among colleagues who are implementing different methodologies within the same team. The pressure for institutions to keep up with new and emerging trends can unintentionally prioritize recruitment and professional development around non-MARC expertise, even as fluency with MARC continues to be a necessity for current library management systems. This discussion hopes to ask - how do we bridge the gap across these different knowledge sets? We will center questions about staff communication, professional support, and division of labor within public, academic, and school libraries.
The Haunting of Cataloging Decisions Past: migration and the challenges of data
As we move from library system to library system there is the inevitable challenge of migrating data and to do so cleanly as possible. This discussion will discuss the challenges of data migration and the impact of past cataloging policies and procedures on data. We’ll explore the types of challenges and issues with the different types of data (bibliographic, holdings, item, MARC/Non-MARC), as well as the logistics of identifying and correcting data prior to migration. Finally, we’ll touch on post-migration decisions and how one’s migration experience might impact future policies and standards.