Tag Archives: The University of Chicago

Spring 2007 issue of LIBRA: LIBrary Reports and Announcements

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The latest issue (Spring 2007) of LIBRA: LIBrary Reports and Announcements, is now available. LIBRA is a publication of The University of Chicago Library. I like to read each issue because that helps me keep informed about what’s going on at the place where I spent my formative years as a librarian. The latest issue mentions Chicago’s plans to emulate NCSU’s Endeca-powered online catalog. It also mentions the promotion to a newly defined position of Systems Librarian for Tod Olson, a longtime staff member at Chicago whose significant other is also a librarian and who recently completed his Master’s from UIUC GSLIS, receiving some noteworthy honors in the process. Congratulations to Tod!

Chicago as possible site for Olympics

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I was excited to read the news last night that Chicago was picked over Los Angeles as the site nominated by the U.S. for the 2016 Olympics. How cool would it be to live near the Olympics, if Chicago happens to win the international bid? I think Chicago is a great choice (prejudice aside). Chicago has a history of making very big things happen. Think of the famous 1893 Columbian Exposition. I’ve known about that event for most of my life but never really understood how important and “big” that whole event was until I read the excellent book, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. I am particularly excited by the prospect of new venues built in and around Washington Park near my old stomping grounds at the University of Chicago, which was a key part of Chicago’s bid. Interestingly, my place of work (and even some people in my department) is playing a key supporting role in trying to make this dream happen for Chicago.

Link to Chicago is U.S. candidate to host 2016 Games – Yahoo! News

Bizarre toilet usage habits

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I laughed ’til I cried the other day when I read a post on the University of Chicago Library’s feedback blog, Maroon Opinions, that had to do with a complaint about auto-flushing toilets in the Regenstein Library. I really can’t add anything more; you’ll just have to read it yourself.

The Abbott Report

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I recently read a final report from the task force on the university library at The University of Chicago, written by Andrew Abbott, a professor of sociology there. It is fascinating reading and I hope it will receive widespread attention because it touches upon many issues that large academic and research libraries are facing. The angle at Chicago may be somewhat different than some other places but I think it is broadly illustrative and informative. It is interesting to note Abbott’s discussion on the theory of library research. For example, he boldy states the following:

“There is a good deal of writing about libraries and library knowledge from an informational science (IS) standpoint, but the theory of knowledge it presupposes is rooted, like IS itself, in engineering-based theories of information that turn out to be largely irrelevant to what it is that humanistic research actually produces. And in any case the information science literature arises basically within the professional debates, which to this writer seem driven more by the familiar dynamics of interprofessional competition than by deep thinking about knowledge.” (emphasis mine)

Another highly interesting point made in this report is that research data on library usage at Chicago points to the fact that the dramatically increased availability of e-resources such as e-journals, e-books, and databases has not replaced reliance by Chicago students on traditional library material. As Abbott puts it:

“There is no evidence whatever of substitution of electronic for print resources at the individual level. The two seem synergistic.”

This is great stuff because it flies in the face of assumptions that we too easily make about e-resources vs. print materials. We often assume, in other words, that print resources are less valuable, less often used with the advent of e-resources. Granted, the mix of students and the culture at Chicago may be somewhat unusual, but even so, this conclusion has significant ramifications.

There is more, much more here to enjoy and to stimulate thinking about the role of libraries.

A well-respected librarian and colleague dies

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The big news in libraryland this week has been the passing away of Fred Kilgour, founder of OCLC. But the bigger news for me, personally, was finding out that an excellent librarian friend and colleague, Kathy Zar, died recently. Kathy was a librarian at The University of Chicago whose career there spanned close to 40 years. Since 1994, she was responsible for the library collections of the Science Division. She was a very gracious and professional person — she had warmth and kindness combined with a sharp acumen. She particularly took interest in mentoring others, and she made young, fresh-faced librarians such as myself feel welcome and appreciated. I spoke with some friends there who told me that she literally stayed on the job up ’til the very end.

Fun stuff from The University of Chicago Library

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The other day I ran across a newish blog published and maintained by colleagues at The University of Chicago Library. The blog in question is entitled Maroon Opinions and contains a record of suggestions made by users of the libraries at Chicago. First of all, I think this is a great way to put blogs to use in libraries. Second, though, I found a lot of humor in reading the entries at Maroon Opinions. It’s a bit of a stereotype, but in general, those who work or go to school at Chicago are nothing if not opinionated. It’s one of the things I remember most about working in that environment: the promotion of individual thoughts and opinions and the concomitant need (at times) to be ready to fiercely defend them in debate. Check out this blog; it gives a rare inside view of the relationship between one of the world’s premier academic libraries and the communities it serves.

Everyone has a double

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There are some people who believe that everyone has a double, someone who looks just like him or her. Of course, I’m a skeptic. However, this theory gained a bit of validation for me when I received the latest issue of College & Research Libraries News in the mail yesterday. On the cover is a nice photo of Ray English, Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. English was on the cover because he was named this year’s Academic/Research Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). I have never met the man but when I first saw the cover photo of him, I could swear it was Marty Runkle, formerly library director at The University of Chicago Library, whom I have met. (I worked at The University of Chicago Library for several years under his leadership.) They certainly look alike! Weird. I wonder if they know each other or are aware of the resemblance? See for yourself. Take a look at the photo here of Marty Runkle and the cover C&RL cover photo of Ray English here.

Mixing work and blogging

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This article in the Chicago Tribune today was interesting to read, although it didn’t cover any new ground in the debate about employee blogging. Now that I work for a commercial entity again, this is an issue that I am more aware of. As far as I know there is no official blogging policy at my company, although a broader policy about Internet use could be construed to cover it. It is related to my previous post in that the author mentions the accessibility via Google and other search engines of whatever people choose to write in their blogs, and how easy it is to get into trouble if something negative is written about an employer. It also mentions that concerns by employers about their employees blogging are very similar to concerns employers had back when universal access to email and the World Wide Web for employees was a new thing.

I have had firsthand experience with this concern on the part of an employer. When I was at the University of Chicago I was asked to chair a task force in their library’s technical services division that was charged with articulating a set of guidelines for acceptable use of the Internet on the part of librarians and staff. The formulation of this task force was largely prompted by concern by some supervisors in technical services about abuse of Internet and email on the part of their staff. The task force duly arrived at a set of guidelines but frankly, they were not taken seriously and, at least for the duration of my time there, were not enforced that I know of. My personal view of the situation as a manager of several staff was (and still is) to rely upon principles of common sense and good supervision rather than an artificial set of rules or guidelines. I remember likening the potential for abuse of email to abuse of using the telephone. There is nothing new in this, really. And blogging is similar. If I as a supervisor have concrete, well understood expectations for performance by my employees, along with concrete ways of measuring that performance, the issue of email/blogging/telephone/Internet abuse can be easily dealt with. For instance, I made clear to my staff that I really didn’t care if they used the Internet for personal things IF (and that is an important point) their performance was good. That is, if they were getting their assigned work done in a superior fashion then using the Internet for surfing or writing emails or whatever was just fine with me. However, I also made it clear that if performance was subpar then personal use of the Internet would be one of the key areas I would focus on for that staff member, and I would restrict or curtail that activity if it was shown to be a contributing factor to their negative job performance. Unfortunately, my experience has shown that there are many supervisors in libraries (and maybe elsewhere) who lack common sense and/or people leadership skills and who turn to artificial rules and regulations to do their work for them.

Some Thoughts on RDA and ILS vendors [Updated]

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Some time ago I noted here that an acquaintence of mine had snagged an interesting job at ALA as RDA Project Manager. Yesterday I sat down and read more about RDA, which stands for Resource Description and Access. In particular I read through the RDA Prospectus, published by an international group called the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, or JSC for short. This group is responsible for implementing changes to the cataloging code of practice in use by the majority of libraries in North America, the U.K., and Canada. The current cataloging code is known as the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR) and this has been the standard code for cataloging since the 1960s when the first edition of AACR was published. Having taken all of the cataloging coursework in library school and then starting out in the profession as a serials cataloger at the University of Chicago Library and then managing a large cataloging unit there for quite a while, I have “grown up” on AACR and have been actively involved in the cataloging community, particularly the serials cataloging part, in the past. I’ve since moved away from that professional focus somewhat and am no longer as current in my knowledge as I used to be. I had heard about RDA but didn’t really pay much attention to it. So it was a big surprise to me to read yesterday that RDA will be replacing AACR (or rather, AACR2R, which is the 2nd, rev. ed. of AACR that is currently in use). I decided to delve into RDA in more detail.

What I learned from the prospectus and from some of the discussion surrounding RDA that I could find is very intriguing. This is a very big change, and, in my view, a positive one. It is a big change on many levels but since I work for a major ILS (integrated library systems) vendor, I focused on what this new standard might mean for them. Here are some thoughts or impressions that came to mind:

  • Acceleration of the end of MARC, or at least, the lessening of emphasis on MARC. MARC (which stands for MAchine Readable Cataloging) is not directly tied to AACR2R or RDA in theory but nevertheless the two are closely entwined in practice. While AACR2R (and soon, RDA) describes cataloging rules such as how to choose the title of a book, MARC is the standard for how to record and transmit cataloging information electronically. MARC also drives or controls much of what cataloging information gets displayed to users in online catalogs. My reading of the prospectus makes it seem very clear that RDA will not assume the use of MARC but instead will be designed to be of use in a variety of metadata formats, of which MARC will be one of many. Of course there are already many other metadata formats in use by libraries other than MARC (e.g. EAD, Dublic Core, etc.), but this kind of emphasis by RDA on multiplicity of formats has far-reaching implications and solidifies or adds weight to the trend toward multiplicity of formats that’s been underway for several years. Why does this matter to ILS vendors? It matters because the core record or basis for just about every major ILS system is the MARC record. Expansion of multiplicity of metadata formats supported by an ILS calls for radical system redesign — assuming, of course (which I personally do not), the need for an integrated (some say, monolithic) library system continues to exist.
  • The prospectus makes it clear that RDA will be predicated on FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) and FRAR (Functional Requirements for Authority Records), conceptual models developed under the auspices of IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions). These models have been around for quite a while yet very few ILS vendors have made their systems compatible with them as of yet. Implementation of RDA, as it is currently proposed, anyway, will change that from “it would be nice, but…” to “must be capable of…” In other words, it will no longer be desirable, but required. That’s a big difference. Those ILS vendors who have maintained the status quo on this one won’t be able to do so for much longer.
  • According to the prospectus, “RDA is being developed to provide a better fit with emerging database technologies, and to take advantage of efficiencies and flexibility that such technologies offer with respect to data capture, storage, retrieval, and display.” This could mean all kinds of things for ILS vendors and I am not certain really of what JSC has in mind. However, database design and maintenance is perhaps the most integral, complicated, and proprietary aspect of modern library systems. Any changes in that aspect of ILS work will be of huge significance for vendors.
  • Perhaps if RDA is successfully implemented, the idea of an ILS will enjoy a renaissance if/when vendors and/or libraries develop a system that can readily ingest, output, and manipulate library data no matter how it is encoded. Rather than component-izing (a madeup word) the disparate pieces of traditional ILS functionality as seems to be the general trend nowadays, maybe RDA, with its inherent tolerance for a multiplicity of metadata formats, will result in one central system that can handle those formats in one place with the flexibility that libraries need. Who knows?
  • One major portion of RDA will be dedicated to relationships. I find this interesting and a good thing. One of the biggest failings of ILS systems is that they have largely failed to readily help librarians piece together disparate works so that the user of the online catalog can readily see relationships among them.
  • One thing not mentioned at all in the prospectus is the whole concept of user-supplied metadata, e.g. tagging, and how that will play a role in the future for online catalogs and bibliographic utilities. I believe that tagging as a phenomenon is here to stay, even if I have my doubts about its efficacy right now. How can or should ILS vendors enable user-supplied metadata in conjunction with library-supplied cataloging?

I admit that I don’t know as much as I should know about RDA and surrounding issues, and I may have misinterpreted some of what I’ve read. Or maybe there are even more radical implications for ILS vendors than what I can think of right now. Regardless, I am fairly confident that RDA’s progressive approach bodes for a lot of upheaval for a lot of stakeholders. I’m going to pay a lot more attention to it than I have heretofore!