Transcript Slide 1

Cataloguing – a
problem shared?
CIG Conference
Sept 13th 2010
Sally Curry, RIN
Overview
 RIN
 Researchers – how do they work and what do
they need for resource discovery
 Cataloguing - how best to support research
 Findings of the Creating Catalogues report
 and other developments
 Impact of financial constraints on libraries
 Key points
Research Information Network
 A small policy unit funded by the four HE
Funding Councils, the seven Research
Councils and the three National Libraries
 Aims: to enhance and broaden the
understanding of how researchers in the UK
create and use information resources and
services
 Supports: the development of effective
policies and practices for researchers,
institutions, funders, information
professionals and all others involved in the
research information landscape
What does RIN do?
 RIN’s remit covers information in all formats,
and how it relates to libraries, data archives,
research funders, HEIs, publishers as well as
researchers and all involved in the research
process.
‘promoting improved access for researchers
to information sources’
Researchers
 What are their needs?
 How do they work?
 Do they need the library or its
catalogues?
Researcher choice of
information sources and
search techniques
 Like to work in their comfort zone
 Use services recommended by colleagues or
websites they believe to be authoritative
 Search strategies - advice from colleagues
 Discouraged from seeking out other resources
because of the time and effort needed
 Feel they know enough to find all they need
How do researchers work?





Speed and convenience of major importance
Traditional role of the catalogue and the
librarian largely replaced by reliance on
Google
Use a narrow range of search engines and
bib sources
Concern about accessibility – barriers to
published content and online information
Significant disciplinary differences
The Google Generation:
Information Behaviour of the
Researcher of the Future
 Research behaviour traits commonly
associated with younger users – impatience
in search and navigation, and zero tolerance
of any delay in satisfying their information
needs – now the norm for all age-groups,
from younger pupils and undergraduates
through to professors
 Although young people demonstrate an ease
and familiarity with computers, they rely on
the most basic search tools and do not
possess the critical and analytical skills to
asses the information that they find on the
web’
Impact of lack of search skills
 Over half of researchers have difficulty at least
once a month in accessing the content they
require from their own institution’s library
Why?
 Complex discovery options - External search
interfaces are not well-integrated with library
systems
 Problems with search and navigation, combined to
some degree of a lack of researcher expertise*
 No licence has been purchased
RIN Access Report
Impact of lack of access to
resources
 Around 59% feel that lack of access has a
real impact on their research
 18% said it was a significant impact
 Arts and Humanities report greatest concern
over the impact on their work, Social
Sciences less and scientists the least
RIN Access Report
Resource Discovery
 Essential to the work of researchers, teachers
and students
 The last 10 years has been a period of
unprecedented change for all players in this
arena
 The resources available to researchers, the
technology they are using, their means of
communication with each other are all
changing rapidly
Do researchers need libraries
and catalogues?
 Many think not
 See the library purely as a bookstore and
never use the library catalogue
 The Google Generation study calls for
libraries to respond urgently to the changing
needs of researchers and other users and to
understand the new means of searching and
navigating information
 ‘Learning what researchers want and need is
crucial if libraries are not to become
obsolete…’
Google Generation Report
The Catalogue:
how best to support research?
The role of the catalogue is essential in
resource discovery
But are many of our catalogues still fit for
purpose in a networked world?
Doug Vernimmen pictures
Creating Catalogues Report
The report covered:
 the role of all the providers in the creation
and flow of bib records from publisher to the
university or other libraries
 Monographs, e-books; printed and e-journals,
and journal articles
 The balance between effort expended in
enhancing records for new acquisitions and
dealing with backlogs and retroconversion
Key issues investigated
 Is the current balance of effort effective in
meeting the needs of users?
 Does the work on more than 160 university
catalogues requiring locally adapted bib data
provide the best return on investment?
 Would the creation of a shared catalogue for
the HE sector and researchers more widely be
viable?
Findings overview
Current systems are not efficient and do not
always serve well the interests of the users
they are intended for
‘All those involved in creating, distributing and
using bibliographic data must work together
to find creative, practical and sustainable
ways to increase the efficiency of current
systems, and to exploit the opportunities for
developing new services’
Recommendations

E-books: Publishers and aggregators should
work together with other interested groups
in the supply chain, and with users, to
consider how to establish comprehensive
listings of high-quality records for e-books,
and to seek agreement on standards for the
content and format of such records

Scholarly journals: Publishers should be
encouraged to make article-level metadata
more widely available to third parties in a
standard format, so that they can be
harvested and utilised by aggregators,
libraries, repositories and others
Recommendations
Printed books:
 Libraries should give serious consideration to
the benefits that would accrue from moving
from standalone catalogues to a shared
catalogue for the whole UK HE sector

A shared catalogue for the whole of the UK
HE sector could bring enormous benefits in
terms of :


reduced costs
the potential for developing new, user-focused
services which would allow them to remain
relevant and compete with Amazon, Google and
others
Creating Catalogues
Workshop 1
 Meeting of all key stakeholders including




commercial vendors,
aggregators,
JISC and other national services,
academic and research libraries
Output
 Need for further work on:
 Content – needs of users along the chain
 Format – what format is needed
 Licensing – constraints licensing issues may put on
efficiencies in sharing and distribution
Creating Catalogues
Workshop 2
Barriers identified:
 A lack of trust in the quality of records
supplied
 Issues of the distinction between the use of
catalogue records for management purposes
and for discovery purposes
 Confusion in the minds of those library staff
handling the data over whether they were
permitted to pass it on for further use
Creating Catalogues
Workshop 2
Suggestions:
 A simplification of the regulations attaching to
catalogue records
 A standard phrasing for permissions for reuse
of records
 A symbol attached to a record such as the
Creative Commons ‘licensed for re-use for
non-commercial purposes’
Creating Catalogues
Workshop 2
Licensing catalogue records:
- ‘Happy to accept they will be shared’
 at item level rather than passing on a complete set of
data
 provenance code to be retained within the files
 some limits: some suppliers – eg Coutts have to pass on
the limitations on the data that they are supplied with
Support from supplier side:
 BIC: ‘Anything that would make the library supply chain
of metadata more efficient, we’d support.’
 BL: very supportive
 The potential for linking with SCONUL shared services
programme identified
Edinburgh Glasgow reciprocal
cataloguing scheme
 Cataloguing staff in each library had language
skills that the other lacked
 Resources pooled in the interest of future
collection development
 Edinburgh: Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew
 Glasgow: Russian and Polish
 Formal scheme ended some years ago but
continued low level informally
 Heads of service now to discuss reopening
scheme
 Challenge Fund – 16 new collections
 + 7 from further additions
 16 Challenge Fund collections have brought in
an additional 1,394,402 unique records
 Plus 432,432
 59.4% of the total records added are unique:
 Total records on COPAC now 37,266,837
JISC RLUK Resource
Discovery Task Force Vision
ONE TO MANY; MANY TO ONE
‘That UK researchers and students should
have easy, flexible access to content and
services through collaborative, aggregated
and integrated resource discovery and
delivery framework which is comprehensive,
open and sustainable’
British Library frees metadata
The British Library is now making its
bibliographic records available for free to
researchers and other libraries – for noncommercial purposes
 Libraries who wish to process material more
efficiently – eg retro-con
 For research - into publication patterns / data
mining etc
 Linked Data
www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html
JISC: Sharing and re-using
catalogue records in a
Web 2.0 world
 Contracts (licences) with record suppliers have
a greater influence on what individual libraries
can and cannot do with their records than
intellectual property law
 No such thing as a standard licence for the
supply of records
 To establish what libraries can and cannot do
with records sourced from suppliers, they need
to check their individual licences. The toolkit
includes information on what sort of conditions
to look out for in licences and the sort of
clauses libraries should consider including when
negotiating new licences with suppliers.
Special Collections
 The Library’s USP
 Ensure they are visible – fully catalogued
online and exposed to search engines
 They help to publicise the library and
demonstrate the unique value of the
resources available at your organisation
 They are part of support for research
throughout the your organisation, the UK and
beyond
Institutional Repositories
 Libraries have taken a leading role in
managing institutional repositories
 IRs will play an important role in what ever
follows RAE
 Are cataloguers involved?
 Are there links between the OA resources and
the catalogue?
Open Data and Data
Management
 Most research funders require grant holders
to make data available for third parties
 Little evidence that planned data
management has been widely adopted
 Confusions over terminology
data, datasets, databases, digital objects, digital
information
 Major issues to be overcome with regard to
the sensitivities of data ownership and of the
researchers who provided it
Data Ownership issues protection and trust
 Responsibility, protectiveness and desire for
control over data - concerns about
inappropriate use
 Creation, collection/gathering of data not
usually the primary objective of research
 Career rewards rarely come from sharing data
 Resistance to open sharing of ‘intellectual
capital’
 Decisions on when and how to share
 Commercial, ethical, legal issues
Data Management role
 Active engagement with researchers is crucial
for the creation of a workable process of
checks and balances
 The DCC Digital Curation Centre provide on
its website an analysis of the policies of all
major UK funders
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-andlegal
 UKRDS assessing the feasibility and costs of
developing and maintaining a national shared
digital research data service for UK Higher
Education sector http://www.ukrds.ac.uk
The impact of financial
constraints
 Significant cuts in budgets are likely to be
prolonged
 Libraries have already made real efficiency
savings in the last 10 years
 There are few ‘efficiency’ savings left to be
made – what will go – stock or services?
 Shared Services the only area where there
remains the possibility of reducing costs and
retaining or enhancing services
Key points
 Catalogues are an essential tool for research
but they must be visible where the researchers
work rather than expecting researchers to adapt
to traditional ways of searching
 Data Management may be coming your way
 Financial situation will have an impact on your
role and what you do
 Shared services are the way forward
References

Creating catalogues: bibliographic records in a networked
world - http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessinginformation-resources/creating-catalogues-bibliographicrecords-network;

Challenges for academic libraries in difficult economic times
http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessinginformation-resources/challenges-academic-libraries-difficulteconomic-

Overcoming barriers: access to research information content
www.rin.ac.uk/overcoming-barriers

Researchers’ use of academic libraries and their services
http://www.rin.ac.uk/resources/rin-publications/
All the RIN reports and briefings are downloadable from the RIN website
References

Communicating Knowledge: How and why UK researchers
publish and disseminate their findings
www.rin.ac.uk/communicating-knowledge

E-journals: their use, value and impact www.rin.ac.uk/useejournals

‘Transitions in scholarly communication’ focuses on changes

Interim conclusions from survey in BL/JISC October 2009
http://explorationforchange.net/attachments/054_Summary
%20Report%20Final.pdf

Retooling libraries for the Data Challenge, Dorothea Salo.
http://deve.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/salo/
taking place in the world of scholarly communications and
their impact on research
http://www.rin.ac.uk/resources/publishing/transitionsscholarly-communications
If you would like to be added to the RIN mailing list, please contact me: [email protected]