Hello catalogers, content strategists, information architects, knowledge organizers, metadata librarians, metadata specialists and all those who love and appreciate our kind of librarianship. December was a busy month and I didn’t post nearly as much as I should have, so the kind folks at Desk Set have invited me back for some March Metadata Madness! Over the coming weeks I will be discussing emerging standards, professional development, and perhaps a special interest or two. I invite you to send questions concerning cataloging, metadata, and all things technical services. But for now, let’s get back to basics.

Whether you call it cataloging or metadata, in principle it’s the same thing. We are generating and recording (whether automatically or manually) some kind of information about an asset, information package, item, whatever you want to call it…some thing in a collection. How the information is captured is all that separates metadata from traditional cataloging, and even that is a thin line. Both rely on structure standards, content standards, and value standards to create their syndetic structures- they just use different standards…and that’s ok.

Rick Block once described, “standards are like toothbrushes, everyone agrees they’re a good thing but nobody wants to use anyone else’s.” Is that such a bad thing? I used to think it it was. I once thought that to provide access to all the collections in the world, we would have to agree on a single standard and single method for interoperability. Well, that just isn’t practical. Experience has shown us that no one standard can capture the unique information required for all kinds of collections.

So then what is most important is continual creation of quality records based on the accepted standards of the time, and the needs of your collection as well as users. To fuel this development we need continual experimentation with new technologies that will enable us work toward descriptive independence and system interoperability. At the latest ASIS&T conference this past November in Vancouver the keynote speaker, Tim Bray, encouraged information professionals to experiment with emerging (open source) technologies to create innovative information systems for their users. He told us to “just do it” – that “…things have changed…you don’t need to know IT to create something useful anymore, you need to know your subject and users.” This is a very reassuring idea to subject specialists, I’m sure.

Bray also said, “The culture of online is epistolary…we are in a golden age of writing…a golden age of archiving and libraries.” If this is true, and I believe it is, what an exciting time to be a librarian! As digital data proliferates, it is our job to provide access to it – through any means necessary. No longer can we be boxed into 15 elements, MARC tags, or meta tags. What I’m describing here hasn’t been developed yet, and what excites me is that it will be our job as catalogers to develop these technologies of organization and access.

-A. Billey

B494

I hope you all had a great time at the Mardi Gras party last week! I’m sure the teachers and students of AP Tureaud in New Orleans are grateful to everyone who donated money, books, and time to help supply classroom sets of books. What better holiday than Mardi Gras to party for a good cause, especially one that benefits New Orleans? This is the third year I’ve gone to the Desk Set Mardi Gras party, and from my point of view it’s been a fun and successful party each year, and a great success, thanks to the hard work and planning of Sarah, Maria, and other Desk Setters.

To keep the Mardi Gras Spirit rolling, you can still donate books to AP Tureaud (see the previous post), and here are two other book drives for schools right here in New York, should you be interested in donating books, money, or time.

Last week on February 18th, late at night, a fire ravaged through South Bay Elementary School in West Babylon on Long Island, burning 2 of the 3 wings of the building to the ground and leaving nearly all of the library and classroom books destroyed. Visit the Books for South Bay website for information on making book donations. SBE also accepts bookstore gift cards and monetary donations.

Project Cicero’s annual non-profit book drive begins next week. Project Cicero collects and distributes new and gently-used books to school and classroom libraries in under-resourced New York City public schools. Check out their Wish List.

Last week’s Mardi Gras party at Daddy’s was a terrific success. Thanks to all who braved the winter weather in order to throw down NOLA style and support the Desk Set’s quest to bring books into the classrooms of the A.P. Tureaud school in the 7th ward of New Orleans. If you missed the party, check out this article from the Greenpoint Gazette describing the event, and the motives behind it.

We are pleased to announce that nearly 300 books have been bought, which means that we are more than a third of the way to our goal of 840. Those 840 books represent requests from teachers of all grades at Tureaud who are aiming to get classroom sets of the books that they teach as part of their curriculum. A book per student seems like a reasonable goal, and we are thrilled to help them meet it.

So far, we have obtained entire classroom sets (30 copies of each title!!!) of the following:
After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson
Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali by Charles R. Smith

And we’ve collected one of two requested classroom sets of Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis.

We would like to take this opportunity to send out our enormous thanks and endless gratitude to those of you who took the time and spent the money to help us in this endeavor. We understand that your resources are limited, and we are truly moved by your generosity. Please know that a student will soon benefit from your gift, and appreciate it even more than we do!

If you haven’t already donated, you can still visit our wish list, which we will keep active all year. (Hint: use the wishlist widget on the right of the page, and the delivery address will be added automatically. When in doubt, please send all books to: A.P. Tureaud School c/o Donna Falgoust, 94 Donelon Dr., Harahan, LA 70123.)

We only need 17 more copies of the classic Pippi Longstocking and 20 more to complete a class set of The Little Prince. Won’t you consider buying a few copies? (There is a 4 for the price of 3 deal with Amazon!)

by Matt Haugen

In the past couple of posts, I have contrasted libraries and bookstores in an attempt to highlight some topics of interest to librarians. However, I feel I’ve oversimplified this difference. The motives and strategies of bookstores may be more profit-oriented than those of libraries, but it is not as if my friends who work in bookstores or in the publishing and journalism industries are just looking for a get-rich-quick scheme; certainly, they are as hardworking and creative and concerned about the future of their paychecks and professions as many of the librarians I know. And at a basic level, what we share (besides the books themselves) are profound anxieties about the economic, technological, and cultural shifts happening around us, and perhaps nothing represents these anxieties better than the specter (if not the reality) of the e-book.

Though online publications, and digitized texts have been available for several years, dedicated reading devices still comprise only a relatively small market. Some of the newer entries on the market, including the Kindle and Nook have gained more attention among consumers and industry experts, while multifunction devices such as the iPad and smart-phones are increasingly compatible with e-book formats along with other forms of digital content. Many librarians, publishers, journalists, booksellers, authors, and readers alike are excited about the potential of these devices; many also have significant concerns about things like digital rights management, open access, licensing, permanence, censorship, privacy, and content pricing models. I haven’t actually used any of these devices, and others in the blogosphere have already discussed the pros and cons of these devices more thoroughly than I can summarize within the scope of a single blog post, but I am nonetheless motivated to comment because the questions themselves are not new either.

Books are not just neutral containers for texts, but also artifacts of the people, technologies, economies, and cultures who produce, distribute, consume and preserve them. In Europe, the earliest printed books largely resembled the handwritten manuscripts they largely superseded, and this basic codex form has persisted to the present day, with eventual mechanization of paper-making, binding, and typesetting, which together made books increasingly efficient and cost-effective means for producing and delivering text. In a sense, these technological advances both fed and were fed by the rise in literacy, private book ownership, and education; more books and new types of literature were available to more people in new segments of the population, which in turn increased demand and encouraged innovation and expansion. Concerns over standardization, censorship, and piracy were common, while the dissemination of new ideas in printed form helped fan the flames for political revolutions and religious reformations. As revolutionary as these changes were, books built upon the familiarity of existing media and products (e.g., manuscripts, paper, binding), and eventually congealed into tradition-bound industries of their own.

True, e-books may represent a similar harbinger of major changes to come, and for those invested in the traditions represented by printed books, these changes are understandably threatening. E-book devices offer improvements upon printed books, such as portability, convenience, full-text searchability, and speedy access — qualities which libraries typically value. In other cases, they mimic some of the qualities of printed books, such as rectangular shape, the experience of turning pages, or e-shelf browsing, that make them more palatable and familiar to users. Still, they are expensive and fragile electronic devices, and they represent significant shifts in the concept of ownership, and in the processes of design, publication, and marketing of books. Neither can e-books be exchanged, browsed, collected, purchased, or personalized in the same ways as printed books have. Booksellers and publishers are struggling to find new ways to market and sell their books, and librarians and scholars face real challenges in preserving, reformatting, and understanding legacy collections, and figuring out how to circulate electronic materials in cost-effective and responsible ways. Meanwhile, the Internet has demonstrated that readers are increasingly exchanging linear, passive forms of reading with non-linear, hyperlinked, interactive multimedia experiences. These technologies also make it easier for users to copy, share, and mash up media, while digital rights management and anti-piracy laws make these same activities more difficult.

Some will say that if we ignore these changes, we will be rendered as obsolete as medieval scribes copying manuscripts by candlelight, so libraries have no choice but to keep up with the latest technologies. Others will say that we have a responsibility to protect our collections and avoid fads, trends, and the commercialization and corporate control of media. My point is not to say whether or not librarians should get on the e-book bandwagon, because both responses treat the “bandwagon” itself as if it represents the inevitable momentum of progress. Rather, my point is to say that printed books were never devoid of these concerns either. Literary forms, reading habits, and creative trends are always changing, and libraries should always be concerned with relevance to their users, protection of their collections, and freedom of access and inquiry. But these changes, and the values and concerns by which we evaluate them, are not merely a response to changing technology, but are also a formative part of the process which inspires and influences the technology in return. Printed books have been successful technology for centuries, but not without problems, failures, and feedback along the way. Likewise, not every gadget and technology that comes along will succeed, and not all deserve our attention and embrace, but the ones that do will also evolve in response to us.

See the complete wish list here.

You don’t have to attend the party to contribute a book to the drive, but if you do make it to Daddy’s, please note that we’ve got some last minute prizes to add to the Who Dat Raffle:
$50 gift certificate to Other Music
$20 gift certificate to Pacific Standard Bar
$20 gift certificate to Idlewild Books

See you tonight!!

Laissez les bons temps rouler

Celebrate Fat Tuesday with The Desk Set:

February 16th, 2010

Daddy’s Bar
7:30-late

Our goal is to collect 840 books for the A.P. Tureaud in New Orleans. 99 books have been purchased so far. Why 840 you might say? Because the teachers need a copy for every student in each classroom. If you can’t make the party, you can still donate through the amazon wish list: http://amzn.com/w/2YWW46OZ56653

The Who Dat Raffle: Pair of tickets to a secret The Walkmen show at the Bell House, a $100 gift certificate to the amazing Naw’lins style restaurant, The Great Jones Cafe, a $100 gift certificate to Enid’s, a $50 gift certificate to Daddy’s & 2 Trapeze Lessons at Espana Streb Trapeze Academy, a portrait  by Mexican artist Emilio Canton Ruz & a customized book bundle from Random House! You do not need to be present to win. Raffle is open 7:30 – Midnight. $2 for i ticket, $5 for 5 tickets or $10 for 15 tickets.

The Run Down

Where: Daddy’s, 437 Graham, near Frost, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

When: Tuesday, Feb. 16th, 7:30 – late

What: party/fund-raiser to buy books for the students at the A.P. Tureaud school in NOLA, featuring DJs spinning music recorded exclusively in the state of Louisiana, hurricane cocktails, Abita beer, King cake, librarians, homemade sweets, throws, and more!

Why: Because we want to party like The Rebirth Brass Band

Plus don’t forget: if you give us a little cash to buy a book for the kids at the A.P. Tureaud school in NOLA, we’ll give you a pint of Blue Point. It’s sweet to be giving, ya’ll.

We have teamed up with just a few of our favorite local businesses to bring you some amazing prizes in the Who Dat Raffle! All proceeds from the raffle go towards buying books for the students of A.P. Tureaud Elementary in New Orleans. Tickets are cheap, prizes are fabulous, and the cause is good. We all win!

• Thanks to the generous proprietors of the Bell House – one of our all-time favorite places to see a band – we’ve got 2 tickets to a secret show featuring the Walkmen on April 1, 2010.
• Once again, we’re offering a $100 gift certificate to the Great Jones Cafe, so that you can experience some of the yummiest food, sweetest tunes and loveliest staff in Manhattan.
• Our friends at Enid’s have graciously donated a $100 gift certificate to ensure that whether it’s brunch, lunch or dinner you’re after, you can find it and love it in Greenpoint.
• As if hosting the Mardi Gras party isn’t enough, Daddy’s Bar has contributed a $50 gift certificate for one extremely lucky guy or gal.
• Anyone who came to the Biblioball early enough to catch the lovely Jean is probably wondering where to start taking trapeze lessons. Well, thanks to the Espana Streb Trapeze Academy, two lucky winners will walk away with a free Trapeze lesson!!

Tickets will be sold at the party from 7:30 PM – midnight. You do not need to be present to win.

$2 for 1 ticket, $5 for 5 tickets, $10 for 15 tickets.

Good luck! We can’t wait to see you on Tuesday!!

One of the things I enjoy about cataloging is the opportunity to get my hands on all the new releases before they go out to the shelves. I get to spend a few minutes with each book, reading the dust-jacket, figuring out what it’s about, assigning a call number and subject headings, and so on, before sending it on to circulate. I try not to let this raw power get to my head.

Actually, I liken this aspect of my job to browsing in the stacks or a bookstore, not just because I actually get to peruse a variety of books I otherwise wouldn’t have encountered, but also because I have to make judgments about the books and determine their key aspects without actually reading them. I’d like to think that the work I do as a cataloger will help users discover and evaluate books in a similar fashion. As with bookstore browsing, I usually find a book or two to read, as well as a handful of others I add to my mental checklist of books I would like to read or feel like I ought to read, just as soon as I find the time, money, or self-discipline. But along side those books are thousands more that I have no interest in reading, and whole sections of the store I ignore outright.

When faced with this abundance and diversity of books, and the knowledge that I will read only a small portion of them in my lifetime, I find it hard to consider myself as “well-read” as people tend to assume librarians are, and it also challenges my own relatively narrow reading tastes and habits. At a bookstore, once I’ve found my book, I can generally forget about the rest as I go home to read. But while cataloging, I may find something new to read or add to my wish list, but I can’t ignore all of the other ones in the meantime, or they’d just keep piling up at my desk. In any case, my job is not to evaluate, but to classify and describe, these books, whether I would want to read them or not.

For all the careful work librarians do to methodically select and catalog new books, many readers (myself included) make seemingly impulsive book selections under the influence of a combination of superficial, subconscious, and social factors. Bookstores and publishers know this, and that’s why the books you see right when you walk in to a bookstore are likely to be the new releases and best-sellers with glitzy covers and A-list authors. Libraries, on the other hand, aren’t in the business of marketing books or profiting off of them in this fashion, but must consider demand and popularity alongside a range of other factors, such as budget, reviews, the strengths and weaknesses of the existing collection, likelihood that demand will last long after the initial release, institutional mission, and so on. With all these other pragmatic and idealistic concerns, it’s easy to think of “popular” as a dirty word: vulgar, commercialized, faddish, lowbrow, predictable–schlock that appeals to short attention spans and lowest common denominators, and smothers the time-tested classics and the under-appreciated works of international authors and independent presses which rarely make the best-seller lists. The opposite of “popular” is harder to define in this context, but can also be treated as a dirty word: highbrow, elitist, obsolete, inconsequential, or overwrought–works whose “special” status is less an indicator of quality than a marker of the educational and social privileging of a certain class of cultural producers and consumers that fails to represent the full spectrum of gender, race, sexuality, class, religion, ethnicity, and taste that makes our society what it is.

Readers (perhaps Librarians most of all) tend to take pride in their own individual discernment and taste when it comes to selecting the best books, but I daresay our reading habits are more subject to marketing tactics and social prejudices than we’d like to admit, and that may be why many of us cringed upon seeing Wuthering Heights dressed up like Twilight.But while libraries aren’t bookstores, they still must respond to demand, user behavior, and the fact that reading tastes are both deeply personal and deeply social. We like to define our individuality by the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, and the books we read, but our sense of connection to others with similar tastes and expressions is still a powerful force.

While my own tastes cross the range of categories and genres both highbrow and lowbrow, I know I am guilty of casting some of these same superficial judgments on many of the books that come to me–formulaic “whodunit” mysteries and spy novels, sassy “chick lit,” pretentious “literary” novels, buzzword-laden punditry, and year-long stunt memoirs. If you’ve read (or cataloged) one, you’ve read (or cataloged) them all, it seems, but patrons still seem to read them faster than I can catalog them. This is not to blame the Acquisitions Department or eager readers; there will always be new books that I will never read, and a static library collection that never got anything new would be boring and would also leave me without a job.

In any case, it is not the job of librarians to impose their tastes (whatever they are) on everyone else, but to represent a range of tastes and ideas in serving a diverse public and preserving a diverse cultural record. If you come in searching for a book by Tom Clancy or Jackie Collins, you won’t just find it in a big display next to the entrance, but on the shelves alongside Joseph Conrad and Mary Higgins Clark and Willa Cather and Truman Capote and Albert Camus–and hundreds of other authors you have never even heard of but whose last names happen to begin with C. If you search in the catalog for “Man-woman relationships–New York (State)–New York–Fiction” you’ll get both The Age of Innocence and The Boyfriend From Hell, without anyone deciding on your behalf which is the better book.

These approaches encourage browsing and serendipity, without making particular books impossible to find, and it leaves less room for librarians to impose their own tastes or implied cultural hierarchies. Ultimately, these are just a few examples of why I feel that libraries can represent what “popular” means in a more positive sense: books that are accessible and available to everyone, that juxtapose a range of tastes and experiences and communities, and that empower readers to engage in the dialogue and discovery that leads to still more and better books.

Simply order a book (or more!) from the A.P. Tureaud Wishlist.

(HINT: order by using the 2010 A.P. Turead School Book Drive by the Desk Set list on the right side of the screen, and the shipping address gets automatically filled in! No more cutting and pasting for you!)

The Saints won the Superbowl, Mardi Gras is next week, and we’re 27 books closer to fulfilling the needs of Tureaud’s classrooms! We are full of love for NOLA, so please join us and help us reach our goal of 840 books by the end of the month.

Find out more about the Desk Set’s Mardi Gras party and book drive.

Indeed we should all write. And thanks to Symphony Space, New Yorkers can take advantage of an adult literacy program that “emphasizes that literacy is not only about learning to read but about discovering and writing about the world around us.”

All Write! is a free program offered to adults all over New York City, and next Monday, you are invited to celebrate this experience, and help to keep it free.

Symphony Space is offering a limited amount of discounted tickets to their All Write! Benefit for teachers and librarians.

Here’s the dirt:

New New York Voices: Celebrating the All Write! Adult Literacy Program

For nearly two decades, Symphony Space has offered the All Write! literacy program, absolutely free of charge, to adult students throughout the five boroughs. Celebrate this innovative program at this one-night only performance featuring Sonia Manzano, S. Epatha Merkerson, Isaiah Sheffer, Sam Waterston, and B.D. Wong, plus musical guests Ivy Austin, Jay Leonhardt, and Lanny Meyers.

SPECIAL OFFER!

Get tickets for only $25!  Just use code NYVC when ordering at 212-864-5400, at symphonyspace.org, or at Symphony Space, Broadway and 95^th Street.  A limited number of tickets are available at this special price.