The Catalog of the Future:
Learning, Teaching, and
Research
An Infopeople Webcast
March 9, 2007
12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.
Presenter: Karen
Calhoun
ksc10@cornell.edu
My Report to the Library of
Congress
 Calhoun,
Karen. The Changing
Nature of the Catalog and Its
Integration with Other Discovery
Tools
Washington,
DC: Library of Congress,
March 17 2006
 http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-
final.pdf
My Thesis: We Need to Rethink
the Catalog in Light of a
Changed World
WHO?
Users are not getting what they
need from online libraries and
catalogs
 Content has changed
 Users have changed
 The library service model must
change


The catalog must change
WHAT?
HOW?
WHERE?
Agenda

Section 1: Questions about the catalog

Section 2: Library service model and the
role of the catalog

Section 3: New service model

Section 4: Revitalizing the catalog

Section 5: What’s possible today and
tomorrow
Unanswered Questions
1.
2.
3.
Who uses online catalogs and library
Web pages?
Compared to what?
Are users getting what they need
from online catalogs?
From Tim Burke’s Blog, Easily
Distracted: Burn the Catalog!
“I’m to the point
where I think we’d
be better off to just
utterly erase our
existing academic
catalogs and forget
about backwardscompatibility…”
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/
tburke1/perma12004.html
Tim Burke,
Swarthmore
College, Jan. 20,
2004
More Unkind Words About the
Catalog


As information
systems, catalogs are
hard to use
Quote from Yu, Holly
and Margo Young.
2004. “The impact of
Web search engines
on subject searching
in OPAC.” ITAL 23
(4).
“In spite of many
studies…many of the
original ideas about
improving user
success …have yet to
be implemented.
Ironically, many of
these techniques are
now found in Web
search engines.”
Who Uses the Online Catalog?
70
61.2
60
50
Percent
40
30
20
Never
At least once a week
15.9
8.6
10
1.5
0
Undergraduate
Graduate
Surveying the Students: the 2005 Student Survey
On the University of Virginia Library. p. 15
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/mis/reports/stusurv05/ultra_short_final.pdf
The Net Generation = Millennials
Net Generation
1982-1991
 Lippincott, Joan.
2005. “Net
Generation
Students and
Libraries”

http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen
Lippincott: The Net Generation
& Library Services: A Disconnect
 They
like
 We
offer
 Multimedia
 Text-based
environments
 Figuring things out for
themselves
 Working in groups
 Multitasking
 Active engagement &
learning directly
related to courses
environments
 Systems that require
prior understanding (or
librarian help)
 Services for individual
use
 Catalogs, databases,
etc.
Review of Unanswered Questions
 Who
uses the online catalog?
faculty
and graduate students
(comparatively more)
students (comparatively less)
librarians
 Who
uses library Web pages? How
much?
strong
preference for search engines
Where Do You Begin a Search
for Information on a Topic?
100
84
80
60
Search engine
Library Web site
Percent
40
20
1
0
Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: a Report
to the OCLC Membership.
http://www.oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions.htm
Competition for Catalogs?
FigureThis!
Cited in “Study Haul: Sites help parents grapple with homework
issues,” San Diego Union Tribune, October 14, 2006.
Full Text: Digital Repositories
and Interactive Learning
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
More Competition? Social
Networks
‘Linked in’
appears to be the
next widespread
social network…
The site, which
claims 9 million
worldwide users,
is a way to foster
business
connections.”
Cited in “Business networking site adds $12.8 million in funds,”
Ventura County Star, Feb. 5, 2007
Review of Unanswered Question 2:
Compared to What?

Strong preference for full text and media,
other Web content

Some are familiar with bibliographic
data/tools, many are not (and find what
they want anyway?)

Personal and professional networking are
important aspects of information seeking
We Need to Rethink the Catalog
in Light of a Changed World
 Users
are not getting what they need
from online libraries and catalogs
 Content has changed
 Users have changed
WHO?
 The library service model must WHAT?
HOW?
change
WHERE?
 The catalog must change
VIVO: Connecting Life Sciences
Researchers
Combining social networking,
traditional library services, and more
The Well
“They come and go and draw from the well”
I Ching, hexagram 48, Ching – The Well
• The Library as a
center of
collections
• The Library as a
center of experts
and tools to guide
users to
appropriate
resources
The Way We Worked
Books
Journals
Newspapers
Gov docs
Maps
Scores
AV
Dissertations
Library catalogs
Special
collections
Manuscripts
Papers
Univ records
Archives
Journal
articles
Conference
proceedings
Etc.
Abstracting &
Indexing services
Geocentric/
Aristotelian view:
The local
catalog is the
sun
Heliocentric/
Copernican view:
The local catalog
is a planet
The River
A New Kind of Library

Be more involved with
research and learning
materials and systems

Be more engaged with
user communities

Make library collections
and librarians more
visible

Move to next generation
systems and services
An online social network
The Larger Context: Knowledge
Management
Knowledge communities “interpret information about
the environment in order to construct meaning …
create new knowledge by converting and combining
the expertise and know-how of their members …
[and] analyze information in order to select and
commit to appropriate courses of action.”
—Chun Wei Choo, Professor of Information
Studies, University of Toronto
The Knowing Organization: How Organizations Use
Information to Construct Meaning, Create Knowledge, and
Make Decisions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Knowledge Creation and Social
Networks
“Improving efficiency and effectiveness in
knowledge-intensive work demands more
than sophisticated technologies—it
requires attending to the often idiosyncratic
ways that people seek out knowledge,
learn from and solve problems with other
people.”
—Rob Cross
Rob Cross et al., “Knowing what we know” Organizational
Dynamics 30, no. 2 (November 2001).
A multidimensional framework for academic support: a final report submitted to
the Mellon Foundation from the University of Minnesota Libraries, June 2006,
p. 47. http://www.lib.umn.edu/about/mellon/docs.phtml
Implications
Citizens engage in information network
processes with or without libraries
 Libraries, librarians, and the organizations
that serve them need to design and align
services with social networks and users’
information seeking behaviors
 Catalogs (that is, collections) need to be
more visible in the user’s information
space

Toward a New Library/User
Information Space

Library as place
From the master’s paper of Michael
C. Habib,recent graduate of UNC LIS,
“Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model,”
p. 35.
SEE HANDOUT

Place as library
“Place as library?” by Nancy
Davenport, EDUCAUSE Review
Jan./Feb. 2006
Outward Integration
“Integration should be outward
rather than inward, with libraries
seeking to use their components
in new ways”
--Interviewee for Calhoun’s LC
report on future of the catalog
Second Life Library





McMaster University
Library (Canada)
NMC Campus (New
Media Consortium)
Talis Cybrary City
Second Life
Library/Info Island
San Jose State U. LIS
School (virtual
classes)
Integration with Learning
Management Systems
 Links
to “Ask a Librarian”
 Links to Web-based citation
management tools (like RefWorks)
 Links to specific licensed e-resources
& course reserves
 Links to library-created materials (like
webliographies)
Integration with Search Engines:
Google Scholar
Why are online
catalogs
still hard to use? –
Get it! Cornell …
CL Borgman - Journal of
The American Society for
Information Science, 1996
Quiz: What Percentage of the World-Wide Printed
Book Collection is Held by the Google 5 Libraries?
A. 33%
B. 10%
C. 60%
The Next Retrospective Conversion:
Mass Digitization
30
26.1
25
20
Millions 15
10.5
Held by Google 5
Not Held
10
5
33%
0
Printed Books (Millions)
Brian Lavoie et al. Anatomy of aggregate collections: the example of
Google Print for libraries.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september05/lavoie/09lavoie.html
“Within the next five years …
…there will no longer be …we’ll be past the
a monolithic library
notion that the
Web site. Instead
online catalog is
library data will be
the
way
you
find
pushed out to many
things in libraries.”-starting places on the
Interviewee for LC report
Web and directly to
users.”--Provocative
Statement #6, Taiga Forum
http://www.taigaforum.org/docs/ProvocativeStatements.pdf
LEADERSHIP
STRATEGY
EXPAND
STRATEGY
EXTEND
STRATEGY
Invest in shared catalogs
Link pools of scholarly data
Seek partners
Improve the user’s experience
Greatly enhance delivery (fast!)
Standards development/compliance
Recycle and reuse catalog data
Innovate and reduce costs
SEE HANDOUT
“Outward integration”
Mass
collections
& catalogs
Digitize
Open access
Participate in the
substitute industry
“Thirty-two Options &
Three Strategies”—
A Radical Abridgement
Vision for Change: The Catalog –
Leadership Strategy


The catalog will evolve
toward full integration with
other discovery tools
Shared catalogs and open
information systems will
radically democratize access
to library collections and
boost scholarly productivity
to new levels
The Continuing Importance of
the Catalog


Books and serials are
not dead, and they are
not yet digital
ARL libraries spent the
lion’s share of $665
million on books and
serials in 2004
The legacy of the
world’s library
collections is tied to
the future of catalogs!
What’s Possible Today? Innovate and Reduce Costs
Much better linkages: ingest, convert,
extract, transfer
 Simplify & exploit all sources of catalog
data
 Automate and streamline workflows
 Explore automatic classification, subject
analysis; reengineer and automate LCSH
practice
 Mine catalog data for new uses

Are Innovation and Cost Reduction Really
Possible? Comparison of Staff Size and
Output Over Seven Years (Cornell)
Percent Change 96-97
to 02-03:
140
120
100
Number
FTE down 20%
80
60
Acquisitions up 18%
40
20
0
FTE
FY 96-97
FY 02-03
Titles Added (Acq) (000s)
Cataloging up 64%
Titles Cataloged (000s)
To Learn More about Technical
Services Innovations and Cost
Reductions
Title: Libraries and Librarians
Responding to Change: Transitions
and Emerging Priorities
Author: Calhoun, Karen
Issue Date: 18-Mar-2005
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/1473
What’s Possible Today? – Updated
Interface for the the Local Online Catalog
Aquabrowser
http://aquabrowser.city.newport-beach.ca.us/
What’s Possible Today? - More
Interactive and Visual
Wordpress OPAC (WPopac) - Plymouth State University
2006 Mellon Award. plymouth.edu/library/opac/
What’s Possible Today? - Shared
Catalogs with Improved Interfaces
Georgia PINES’ Evergreen: 252 public libraries http://gapines.org
What’s Possible Today? – Find
Globally, Get Locally
Worldcat.org / Find in a Library
What’s Possible Tomorrow? –
Unifying System Model
Unified Web Interface (“Google-like”)
Authentication layer
Metadata/content aggregation layer
Other
Local Library Digital
Catalogs
Catalog Collections
Licensed
Other
Databases (e.g.,DSpace)
Many diverse, separate interfaces
New Models for the Catalog:
Linking Pools of Data

Ex Libris – Primo
 http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/primo.htm

Innovative Interfaces – Encore
 http://www.iii.com/encore/main_index2.html

University of Rochester - eXtensible
Catalog
 http://extensiblecatalog.info/
The Catalog and Teaching, Learning,
and Research, the Next Generation
Deconstruction
AND
Reinvention
Phoenix detail from Aberdeen Bestiary
(public domain)
Thank You!
 Karen
Calhoun, Cornell University
Library
 ksc10@cornell.edu