About the presenter:

Michael Kaplan is currently Director of Product Management for Ex Libris (USA),. Inc. Previously, he spent two years as Associate Dean of Libraries & Director of Technical Services at the Indian University Libraries in Bloomington. From 1977 to 1998, he worked in various technical services positions at Harvard University. For much of the 1990s he was actively involved with the Library of Congress, where he participated in the Seminar on Copy Cataloging in 1992, and since 1993 with the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). He served the PCC as chair of its Standing Committee on Automation from 1993-1998. In 1998-1999, he was a member of its Policy Committee and was chair of the PCC in 1999-2000.

Dr. Kaplan has been a frequent speaker in recent years on topics related to the future of cataloging, particularly with regard to technical services workstations and the famous "More, Better, Faster, Cheaper." He organized and led a series of eight coast-to-coast institutes, sponsored by ALCTS, LITA, LAMA, and ACRL on "Technical Services Workstations: the State of the Art of Cataloging." Dr. Kaplan edited the 1997 monograph Planning and Implementing Technical Services Workstations, which was published by ALA Editions, and he contributed to the 1996 ARL SPEC Kit on Technical Services Workstations (TSW).

In 1997, Dr. Kaplan received the ALCTS Best of LRTS award for his article "Technical Services Workstations: A Review of the State of the Art." and in 1998, he received the LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for his body of work over the previous five years that showed "outstanding achievement in communicating to educate practitioners within the library field in library and information technology."

Summary:

In two centuries we have come a long way in the construction of our bibliographic catalogs: from book to card catalog to comfiche to OPACs, and now the Web. The catalog data that underpinned those presentation devices--what some people refer to as real metadata as opposed to naive metadata created by non-catalogers or designed to describe newer types of electronic materials--has changed as well, but seemingly with fewer phases. If we ignore the issue of particular metadata standards and keep to AACR in its various iterations, and now the Dublin Core-inspired metadata standards, then what I am concerned with bluntly is with the marriage of metadata standards and presentation. In leading this panel, I first envisioned a group of vendors talking about the catalog record as a dynamic entity and their role in creating it. I was originally intrigued by several varieties of cataloging or cataloging enhancements that are becoming more and more significant to us and our patrons. Three views, briefly:

Aggregators and aggregations: Like their printed or microform counterparts of the 1970s and 1980s, aggregations, principally of serials, threaten to overwhelm us. Decisions are made to purchase large electronic sets and then we in technical services are left holding the virtual bag trying to offer access.

Ancillary data: The oldest example, probably, is the table of contents pioneered by Blackwell North America and others in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As envisioned, a library would subscribe to some or all of a set or purchase TOC data for individual titles. Now, TOC data is but one piece of the constellation in a galaxy of similar constellations: why not add back of book indexes, author portraits, summaries, or book reviews?

Then there is the advent of metadata for electronic books, the key to discovering and ordering from vendors such as netLibrary. This data may reside in our catalogs, but even more appropriately on the Internet, and appeal not only to librarians, but also even more directly to the end user. However, the real opportunity that comes from all this is a relatively new adjunct to the Internet and the Web. This is the technology created by Herbert van de Sompel and his colleagues at the University of Ghent. Called SFX for Special Effects (not to be confused with SFX technology for delivering audiovisual resources over the Web), it is nothing short of a revolution in how we should envision research on the Web. SFX is a framework for context-sensitive linking between Web resources. It is the means to uniting or linking disparate, heterogeneous electronic resources such as abstracts and full text, all the while keeping in mind the context in which the user works and that some sources of data may be institutionally more appropriate for that user than others. It also has the ability to link to related subjects. This is truly exciting, yet I am struck by the notion that we have hit on one of the holy grails of research. The Holy Grail is that of "seamless interconnectivity." To back up a step, this technology is seamless only because the metadata exists as seams in an information architecture. SFX then takes the seams one step further and turns them into a library-defined seamless whole (WHOLE, not HOLE).

About the commentator:

In her role as Director of Marketing and Programs at Faxon/RoweCom, Aaron serves as a primary liaison to the academic library marketplace. She participates in strategic planning and product development for the academic and medical communities and heads the Academic Client Advisory Board.

Aaron came to Faxon from Blackwell's Information Services Group, where she was the Electronic Services Product Manager for serials management and push technology products. Prior to Blackwell's, she served as the Coordinator of Library Automation and Product Development at Readmore, specializing in the development of bibliographic interfaces and Internet services. Aaron also has significant experience in academic libraries, having held several key technical services and automation positions at the UCLA library system, including Head of Continuations Cataloging and Associate Head of Technical Services. She also served as Associate Director for Systems and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology libraries.

Aaron holds an MLS from UCLA and completed coursework in the university's Ph.D. program as well. She served as the co-chair of the SISAC Education and Publicity Subcommittee for several years. Aaron is currently chair of the ALA ALCTS Serials Section Research Libraries Discussion Group and is a member-at-large of the ALCTS Serials Section Executive Committee. She has organized several noteworthy professional conferences and is a frequent speaker on library technology and serials management topics.

About the commentator:

Jeff Calcagno directs Syndetic Solutions Library Sales and Customer Support group, which provides an expanding array of catalog enrichment services to libraries. He has an MLS from the University of Washington and has been a well-known figure in the library technical services industry since 1986. Prior to the formation of Syndetic Solutions, Jeff was a Senior Account Manager in the Technical Services Division at Blackwell's where he provided counseling and project management support for many large research universities, public libraries, consortiums, and libraries and national bibliographic networks within the Pacific Rim. In addition to library sales and support, Jeff manages Syndetics' consulting services, providing technical and marketing support for library networks and commercial bibliographic service providers.

Summary: Library catalog users are often web users. They have experienced, and continue to utilize, enhanced bibliographic information from the web which gives rise to heightened expectations for the library catalog. This paper outlines some of those perceived expectations and provides information on what types of enrichment data libraries should plan to receive from vendors. The paper also reviews several attributes of the data, in what manner libraries presently receive the data, and concludes by noting several implementation issues which must be addressed by libraries and vendors of enrichment data.

About the commentator:

As Vice President of Research and Library Systems, Lynn Silipigni Connaway is responsible for directing internal research and plays a critical role in the creation of the company's information search interface for the library community. She also oversees the collection development and cataloging teams.

As a former professor of library and information science, Dr. Connaway's area of expertise is in the field of information cataloging and classification. Prior to joining netLibrary, Dr. Connaway served as Director of the Library and Information Services Department at the University of Denver, where she taught several courses in library and information science. During her tenure, she conducted research on the subjects of organization and access of electronic documents, as well as the education of information professionals.

Dr. Connaway has served on the faculty of the University of Missouri, Columbia and as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is a frequent speaker at national professional meetings and conferences.

Dr. Connaway received a Ph.D. in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Arizona, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Library Science from Edinboro State University. She has been actively involved in numerous committees within the American Library Association, the American Society for Information Science, and the Association of Library and Information Science Educators.

Summary:

The emergence of electronic books (eBooks) in libraries has brought new opportunities and new challenges. The opportunity to provide access to full-text eBooks brings the challenges of making them available through standard library practices and systems. The integration of eBooks into libraries' collection development and acquisitions processes and into online public access catalogs (OPACs) requires the cataloging of these materials. Some of the challenges identified are adhering to cataloging standards; integrating other industry standards and schemes; establishing and updating bibliographic links; classifying; reporting statistics; adapting work flow processes; and training staff and patrons.

As an eBook provider, netLibrary, Inc. has been involved in the selection, creation, cataloging, and distribution of eBooks. This involvement has given netLibrary staff a first-hand look at some of the challenges associated with eBook access, however, challenges often bring new opportunities. This is the ideal time for librarians, publishers, technology providers, eBook providers, and bibliographic utitilies to work together to develop standards and processes that will meet each group's needs, but most importantly, will meet the needs of the individuals who use electronic resources.