April
2-5,
2006
Federal Depository Library Conference
April
2-5,
2006
Various cataloging issues were brought up in different sessions at the conference. Here are the major issues and tidbits of information:
MARC. Is full MARC really necessary in a full-text searchable Google world? This question was never definitively answered, but it was brought up in many different contexts. The nature of the metadata needed to describe digital material is a question that will continue to be debated, and not just in the government information world.
Formats. GPO is moving to a single record standard for all formats. In other words, they will no longer be creating separate cataloging records for titles issued in tangible and electronic form. Various note fields (to my understanding) will be used to describe the different formats.
Links in the catalog. Is it the same as having a document on your shelf? Are you bound by a "five-year rule" or other restrictions such as are attached to tangible documents received through the Depository program? These questions were brought up more than once. The discussion of what it means to have links in catalog came to what seemed to me a definite conclusion: we are custodians of access in this case, not custodians of physical objects, and so can delete the links at will. Putting a link in our catalog to an electronic document is not the same as receiving a tangible document and putting it on our shelves. However, the question did come up as to how GPO will know who "has" a certain document (or, more precisely, who has access to it). This is important with respect to their "Locate in a Library" function, a feature of the Catalog of Government Publications that several attendees seemed to find problematic, since it is a very imprecise record of who actually has any given document in their collection.
Records for newly digitized old documents. The digitization of GPO legacy collection (which is still being collected) will start in earnest soon. There have been some contributions of special groups of publications (bills, NASA reports, etc.) from some libraries. Cataloging records for these batches of publications have already started showing up in monthly GPO cataloging record loads, and this will increase.
