Core Competency G: Demonstrate an understanding of basic principles and standards involved in organizing information such as classification and controlled vocabulary systems, cataloging systems, metadata schemas or other systems for making information accessible to a particular clientele.

Section 1. Interpretation of competency

Information professionals need to have a fundamental sense of how information should be organized along with detailed knowledge of how different organizational schemas are structured. Classification systems, controlled vocabulary, metadata schemas, and ontologies form the basis for organizing information. Being an informational professional is more than just knowing about these systems, it is also important to know the differences between these tools and to understand how they work together to support search, access, and preservation needs.

People outside of the field are often surprised to hear that there are more than one or two classification schemes for organizing collections. While the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress Classification systems are probably the best known to library users in the United States, there are many others in use. Some of these support specific uses like the SuDoc system for government documents, others are meant for scientific disciplines such as the National Library of Medicine’s classification system. Some are used other countries such as Ranganathan’s classification system, widely used in India, while still others, like the Universal Decimal Classification, were designed with international use in mind. It is important for librarians to be aware that more than one system exists, that they are structured differently, and that they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

Subject headings and controlled vocabulary systems organized into taxonomies give librarians and researchers a documented set of terms to use to describe and search for information. While these terms were once only set by the libraries themselves and then handed down to the user, today there are additional means of access through the use of folksonomic tagging systems. These are systems that allow the users to develop and apply their own terms to an item. Some of these include LibraryThing and TagTeam.

One area that is very interesting to me is the use of unofficial terms and whether it supports or inhibits discovery. Masuchika (2015) discusses the “dangers” (abs.) of the practice of using synonyms rather than official subject terms for transliterated topics. The research looked at the overlap in search results for the transliterated Japanese term “sunyata,” a term from Buddhism, and common synonyms which included “nothingness, emptiness, voidness, and openness” (p. 257). The results found that the highest rates of recall were for the official terms with the synonym nothingness a distant second. The overlap between the two was even worse, but the absolute lowest results came when two of the synonyms were used rather than the official term (p.257). The conclusion was made that authors who insist upon using terms like these run the risk of “having their publications lost in the invisible academic web” (p.259).

Other literature reported on the use of subject terms chosen by non-experts versus those selected by professional catalogers. A 2006 cataloging study at Metropolitan Museum of Art had catalogers and library assistants each tag five works. Librarians added fewer tags per item produced a much smaller percentage of individual terms (p. 7), however, the choice of subject terms differed greatly. Many tags concerned subject matter that was not covered in the formal record, such as a painting of a cow not mentioning the cow at all (p. 2) and many of the newly selected terms were subjective, emotional, and evocative. This shows that tagging can provide an additional point of access based on elements not previously considered (p. 16). This remains an area that I am interested in and plan to explore further.

Another important area for information professionals to have proficiency with is metadata schemas. While not every librarian needs to be intimately familiar with the details of each, it is important to have a high-level understanding of the structure of the major ones and an understanding of the unique use of each. Metadata schemas drive the organization of and support access to electronic resources. It is important to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of each, as well as issues surrounding interoperability.

Taken together, cataloging rules, classification systems, metadata, and controlled vocabularies form much of the baseline knowledge that librarians must know in order to navigate any section of the information landscape. Whether the task is finding information for an individual researcher, placing items into the collection, or wrangling metadata through a crosswalk, it is vital that a librarian understand the tools and terms of art for the terrain they are traversing.

Section 2. Reference to supporting evidence

Evidence One. Academic Assignment.

Overview of the PREMIS data model. A paper that gives a broad-based overview of a metadata schema that is particularly well-suited to preservation needs.

Understanding that there are differences in metadata schemas to support various use cases is a useful piece of knowledge for any information professional to have. I wrote this paper for an assignment in the SJSU course Seminar in Contemporary Issues – Metadata (INFO 281). The assignment was to give a detailed overview and description of a metadata schema. I chose PREMIS because it seemed to offer a lot. It is not a stand-alone system but rather works with other schemas such as METS. It also has a relatively simple data model and is extensible.

I chose this as proof of competency because I feel it shows the ability to research a metadata schema with an intended purpose in mind, in this case, preservation. It was also useful to read about the original development of PREMIS and how it is maintained today. Knowing who is in charge of making changes to a system helps you to understand and track those changes.

Evidence Two. Academic Assignment.

Robots (Group). Metadata record for a collection of small handmade metal figures and their associated visual and group records created using the Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA) from the Getty Institute.

This web page was created for the SJSU course Seminar in Contemporary Issues – Metadata (INFO 281). The assignment was to pick a metadata scheme and then create records for a collection of items. I have always wanted to work with the CDWA, I really enjoy it’s richly faceted categories and I found the rules to be interesting to work with. I am also the artist that created these items. I have long dreamt of cataloging everything I have made through the years, but in reality, most of my work is still just described in free-form blog posts.

I chose this assignment to show competency in the organization of information because it demonstrates my ability to select a metadata system, comprehend the rules regarding its use, and then apply this knowledge to produce a structured information resource.

Evidence Three. Work Experience.

MARC records with original cataloging for two economic reports completed by Ellen Phillips.

Handwritten notes on MARC tags compiled from Spring 2013 to Fall 2017 and used for cataloging with OCLC Connexion software.

Right around when I started library school, I was hired as the Serials Supervisor by the University of New Hampshire School of Law Library and held that position from May 2013 until February 2018. In addition to tracking the receipt of our print serials, I also did copy cataloging for a large collection of donated monographs.

Using OCLC Connexion I pulled records from WorldCat, added some local data and then added them to our Innovative Millennium ILS system. I probably copy cataloged a couple of hundred books, and then went on to do some original work. My name appears in the 990 field for each of these records.

The second item I am including to support my professional experience is an annotated copy of a sample MARC record with my extremely detailed handwritten notes.

I chose both of these for evidence two because I felt that the notes showed a long-range effort to learn as much about cataloging as possible and the original cataloging is the culmination of that effort.

Evidence Four. Continuing Education.

Certificate of completion, Library Juice Academy course “Introduction to Cataloging” awarded Jan. 27, 2017. (Image is sideways).

I chose my certificate in cataloging from Library Juice Academy for my fourth piece of evidence. While enrolled at SJSU, I struggled to decide whether or not to take cataloging. Through my work, I became very proficient in cataloging, but I still didn’t know how to create original MARC records.

I decided that I was too advanced for the basic cataloging course at SJSU, but not knowledgeable enough to simply move into advanced cataloging. I learned a lot from the Library Juice Academy class that I would not have been able to learn on the job. In addition to learning original cataloging, I was also introduced to RDA and the concept of FRBR.

Section 3. Application of competency

In my work with scholarly communications, I work to apply the principles and standards for organizing information to a disparate collection of journal articles, book chapters, monographs, and published conference proceedings. In addition to different types of documents on many different types of subjects, I also must track versions (pre-print vs. post-print), open access requirements, and publisher policies. My work in this area helps the university measure and understand its own research footprint by creating a pan-institutional information resource and my mastery of the principles of bibliographic organization makes it possible for me to work in this area.

I have also worked with the bepress taxonomy to apply subject headings and I have also made recommendations on how various faculty activities should be categorized for the research information system. This later project utilizing a solution from Symplectic Elements is something that I did at both UNH and am currently doing at BU.

I have even been able to use my skills beyond the library to benefit the profession while creating a searchable database on the topic of open access. I am a volunteer tagger for Harvard’s Open Access Tracking Project, I search for articles on OA, tag them with terms from a defined vocabulary, and add them to a central database using a bookmarklet from TagTeam. I am planning to bring this program to SJSU this fall and am hoping to recruit a group of taggers to work with me.

Section 4. Bibliography

Masuchika, G.N. (2014). Problems of scholar-created, synonymous subject terms in Buddhism. Library Review, 63(4/5) 252-260, DOI: 10.1108/LR-10-2013-0128

Trant, J. (2006). Exploring the potential for social tagging and folksonomy in art museums: Proof of concept. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 12:1, 83-105, DOI: 10.1080/13614560600802940. Preprint version retrieved September 15, 2018 from http://www.archimuse.com/papers/steve-nrhm-0605preprint.pdf