4 ms·

I think one of the issues is because librarians work with things that have been made and do not change. The catalogues also traditionally did not change, but th

I think one of the issues is because librarians work with things that have been made and do not change. The catalogues also traditionally did not change, but there's no reason now why this should be the case. If we look at wikidata or openstreetmap for example the way things are categorised changes and evolve, some things stay the same, new things get added, some things get deprecated, and bots or humans can update existing records and machines can handle any deprecations Far better then to start simple, get adoption and update records as you go, I think.

dredmorbius 5y ago
One of the particularly notable things about libraries and catalogues is how much does change. There are on the order of 1--5 million new books published in English each year (about 300k as "traditional" publications, fairly constant level since the 1950s), the largest collections have tens of millions of volumes, the cataloguing technology and standards have changed tremendously over the past 50 years, and the role and usage of libraries themselves is under constant flux. At the same time, budget and staffs are small relative to the total record store. The challenge of organising, classifying, and making accessible all human knowledge has occupied numerous great minds for centuries. We're familiar with Google's take, marrying full-text search with a document-ranking model. That worked relatively well for about 20 years. It's now showing extreme signs of stress. At the same time, much of the past (and present) traditionally-published media is finding its way online, whether the original publishers and established libraries like it or not. LibGen and SciHub may have far more to say about the future of cataloguing standards than the OCLC.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Oh and how those categories change and are subject to human error and bias. Library of Congress Class D: WORLD HISTORY AND HISTORY OF EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, ETC. Subclass DB: History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_d.pdf https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_...
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Right. If you dig into the LoC Classification what you'll find are sections, some large, some small, that have been entirely retired or supersceded. Geography is only one of those. Psychology has been huge, notably as regards human sexuality and gender. Technology and business, in which change and obsolescence are quite rapid, another. (Both have significantly co-evolved with the development of cataloguing systems and library science itself.) Emerging domains, particularly computer science and information systems, have struggled to find where they fit within the classification. And different domains are both idiosyncratic and specific to the Library's interests. For the LoCCS, US history and geography are overrepresented relative to the rest of the world. And the entire Law classification, much of it relatively reasonably developed, has a markedly differnt style and character than the rest of the classification.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      > US history and geography are overrepresented relative to the rest of the world. Yeah in the document I linked, all of Africa gets lumped into the single subclass DT. But Subclass DX is "Romanies" It was formerly "History of Gypsies", btw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress_Classification:Class_D_--_History,_General_and_Old_World#DX_%E2%80%93_History_of_Gypsies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress_Classifica...
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        On "gypsies", one of numerous nomenclature changes.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        ... which is to say: what mature cataloguing practices have developed is a change management process. A recognition that boundaries shift (metaphorical, physical, and political), knowledge evolves, and terminology may come to be outdated or even prejudicial. LoCCS isn't perfect. But it has developed the self-awareness, capabilities, institutions, and processes to change and adapt without destroying itself in the process.

dredmorbius 5y ago

One of the particularly notable things about libraries and catalogues is how much does change. There are on the order of 1--5 million new books published in English each year (about 300k as "traditional" publications, fairly constant level since the 1950s), the largest collections have tens of millions of volumes, the cataloguing technology and standards have changed tremendously over the past 50 years, and the role and usage of libraries themselves is under constant flux. At the same time, budget and staffs are small relative to the total record store. The challenge of organising, classifying, and making accessible all human knowledge has occupied numerous great minds for centuries. We're familiar with Google's take, marrying full-text search with a document-ranking model. That worked relatively well for about 20 years. It's now showing extreme signs of stress. At the same time, much of the past (and present) traditionally-published media is finding its way online, whether the original publishers and established libraries like it or not. LibGen and SciHub may have far more to say about the future of cataloguing standards than the OCLC.

cratermoon 5y ago
Oh and how those categories change and are subject to human error and bias. Library of Congress Class D: WORLD HISTORY AND HISTORY OF EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, ETC. Subclass DB: History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_d.pdf https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_...
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Right. If you dig into the LoC Classification what you'll find are sections, some large, some small, that have been entirely retired or supersceded. Geography is only one of those. Psychology has been huge, notably as regards human sexuality and gender. Technology and business, in which change and obsolescence are quite rapid, another. (Both have significantly co-evolved with the development of cataloguing systems and library science itself.) Emerging domains, particularly computer science and information systems, have struggled to find where they fit within the classification. And different domains are both idiosyncratic and specific to the Library's interests. For the LoCCS, US history and geography are overrepresented relative to the rest of the world. And the entire Law classification, much of it relatively reasonably developed, has a markedly differnt style and character than the rest of the classification.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    > US history and geography are overrepresented relative to the rest of the world. Yeah in the document I linked, all of Africa gets lumped into the single subclass DT. But Subclass DX is "Romanies" It was formerly "History of Gypsies", btw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress_Classification:Class_D_--_History,_General_and_Old_World#DX_%E2%80%93_History_of_Gypsies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress_Classifica...
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      On "gypsies", one of numerous nomenclature changes.
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        ... which is to say: what mature cataloguing practices have developed is a change management process. A recognition that boundaries shift (metaphorical, physical, and political), knowledge evolves, and terminology may come to be outdated or even prejudicial. LoCCS isn't perfect. But it has developed the self-awareness, capabilities, institutions, and processes to change and adapt without destroying itself in the process.