Conversations with Catalogers in the 21stCentury ed. by Elaine R. Sanchez (review)

Today’s catalogers exist in a world of flux and uncertainty. As more and more people rely on non-library searching mechanisms for their information needs, the role of the traditional library catalog is unknown. Catalogers’ expertise has been in their ability to organize, classify, and provide subject analysis to the resources acquired by libraries, but these skills are not always as highly valued in a world of keyword searching. In addition, the last several years have seen many libraries shift their collection emphasis from traditional print materials to online resources and unique special collections that can make an individual library stand out. Furthermore, the catalogers themselves are faced with the challenge of learning a new cataloging code at the same time they are trying to acclimate to the myriad of other changes that are becoming a routine part of their everyday work life.

Editor Elaine R. Sanchez, head of cataloging & metadata services at Texas State University—San Marco, pulls together essays from some of the major names in cataloging to illustrate the issues facing the cataloging world today. Conversations with Catalogers in the 21^stCentury generally provides a readable account of the current state of cataloging without getting bogged down in the technical aspects and terminology of cataloging.

The book opens with three chapters devoted to Resource Description and Access (RDA), which is the new set of cataloging rules set to replace the Anglo American Cataloging Rules Second Edition (AACR2) in March of 2013. Published in 2011 and no doubt written even earlier, the issues discussed in these chapters have become dated as RDA has continued to evolve and the decision was made by the Library of Congress to definitely adopt these new rules following a period of testing to determine the rules usability and usefulness. These chapters may serve to provide perspective on what the issues were, but anyone looking to learn about RDA and its effects on cataloging would be better served by following blogs or electronic lists dedicated to this topic. In addition, these chapters do not really provide a good overview as some of the discussion gets weighed down with very specific examples of the differences between RDA and AACR2. Anyone who regularly follows the discussions on RDA-L or even on AUTOCAT will find nothing new in these chapters.

In the second section of this book, library specialists address issues facing cataloging workflows, bibliographic control, and information retrieval systems. Jon Gorman provides a fascinating vision of a utopian cataloging environment that combines currently available or easily feasible technology with the strength and expertise of individual catalogers to provide useful and searchable information to those seeking resources. This section provides the most technical discussion in the text as the authors seek to illustrate essential components of a catalog, the best means for storing and sharing the data that make up the catalog, and how this all can remain relevant now and in the future.

How catalogers react to these inevitable changes will determine the survival of the profession going forward. Lynnette M. Fields and Christine Schwartz provide somewhat similar accounts of their transitions from “cataloging” librarians to “metadata” librarians. Building upon their strengths in organizing and describing collections, catalogers may be uniquely positioned to make special and “hidden” collections more accessible to library patrons as libraries place an emphasis on these collections as a means to draw attention and associated funding to themselves and to the institutions that host them.

However, at a time when these traditional cataloging skills coupled with programming and scripting knowledge along with project management abilities is becoming crucial, most American Library Association (ALA) accredited library programs are lowering requirements and course offerings for cataloging and information organization. In the final section of the book, Sylvia Hall-Ellis and Janet Swan Hill provide thoughts on how the education for catalogers can be improved, how to attract those with degrees from fields outside the humanities...