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May 27, 2003 - ALCTS/ALISE Task Force Releases Proposal for Preparing 21st
Century Catalogers

A Joint ALCTS/ALISE Task Force has responded to a call from the Library of
Congress to recommend appropriate training and education for bibliographic
control of Web resources. The Task Force report and recommendations are
available at:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/CatalogingandMetadataEducation.pdf

An increasingly common notion is that libraries no longer need catalogers,
and library and information schools no longer need to teach cataloging.
Yet the need to organize information resources has become more pressing in
the last ten years and the options for organizing digital resources have
expanded. To address the challenge of cataloging 21st century library
materials, the Library of Congress hosted a bicentennial conference on
"Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium"
<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/>. John Byrum, chief of the Library
of Congress Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, remarking on the
genesis of the conference said, "libraries have witnessed an explosion in
Web resources and they recognize the need to integrate them into their
collections. The conference sought to enable an open discussion and the
development of an action plan to pursue".

More than two dozen action items arose from the LC conference and two of
them relate to education and training. Due to the strong commitment of
ALCTS to the development of librarians engaged in bibliographic control,
the Library of Congress asked that ALCTS take a lead role to accomplish
these two action items.

As a first step, ALCTS appointed the joint ALCTS/ALISE Task Force, which
also included partners from an OCLC regional network and the Library of
Congress. The Task Force, which was chaired by Beth Picknally Camden of
the University of Virginia, engaged principal investigator Ingrid
Hsieh-Yee, associate professor of the School of Library and Information
Science of the Catholic University of America, to survey ALA-accredited
programs and to recommend fresh approaches. Camden notes, "Ingrid's survey
results and recommendations make a significant contribution to the field.
Her research is the foundation of our plan to assist educators and anyone
who cares about cataloging and metadata education to prepare for teaching
in this area."

The Joint Task Force proposes a five-part plan to help metadata and
cataloging educators and trainers: to announce the Task Force's findings
regarding the elements of bibliographic control expertise; to assemble a
"metadata basics" package for use by faculty and workshop leaders; to
create a listserv for sharing news; to set up a Web clearinghouse for
pedagogical resources; and to hold a conference for educators and trainers
to share expertise and ideas for integrating metadata topics into courses
and workshops.

The next step is to carry out the Joint Task Force's plan. An
implementation group has been appointed with members from ALCTS, ALISE,
the Library of Congress, OCLC, and other organizations with a stake in
supporting metadata and cataloging educators and trainers. Meanwhile a
second ALCTS Task Force, chaired by Carol Hixson of the University of
Oregon, is preparing recommendations for changes and additions to
continuing education programs for catalogers. Hixson's Task Force expects
to present its plan for approval at the 2003 ALA Annual Conference in
Toronto.

The ALCTS/ALISE Joint Task Force was appointed by ALCTS--the Association
for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American
Library Association. ALISE--the Association for Library and Information
Science Education--provides a forum for library and information science
educators to share ideas and to seek solutions to common problems.

For more information, contact Diane Baden of NELINET <dbaden@nelinet.net>
or Olivia Frost of the University of Michigan <cfrost@si.umich.edu>.