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Conclusion: What New Directions in Information Organization Augurs for the Future Introduction In the introduction to this edited volume, we outlined topical areas which we considered characteristic of key trends and fresh perspectives in a rapidly evolving landscape of information organization in the digital environment. Broadly speaking, we chose to situate the 11 chapters within three sections, labeled as: (1) Semantic Web, Linked Data, and RDA; (2) Web 2.0 Technologies and Information Organization; and (3) Library Catalogs: Toward an Interactive Network of Communication. Following a brief summary of each chapter, we concluded with a hope that the volume would stimulate ‘‘new avenues of research and practice,’’ and also contribute ‘‘to the development of a new paradigm in information organization.’’ Lest anything be left to chance, we propose in this final chapter to highlight particular aspects addressed across the various chapters that evoke, in our opinion, opportunities for further reflection, a call to action, or a notable future shift in perspectives around information organization. We conclude with suggestions of what the chapters, collectively, might augur regarding the future direction of information organization. Semantic Web, Linked Data, and RDA This seems an auspicious time to be issuing a collection of chapters focused on new directions given the convergence of several significant developments that have been fomenting over the past dozen years. Barbara Tillett establishes the connection that has been developing during that time between the design of a significant rethinking of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules and a parallel reconceptualization of the Internet — as

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Conclusion: What New Directions in

Information Organization Augurs for the

Future

Introduction

In the introduction to this edited volume, we outlined topical areas which weconsidered characteristic of key trends and fresh perspectives in a rapidlyevolving landscape of information organization in the digital environment.Broadly speaking, we chose to situate the 11 chapters within three sections,labeled as: (1) Semantic Web, Linked Data, and RDA; (2) Web 2.0Technologies and Information Organization; and (3) Library Catalogs:Toward an Interactive Network of Communication. Following a briefsummary of each chapter, we concluded with a hope that the volume wouldstimulate ‘‘new avenues of research and practice,’’ and also contribute ‘‘tothe development of a new paradigm in information organization.’’ Lestanything be left to chance, we propose in this final chapter to highlightparticular aspects addressed across the various chapters that evoke, in ouropinion, opportunities for further reflection, a call to action, or a notablefuture shift in perspectives around information organization. We concludewith suggestions of what the chapters, collectively, might augur regardingthe future direction of information organization.

Semantic Web, Linked Data, and RDA

This seems an auspicious time to be issuing a collection of chapters focusedon new directions given the convergence of several significant developmentsthat have been fomenting over the past dozen years. Barbara Tillettestablishes the connection that has been developing during that timebetween the design of a significant rethinking of the Anglo-AmericanCataloging Rules and a parallel reconceptualization of the Internet — as

252 Conclusion

Yang and Lee note — from that of a Web of linked documents, to that of aWeb of linked data. Tillett sees the Semantic Web as a logical home for thekinds of ‘‘well-formed, interconnected metadata for the digital environ-ment’’ that will derive from the ‘‘alternative to past cataloging practices’’that RDA: Resource Description and Access (released in July 2010) will yield.She also sees the Semantic Web as ‘‘offering a way to keep librariesrelevant’’ at a time when they are ‘‘in danger of being marginalized by otherinformation delivery services.’’

Yang and Lee similarly make the case for using RDA to ‘‘organizebibliographic metadata more effectively, and make it possible to be sharedand reused in the digital world,’’ RDA is based on the FunctionalRequirements for Bibliographic Data (FRBR), and Functional Require-ments for Authority Data (FRAD) — conceptual models that make explicitentities, their attributes, and relationships. The Semantic Web is, as Yangand Lee note, ‘‘based on entity relationships or structured data.’’Consequently, they posit, ‘‘The significance of RDA lies in its alignmentwith Semantic Web requirements,’’ and ‘‘Implementing RDA is the first stepfor libraries to adopt Semantic Web technologies and exchange data withthe rest of the metadata communities.’’ They conclude that, ‘‘Linking datawill be the next logical move.’’

Just as the Semantic Web projects Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision ofnetworked information into a future of linked meaning, RDA propelsorganization of bibliographic data along a trajectory of structured metadatashared among a diversity of communities. As Yang and Lee illustrate,‘‘Searching in the Semantic Web will retrieve all the relevant information ona subject through relationships even though the searched keywords are notcontained in the content.’’ Likewise, linking data around an author can yielda map of his or her birthplace, events occurring during the year of his or herbirth, and similar information about a co-author, or illustrator, or translator,with whom the author has collaborated. Such enhanced content, madepossible by machine-level inference, and relationships established throughstructured data, will, in Tillett’s words, ‘‘display information users want.’’Exposing RDA bibliographic and authority data, as well as other library-derived controlled vocabularies and other structured data to registries, notonly adds to the growing cloud of linked data, both open and closed, but alsoshowcases the professional expertise and wealth of tools that have beeninstrumental to building catalogs of library collections, and repositories ofdigital objects over decades. Park and Kim emphasize the benefits — andnecessity — of exposing ‘‘library bibliographic data created as linked data’’broadly, highlighting a number of major library-related linked dataimplementations to illustrate the importance and future of sharing.

Focusing on the importance and future of sharing brings us back to twocautionary, even contrary notes. The first is our observation that, while the

Conclusion 253

Semantic Web may offer a second life to libraries, it may be because oflibraries that the vision of the Semantic comes to fruition. The momentumtoward creating a ‘‘critical mass’’ of linked data, evolving from the firstundertakings of DBpedia continues to grow. Investments from large players,such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, are instrumental for the growthof infrastructure and expertise. Public sector contributors — essential tocreating and maintaining open linked data resources — understand thepotential benefits of sharing structured data, but usually lack the same kindof financial reserves for investing in large-scale implementations. Librariesare numerous and in possession of volumes of structured data. Pairing withother cultural heritage institutions, with publishers, vendors, and importantstakeholders, such as OCLC, IFLA, and national libraries, will yield a largerpresence, as a group, to the Semantic Web space. Libraries have much tocontribute; our relationship with the Semantic Web seems a symbiotic one.

The second cautionary, even contrary note is raised by Alan Poulter. Ashe observes, RDA, as originally conceived and structured, ‘‘was intended toalso provide subject access,’’ with Chapters 12–16, 23, and 33–37 left open forestablishing those guidelines. Chapter 16, ‘‘Identifying Places’’ is complete,while the others remain ‘‘blank.’’ Poulter describes the highly problematicchallenge of extending the entity-relationship modeling of FRBR (biblio-graphic data) and FRAD (authority data) to subjects (entities, attributes,relationships, AND the full range of subject access tools). He elaboratesfurther on ‘‘the task of developing a conceptual model of FRBR Group 3entities within the FRBR framework as they relate to the ‘aboutness’ ofworks.’’ The resulting Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data(FRSAD), a more abstract model than either FRBR or FRAD, and based on‘‘thema’’ and ‘‘nomen,’’ is well-suited to the Semantic Web environment, asPoulter explains, in that it ‘‘matches well with schemas such as SKOS (SimpleKnowledge Organization System), OWL (Web Ontology Language), and theDCMI Abstract Model.’’ He observes that, while ‘‘this paper found nofundamental criticisms of FRSADy it is almost as though FRSAD itselfhas never appeared’’ at least as far as its incorporation into the structuralfoundations of subject access (and chapters) in RDA is concerned. Poulter’schapter suggests that, ‘‘there seems to be a general denial of the FRSADmodel,’’ and offers a ‘‘mechanism, based on PRECIS, for putting intopractice this [FRSAD] model.’’

In the spirit of everything old is new again, Poulter’s exploration ofDerek Austen’s Preserved Context Indexing System (PRECIS) (1974) as apractical ‘‘procedure’’ for implementing an abstract model (FRSAD)underlines the theoretical and structural congruence or alignment of theold (‘‘tried and tested’’) and new. Moreover, PRECIS’s use of subjectstrings, each assigned its own Subject Indicator Number (SIN), andgenerated based on syntactic ‘‘roles,’’ bears a striking resemblance to

254 Conclusion

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) — the DNA of the Semantic Web. It isintriguing to contemplate a new direction based on an old solution; Poulterleaves us with delicious food for thought.

Web 2.0 Technologies and Information Organization

We are reminded of that same thread running from past to future in theopening sentence of Shawne Miksa’s chapter. She invokes Jesse Shera’sassessment that, ‘‘The librarian is at once historical, contemporary, andanticipatory’’ (Shera, 1970, p. 109) in framing her examination of the role ofthe cataloger in the era of social tagging. Miksa notes the increase in theamount of user-contributed content to library catalogs, suggesting that thistype of engagement, ‘‘affords us the opportunity to see directly the users’perceptions of the usefulness and about-ness of information resources.’’ Shedefines this ‘‘social cataloging’’ as, ‘‘the joint effort by users and catalogersto interweave individually- or socially-preferred access points in a libraryinformation system as a mode of discovery and access to the informationresources held in the library’s collection.’’ Hence, both user and informationprofessional offer perspective, ‘‘y interpreting the intentions of the creatorof the resources, how the resource is related to other resources, and perhapseven how the resources can be, or have been, used.’’ Since librarians have,traditionally, been the intermediaries between users and the catalog, sharingthe role of record creator, even partially, has presented challenges to theprofessional identity of some catalogers. What happens to ones sense ofhaving cultivated a certain level of professional expertise when ones voice is‘‘simply one among the many?’’

Miksa contends that Shera’s concept of ‘‘social epistemology’’ offers aframework for making the shift from the historical to the anticipatory whenit comes to sharing responsibilities for record creation. The ‘‘socialcataloger’’ may feel a greater affinity to accommodating and engaging withuser-generated content recognizing that social tagging represents, in Shera’sterms, ‘‘the value system of a culture,’’ as well as part of the means in whicha society ‘‘communicates’’ and ‘‘utilizes’’ knowledge (Shera, 1970, p. 131).An enduring process of describing and providing access to resources may bechanged, if not enhanced, by a new direction toward cocreation ofbibliographic records through a more social cataloging. Again we see theintertwining of historical perspective and emerging reality to offer aninnovative way forward. Whereas catalogers may have been viewed,historically, as the denizens of the backroom, the future suggests highlyskilled individuals who work in partnership with individuals within a publicdomain to ensure effective sharing and use of a culture’s or a society’s vital

Conclusion 255

knowledge resources — a new direction for an old professional identity, tobe sure.

Miksa’s article sets the stage nicely for Choi’s subsequent assessment ofhow social indexing may be applied to addressing problems associated withtraditional approaches to providing subject access to resources on the Web.She investigates ‘‘the quality and efficacy’’ of social indexing, pointing outthe challenges of using controlled vocabularies, and emphasizing ‘‘the needfor social tagging as natural language terms.’’ Choi notes, further, thattagging may offer a more accurate description of resources, and reflect morecurrent terminology than that provided by controlled vocabularies whichare slow to be revised. From her doctoral research (2011) comparing‘‘indexing similarity between two professional groups, i.e., BUBL andIntute, and also [comparing] tagging in Delicious and professional indexingin Intute,’’ she concludes that, ‘‘As investment in professionally-developedsubject gateways and web directories diminishes, it becomes even morecritical to understand the characteristics of social tagging and to obtainbenefit from it.’’ She also notes the potential for assigning subjective oremotional tags as ‘‘crucial metadata describing important factors repre-sented in the document.’’

Choi speaks to a future where a ‘‘decline in support for professionalindexing’’ is occurring as ‘‘web resources continue to proliferate and theneed for guidance in their discovery and selection remains.’’ A remedy forthat growing gap might appear to be social indexing; however, as the finalsection of this volume portends, a move toward the Semantic Web, and to agreater need for, and reliance on, linked data, may exert a counter pressure.To the extent that controlled vocabularies are crucial to the exchange oftrusted data — now and in the future — the role of natural language tagssupported through Web 2.0 technologies may be muted to some degree.Continuing with the theme of everything old is new again, the solutionsproffered by a social Web, may be different from those required for aSemantic Web. While the ascendancy of user tagging and folksonomies maycontinue within the realm of socially mediated exchange on the Web,activities requiring structured data for sharing information will demandmore formalized approaches within a framework of international standards.As with Miksa’s social cataloging, the future of social indexing may involvea partnership of user and professional navigating a course some-where between the social Web 2.0, and the structured data of the SemanticWeb.

Choi’s reference to subjective or emotional tags segues to Emma Stuart’spast and future of organizing photographs. Nineteenth century analogphotography, first introduced in 1839, limited the kinds of things that couldbe photographed because of expense and long exposure times. Digitalphotography introduced a playfulness and flexibility beyond the limitations

256 Conclusion

of temporal and spatial affiliations, allowing for features, such as color,shape, and what Stuart refers to as, ‘‘cognitive facets.’’ Web 2.0 photomanagement sites, such as Flickr, allow for social sharing of images,facilitated by the use of tags, alignment with groups, and other community-focused features. Research has suggested that social tagging of images isdone for self-organization, for self-communication (e.g., memory), for socialorganization, or for self-communication (e.g., expressing emotion oropinion). The latter two motivations are most popular among Flickr users.Camera phones have further opened the world of photography, allowing forseamless uploading and sharing of images, often reflecting, ‘‘the emotionalor communicative intent’’ with which the photograph had been taken. AsStuart concludes, ‘‘The ubiquity of the camera phone and its coupling withweb 2.0 technology has led to a new form of everyday photography, one thatis keen to capture the mundane and fleeting aspects of daily life.’’ Shesuggests that the future organization of photos will depend on availabletechnology. She speculates no further than that.

We might conjecture that, while current Web 2.0 applications support agreater sharing of images, and GPS will allow for tagging geographiccoordinates which can then attach a photo with a place — thus realizing onevision for linked data and the Semantic Web — there are human factors thatmay suggest a more conservative future. The photograph, as Stuart suggests,functions, not only as public and/or private record of the ‘‘mundaneeveryday,’’ but also as an image aesthetically pleasing in its own right. AsStuart notes, ‘‘ywhilst we are moving forward into a new genre ofphotography on the one hand, we are also anchoring ourselves to the past onthe other hand, reluctant to truly let go of older forms of photography.’’While digital technology may be changing the ways we take, organize, andstore images, it cannot take away from the ways we see, interpret, andcommunicate the relationships we form with the people, places, and eventsrepresented in a photograph. Might it be that the future directionaccommodates, equally and readily, an analog aesthetic in parallel with adigital functionalism. In that case, both the available technology, and thoseinclinations that make us human will determine the future organization ofphotos.

Library Catalogs: Toward an Interactive Network of

Communication

Birong Ho’s and Laura Horne-Popp’s chapter, ‘‘VuFind — an OPAC 2.0?’’offers an assessment of Web 2.0 features supported by open source libraryonline public access catalog (OPAC) software, VuFind. In framing the

Conclusion 257

evaluation Western Michigan University (WMU) undertook of a nextgeneration open source discovery tool, Ho and Horne-Popp describe Web2.0 applications as those that facilitate interaction and collaboration, anduser-generated content. So-called OPAC 2.0 implementations support suchfeatures as user-tagging and reviews, faceted searching, a Google-like searchbox, relevancy rankings, and RSS feeds. While libraries assess what theauthors characterize as a ‘‘new bevy of discovery tools,’’ OPAC 2.0 usersmay not be responding, as anticipated, in optimizing enhanced socialnetworking functionality. For example, the WMU Web team noticed thatfew users added tags despite the ready availability to do so.

This may sound a note of caution as libraries strive to maintain boththe currency and relevancy of OPACs. In a social media and networkinglandscape that is constantly and quickly changing, is it possible forlibraries — themselves constrained fiscally — to anticipate the next newdevelopment and stay ahead of the curve? Does the experience of WMU andother libraries suggest that, by the time open source software has beenprogrammed to incorporate a trend in the social media sphere, it is alreadypasse in the minds (and responses) of users who, themselves, are determiningrelevance in real time? Would libraries find it a better use of their resourcesand expertise to focus on enhancing what OPACs are intended to do — toprovide access to digital and physical assets in their collections, and tofacilitate the user experience in doing so? Ho and Horne-Popp describe opensource products as ‘‘giving libraries a third way toward improving theconcept of the library catalog.’’ While this may be so, perhaps there is a thirdway that goes beyond open source solutions, to rethinking, carefully andthoughtfully, the role of the OPAC as the rhetoric of Web 3.0 suggests yetanother development — a trend? — that must be anticipated and requiringresponse.

Might this ‘‘third way’’ resurface and build on incremental expertiseregarding information-seeking behaviors and appropriate informationsearch and retrieval strategies and functionalities to address them? Theremay be value to building on the knowledge accrued in designing, forexample, second-generation OPACs with enhanced user interfaces, thenWebPACs incorporating simple search box and advanced Boolean searchfeatures. Xi Niu’s chapter, ‘‘Faceted Search in Library Catalogs,’’ hints atthe kind of third wave (re)thinking we might envision, exploring research onthe long-standing concept of facets, and tracing their application andefficacy in more recent faceted search-enabled OPACs. Incorporating anunderstanding of how facets accommodate and enhance user browsingbehaviors is one approach to improving on the design of next-generationdiscovery tools. Users may be more inclined to use an OPAC that facilitatesready access to needed information, than to engage in adding tags andreviews simply because one can.

258 Conclusion

As Elizabeth J. Cox, Sephanie Graves, Andrea Imre, and Cassie Wagnerobserve in their chapter, ‘‘Doing More with Less: Increasing the Value of theConsortial Catalog,’’ commercial content providers, such as Amazon andNetflix (among others) are successful because they deliver on their promiseto supply an enormous collection of content and services quickly and easily.The authors acknowledge the fiscal constraints that prevent libraries fromcompeting head-on-head with private sector suppliers and then ask, ‘‘Couldlibraries actually do more with less by leveraging discovery tools to takeadvantage of consortial resources?’’ The Morris Library (Southern IllinoisUniversity, Carbondale) experiment with providing users with easy access tocontent from various providers within the consortium, proved successful,based on borrowing statistics. At the same time, usability testing found thatsearchers were not making effective use of facets located on the right side ofthe interface, rather than on the left side preferred by the human eye — aproblem remedied by moving facets to the left side of the display.Nonetheless, there is a third way implied in exploiting the ‘‘public good’’of the networked collections of consortial catalogs to supply an enormousamount of content to users who do not wish to purchase or own it outright.This seems a kind of ‘‘working smarter’’ that thinks strategically about howto make a voluminous quantity and quality of publicly funded resourcesavailable to larger numbers of the tax-paying public within a model of cost-containment. This approach clearly distinguishes libraries from commercialcontent-providers, using what is both mandated for, and characteristic oflibraries to their own institutional benefit.

Conclusions

The path to the future of information organization may, ultimately, rely onthat well-worn path of focusing on the user. We are reminded of theimportance of local decisions by Sarah H. Theimer’s chapter, ‘‘All MetadataPolitics Is Local: Developing Meaningful Quality Standards.’’ Whilelibraries adhere to national (and international) standards in creating recordsfor catalogs that live in the shared environment of bibliographic utilities,consortial networks, and the Web, Theimer notes that, ‘‘libraries havetraditionally edited metadata for local use’’ — in essence recognizing andsupporting the particular needs of the local user, serving the localcommunity. Or, as the author observes further, ‘‘y libraries, archives andmuseums have local strengths which local metadata must reflect andsupport.’’ Moreover, ‘‘Quality is determined by the use and the user.National standards are created to satisfy a generic worldwide need, but localorganizations have much more specific demands.’’

Conclusion 259

The theme of understanding the user, his or her information needs anduses, and subsequent behaviors in engaging with information search toolsand systems, is a recurring one throughout preceding chapters. Newdirections in information organization will necessarily involve internationalstandards continuously under revision, enhanced software tools andapplications, and strategic, collaborative approaches to enhancing publicaccess to an increasing array of resources while also balancing fiscal andother constraints. What should remain a focus, and the guiding principle forresponding to change, and determining future courses of action, is theinformation user and his or her need to locate the right information at theright time, easily and readily. A new direction may depend on little morethan an old direction considered in light of present realities, and astutedivination of emerging possibilities. Finally, new directions in informationorganization will also necessarily entail fostering greater partnershipand dialog among those who create, organize, provide, and use informationin a world where the distinction between and among each has becomeincreasingly indistinguishable.

Lynne C. HowarthJung-ran Park

Reference

Shera, J. H. (1970). Sociological foundations of librarianship. Bombay: Asia

Publishing House.