Common practices reflection

Libraries, archives and museums do not live in worlds independent of one another. The historical practice of collecting and providing access to materials - whatever material form they may inhabit - inherently exists across institutions. Esther Green Bierbaum summarizes the above point in the introduction to her article “Records and Access: Museum Registration and Library Cataloging” when she says all three types of institutions “collect and make accessible artifacts which encode information, which tell us about the world and ourselves.” Bierbaum’s word choice becomes particularly interesting to dwell on when we consider her use of the word “encode” -- as though resources simply possess information for us, as information professionals, to interpret and then describe. Information can be encoded in a variety of ways, as is the case with textual resources versus non-textual resources, but regardless of either circumstance, we still need guidelines to determine how best to represent our collections. Descriptive representations of resources then become a common element across libraries, archives and museums because those representations operate as the method in which each institution type creates pathways of access to their materials. Metadata standards that dictate the mechanics of the descriptions also then become a common element, and while conventions may differ within those standards, their purpose still remains the same -- providing access to information resources. 

Metadata standards most often reflect the community in which they are created - and necessarily so. What might be important to the description of a monograph in a library catalog does not necessarily translate over to the cataloging of manuscripts or other cultural objects. In a sense, in order for a monograph to be effectively described by a library cataloger, that monograph must be treated as a monograph and represented accordingly. Fitting a square into a circle doesn’t typically work well, so to speak, but that doesn't mean standards or the resources they're providing access to should continue to remain isolated from one another. When we consider how developments in technology can create adaptable information environments, we can create systems that reflect how resources live amongst and relate to one another. In “Metadata for All: Descriptive Standards and Metadata Sharing Across Libraries, Archives and Museums,” Mary W. Elings and Günter Waibel demonstrate this point with the following: 

     While each of the different domains has developed its own suite of standards...it is important          to point out that the wheel did not get reinvented in doing so. The historic record shows that          communities often experimented extensively with each other’s specifications, only to find them        wanting. What emerges is not a picture of libraries, archives and museums promulgating                different standards to describe the same materials, but a rich toolset of descriptive practices            which are uniquely adapted to the particular material type they have been originally designed        to characterize.

So in other words, standards, wherever they may exist, are created for specific reasons; they promote continuity and uniformity of records among material types, which in turn provides efficient access to resources, but in such a diverse information environment, we shouldn’t ignore the benefits of cross-institutional metadata collaboration.

But where can collaboration begin? And what does that really mean? In “New Technologies and the Convergence of Libraries, Archives and Museums,” Deborah Wythe argues that the digital environment acts as the space where libraries, archives, and museums come together in their need to promote access. According to Wythe, museums have traditionally taken slightly different routes than libraries and archives in providing access (or not providing access, in some cases) to their collections. But with the rapid growth of digitized collections, museums have begun to adapt to the digital environment in ways similar to their institutional counterparts, becoming much more accessible and transparent with what they collect. A crucial piece of that adaptation has been expanding collections into the online setting, which in turn requires standardized metadata practices to manage digital content for public access.  

In the case of all three institution types, more collaborative metadata creation procedures have also appeared as a result of the expansion of digital content. According to Murtha Baca and Elizabeth O’Keefe in “Sharing Standards and Expertise in the Early 21st Century: Moving Toward a Collaborative, ‘Cross-Community’ Model for Metadata Creation”, a newer trend in resource description is the development of in-house metadata creation “as a collaborative, incremental process, rather than an activity that takes place exclusively in a single department...” For museums, collaborative description practices are nothing new, but this is an altogether different strategy when compared against traditional library cataloging practice. With the nature of digital resources, however, regardless of where those resources may be housed, collaborative work with metadata records reflects the nature of digital asset management. Digital materials require a set of considerations that go beyond the abilities or capabilities of one single department, especially for large collections or major institutions, making collaboration an essential step in the process. 

The authors Baca and O'Keefe remind us that we do not live in a world where our institutional standards seamlessly fit together within informational systems. In the case of the Morgan Library, their collaboration for standard sharing began prior to the ubiquity of online collections, and certainly before some of the drastic achievements in metadata standards that we currently have now. The Morgan case example remains relevant though, in terms of how collaboration took place when so many differences in descriptive practices were present. And while there are many commonalities among libraries, archives and museums, their implementation of and collaboration among standardized metadata practices allows for the successful search and retrieval of information resources. If these institutions are truly meant to preserve our cultural heritage, then providing access to material becomes an integral part of their mission. 

Works Referenced

Bata, Murthi, and Elizabeth O’Keefe. “Sharing Standards and Expertise in the Early 21st Century: Moving Toward a Collaborative, ‘Cross-community’ Model for Metadata Creation.” International Cataloging & Bibliographic Control 38, no. 4 (2009): 59–67.

Bierbaum, Esther Green. “Records and Access: Museum Registration and Library Cataloging”Cataloging and Classification Quarterly. 9:1 (1988): 97-111. 

Elings Mary W., and Günter Waibel. “Metadata For All: Descriptive Standards and MetadataSharing Across Libraries, Archives and Museums.” First Monday. 12, no. 3 (2007).

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1628/1543.

Wythe, Deborah. “New Technologies and the Convergence of Libraries, Archives and Museums.” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage. 8, no. 1 (2007): 51-55.