(Nov 2025) As libraries shift their budgets toward investing in digital resources and content, employees must also streamline work processes to accommodate thousands, if not millions, of titles. Missing or substandard metadata can hinder discoverability, impacting the library’s return of investment in these resources, not to mention the opportunity costs that result for our users. …
(20 Aug 2025) Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to automate repetitive, data-intensive and pattern-recognition tasks, thereby freeing human cataloguers for more complex work. What impact will this have? We interviewed Getaneh Alemu because his current work demonstrates a proactive engagement with AI in cataloguing. He is actively involved in exploring, testing and evaluating various…
(19 Nov 2024) Catalog records are key to storing and finding digital library materials. As the volume of digital materials continues to grow rapidly, the Library of Congress is exploring whether AI can help catalogers by automating the generation of metadata. AI could provide an opportunity to speed up description workflows. Yet there are numerous machine…
(27 Feb 2024) Outdated and offensive language haunts archival and library catalogues, potentially causing harm to those searching for and accessing the material these institutions hold. In other cases, there are silences — people can’t find material because the search terms they employ have not been used by the Library in the item’s descriptive record. These…
(11 Jan 2024) In early 2023, the Core Metadata & Collections Leadership Team asked former member of the Cataloging Competencies Task Force, Dr. Karen Snow, to lead an effort to revise the “Core Competencies for Cataloging and Metadata Professional Librarians.” The revision team worked during 2023 to update the 2017 document. Their effort was informed by 2022 survey research data…
(4 Dec 2023) ALIA will be holding an online training course for cataloging practitioners. The course content is designed to provide you with as much practical experience of cataloging principles and practices as possible within the timeframe of 6 weeks. Course Content Identify and apply the current national and international standards used in constructing…
(27 Nov 2022) In the past decade, various online tools and Open Source software that can be useful in Southeast Asian librarianship have been developed. This article looks at a selection of online tools that are available to help in areas like cataloging and creation of Romanised versions of Southeast Asian scripts, text recognition, text…
(1 Oct 2021) In the Western tradition of names, the last part of a name is traditionally understood as a surname. However, Indian naming conventions are much more complex. The study of Indian names brings to light some of the difficulties catalogers and indexers may come across in the course of their work. Dr. SR…
(20 March 2019) For many years, the Library of Congress categorized many of its books under a controversial subject heading: “Illegal aliens.” But then, on March 22, 2016, the library made a momentous decision, announcing that it was canceling the subject heading “Illegal aliens” in favor of “Noncitizens” and “Unauthorized immigration.” However, the decision was…
(2 March 2018) This event is organized by the RDA Board. It will be held at the National Library of Malaysia, 232 Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur. Join the conference for a full-day event focused on RDA, and looking particularly at the ways in which RDA is evolving to accommodate the needs of cataloguing communities…