ASK ARLIS Saturday, March 8, 1998 8:30 A.M. "Cataloging and Indexing in a Ideal World" sponsored by the Cataloging Division This session was inspired by last year's "False Economies?: Balancing Quality and the Bottom Line Providing Access to Our Collections." Moderator Daniel Starr of the Museum of Modern Art had asked panelists to describe their notion of the ideal in terms of providing access to materials, basically disregarding time, financial, and, even, intellectual constraint. The results reflect a variety of approaches, some fanciful, some quite practical. Representing the visual resources cataloger, Linda McRae, Associate Librarian at the University of South Florida read her paper, "The Ideal Perspective: Envisioning a National Cultural Heritage Database." She began by describing the Visual Resources Sharing Online Network (VISION), a cooperative project between RLG and the Visual Resources Association. VISION is designed to bring more visual resources online, promulgate and test the use of standards for creating and sharing such information, and evaluate the new data's value in the context of existing RLG databases. It is one of several resources being used by RLG to create a cultural heritage database to be offered to users beginning in September, 1999. The database would include a quarter of a million images plus thousands of additional records without images. In presenting this cultural heritage database as one form the ideal could take, McRae described some of the ways in which visual resource catalogers might contribute to it. McRae gave several examples of special information that visual resources catalogers could provide in the cultural heritage database. Collected images of cultural objects have come from commercial and non-commercial sources and from published documents. These images enhance the existing records for the objects themselves by providing additional information concerning its condition or even becoming its surrogate if an object is lost or irreparably damaged. McRae then described how valuable and unexpected links could be created in the database between bibliographic sources for photocopied images and the objects or the artists who made them. Within a database such as RLG's, such a link could be made by means of the ISBN. McRae went on further to say that visual resources catalogers have the capacity to play an even more valuable role in the documentation of images because our cultural heritage is not limited to objects in museum collections. She had sent an e-mail request through VRL-L, asking participants to report on their unique collections. She offered some 15 abridged examples of the responses she received, including descriptions of collections of World War II sites, stained glass windows in American churches, decorative arts of India and China, Italian reliquaries, early photographic equipment, and several of local historical interest. Some of the reports received by McRae described the variety of unexpected uses of some of their collections, such as Yale Drama Department's use of the library's painting slides for information about historic costume design. The visual resources located within institutions of higher learning reflect the collective knowledge of scholars associated with those institutions and their special programs as well as representing a vast database of scholarly knowledge. What the visual resources cataloger has to offer in the final analysis is the image itself, the whole image or a detail which can provide the specific subject that many researchers need. A collective contribution on all levels can enhance the national cultural heritage database. Daniel Starr, Chief Librarian for Technical Services and Planning at the Museum of Modern Art, specifically addressed the issue of "automatic cataloging," as one notion of the ideal. For library administrators, this might mean wanding in a barcode or UPC label on new books and having them automatically cataloged in the system. As farfetched as this seems, it is reminiscent of the common practice among many libraries, who, in the name of efficiency, accept Library of Congress records with no modification for many of their materials. Starr then discussed what may be lost by this "automatic cataloging." His first example was the catalog of the first Impressionist show in 1874. Gaining access to a bibliographic record on RLIN by means of a title search or straight subject search to the catalog presented problems, due to a lack of specificity. And it is likely that the original catalog itself would only be in special collections. It is the case, however, that many libraries do own an edition of this catalog as it has been reprinted in two publications: The New Painting, Impressionism 1874-1886, published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1986 and Impressionist Group Exhibitions, published by Garland in 1981. The problem is, as Starr pointed out, that detailed contents notes or extra added entries, which would be useful in this case, are not the norm. This point was further illustrated by Starr by his examination of cataloging records for the original degenerate art exhibition held in 1937. He showed records for the original catalog and a 1972 reprint, neither of which is widely held. He then showed records for Degenerate Art, published by Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1991, which does include a reprint of the catalog. The Museum of Modern Art record includes a note to the LC record indicating the reprint. In Starr's ideal world, catalogers would be able to provide full access to the contents of libraries, not just by means of periodical indexing, but by details such as those described above. Starr's colleague, Anne Britton, Assistant Librarian at the Museum of Modern Art, took a look at three artist books in her paper entitled "The Suitcase and the Cow." The first was Samsonite Traveler Deluxe Suitcase (packed) Laterally Dissected into 13 Sections Using a Midsaw S7016 Bandsaw, designed by Melissa Price and Sandy Suffield. In trying to come up with meaningful terminology to create a form/genre heading for its cataloging record, Britton searched the AAT. She came up with several possible terms describing art of the post-modern period, such as "Hard-edge," "Matter art," "New Realist," "Process art," "Destructive art," and "Conceptual." In looking at the authority records, she discovered references to publications which would shed light on the use of these terms, and concluded that in her ideal cataloging world, illustrated scope notes for art historical styles would appear online with thesaurii. Britton's next example was Kaliski Coloring Book: Art for the 90's, published by Kaliski Gallery Productions in 1997. Her cataloging record for this work and for the previously mentioned one include a subject heading which reflects Britton's opinion that these books are deliberate parodies of the work of Damien Hirst. In her ideal world, she would have an available expert to analyze books for possible relationships with other materials and to assign accurate historical terms to be included in a cataloging record. Britton then remarked that, even with expert subject analysis, one still has to deal with the fact that changes occur in society and in scholarship, and that these changes are reflected in subject terminology used for cataloging records. Citing Sanford Berman's 1971 Prejudices and Antipathies, she also pointed out the political aspect of these subject headings; and carrying the argument further, described ways that terms will continue to change into the next century. In her ideal world, cataloging records would show the changes in subject analysis over time. Britton's final point was illustrated by multiple cataloging records of Angela S. Lorenz's Discover Italian Monuments, 1989. There was some variation among these records, but she felt there should be more differences. Nonstandard local thesaurii applied to online cataloging date would increase subject access to materials and provide multiple viewpoints. Kay Teel, Chief Cataloger at the Cleveland Museum of art, presented her ideas about serials cataloging in an ideal world. She described each of her points by explaining the unique features of serials, as compared to monographs, which make them challenging to catalogers. One aspect of serials which affects access to them is the fact that the patron is usually not seeking the serial itself but an article within it. Some libraries have done analytic cataloging of serial publications, but for the most part the task of indexing in left to commercial services. Teel offered some suggestions to enhance access to information in serials. For example, a citation database could be dumped into individual OPAC's with a Z39.50 interface which includes a display differentiation between serial and analytical titles. Teel also raised the question of whether or not MARC was adequate to deal with this level of access and suggested some possible alternatives such as hypertext mark-up and other enhanced Web tools. Another computer solution might be "object-oriented programming (OOP)" which applies the principle concepts of parent-child relationships and inheritance to serials cataloging. Another characteristic of serials described by Teel is that they change over time, and that serials catalogers spend much time updating information. An ideal situation would include a central repository which could automatically update information for each library. The catalogers could then spend more time doing analytics and other locally relevant projects. She also pointed out the value of the 510 (indexing and abstracting information), not heavily used by catalogers, which creates a link between the catalog record and indexing and abstracting services. A final point about serials is that they are more "cutting -edge" than monographs in that they have been the first publications to incorporate new media such as CD-ROMS, computer disks and World Wide Web sites. Some journals are only available online. This type of material presents both descriptive and access-related challenges to catalogers. The fact that most "ideal" solutions are dependent upon computer technology is a problem for many small libraries who do not have the necessary resources. In an ideal world, software would also be centrally updated in a repository which could then update each local system. Alison Dickey, Editor of H.W.Wilson's Art Index, gave a paper entitled "Finding Art Information: the Value of Indexing for Access," in which she discussed the critical role of indexes in providing access to art literature. First she highlighted three features of art scholarship which make access to information difficult: the subjective nature of research, variability in language and terminology, and the way scholars choose and research topics, often in an unconventional or indirect manner. According to Dickey, there are basically three ways in which indexes assist searchers in overcoming difficulties inherent in art scholarship. One is their selective function in bringing under control a deliberately chosen portion of scholarship, depending on the exact field chosen. A selective device like an index prevents people from being overwhelmed by information at the beginning of their research. Another purpose indexes serve is their evaluative nature, which provides an intellectual assessment of the topics and approaches of the indexed material. The degree of intellectual control afforded by indexingby indexing is a way of compensating for the variation found in the literature. A third value of indexing is collocation. In the process of indexing, they recognize similar themes and approaches in texts that are often written in different languages or use variant terms. They also identify new topics and establish headings for them. The work that indexers do saves time for researchers, and the indexes which provide a range of access to art literature should continue to as critical cognitive tools. Dickey's final remarks were devoted to a consideration of the future role of indexes for researchers. One way to enhance the value of indexes is to ensure that indexing languages remain current for the fields they cover, as the language used to to write about concepts is variable. Dickey also pointed out that cultural and political biases should not be enshrined in the vocabulary and in the index. For example, Art Index vocabulary, which has emphasized western art in the past, now includes more references to African, Asian, and Latin American art. Another step that could be taken would be to create indexes that are designed for the electronic environment rather than for print. An example would be to map terms used as references directly to citations, rather than making researchers consult a vocabulary list for that term. In the same way, narrower term and related term references could appear together with the citations retrieved. This enhancement would take researchers from citation to citation rather than from term to term. A final approach toward an indexing ideal would be the creation of a bibliographic tool in which indexed articles are also classifed to facilitate the browsing of subjects in a particular area. Material grouped by classification rather than an alphabetically arranged grouping would provide links to related materials of use to researchers. This would allow for serendipitous connections like those which occur while browsing manual library catalogs or shelves. Trudi Olivetti National Gallery of Art Library g-olivetti@nga.gov ??