Education for Library Cataloging: International Perspectives

This collection of essays from cataloguers and cataloguing educators across the world provides a natural follow‐up to a volume on cataloguing education in the United States (Swan Hill, 2002) and offers a fascinating insight into the diversity of practice in various nations.

There does not seem to have been any particular structure imposed on the contributors, nor is there any stated editorial policy as to what they were invited to cover; nevertheless there is a broad consensus of agreement on the agenda. Although entitled Education for Library Cataloging, the tacit assumption is that both descriptive and subject cataloguing, cataloguing and classification, should be addressed here, and all but a tiny number of contributors do deal with both. A broad interpretation of “education” is also the case, with many of the articles considering on‐the‐job training, and continuing professional education, as well as the formal induction into the art provided by library schools. Some authors describe only their own institution, but mostly, where there is more than one department nationally, a comparison of those departments is provided.

There is good representation of countries globally, although one might have expected rather more contributions from Europe. The editors state that they were unable to identify appropriate authors for many countries, but as the majority of those responsible for cataloguing education are employed in library schools, it would not seem too arduous a task to have compiled a list of them. A very notable omission is the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen, which in 2005 hosted a European Union funded project to investigate the European library and information science curriculum, with a published report containing a chapter on the teaching of knowledge organisation (Broughton et al., 2005). Nevertheless, the countries that are included give a strong sense of the activity in their respective regions, and it is clearly impossible to be comprehensive.

Inevitably, much of the text is concerned with the description of existing courses, their content, and the rationale behind them. Consequently, the work is a mine of information about cataloguing and classification curricula worldwide, and an excellent tool for comparative studies of the subject. What is extremely striking is the similarity between courses, rather than the difference, and the evident parallels displayed in the experience of the writers, and their concerns for the future of cataloguing education. Despite the anxiety of many contributors about that future, it continues to play a significant part in professional education, being represented in every example provided, and more often than not, as a compulsory element. There is rather less discussion of on‐the‐job training, or continuing professional development, although this is naturally rather more difficult to establish accurately.

Specific concerns about cataloguing in the curriculum may vary widely on a national basis. Contributors from Africa, where automation has yet to reach many areas, show concern that library staff will be equipped to deal with this when it arrives, and there is more emphasis on the need to promote and teach cataloguing standards in the papers from developing countries. In comparison, many European countries approach standardisation with some reservations, since they have an inheritance of well‐established cataloguing and classification tools developed in their own languages and cultures, and adopting those of the Anglo‐American tradition may create problems rather than solve them. In countries where professional education is not yet well established (which includes, rather surprisingly, Japan) the focus is on the availability and recognition of training, as much as on the content.

An unusual and interesting aspect of cataloguing education is considered by Gilliam Hallam, who examines in depth the techniques of teaching the subject, describing the implementation of an online teaching module at Queensland University of Technology, and the value students obtain from a reflective style of learning. Other contributors (Ross and Reynolds for Australia, and Bowman for the UK) consider the views of more senior practising cataloguers in addition to those responsible for training.

The collection ends rather abruptly with the final essay from Zahiruddin Khurshid of Saudi Arabia, and I feel it would have been useful for the editors to have attempted to write a summarising chapter, identifying the general trends and concerns of the contributors. There clearly are a number of overarching themes emerging:

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  the place of cataloguing at the centre of librarianship;

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  the need to emphasise the integration and interdependence of information organisation, bibliographic data structure, and the process of searching and retrieval;

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  the need for students to master core principles; and

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  the need for institutional management to understand the part that is played by those who organise information, and to realise the limitations of information technology.