The People's Library | Peer to Peer Review
By Barbara Fister, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN Jun 10, 2010I was in the last class of librarians who took cataloging the semester before AACR2 was rolled out. We typed our practice card sets on typewriters that had ribbons with two colors—black for the main entry, red for subject headings—and we took a field trip to look with reverent awe at an OCLC terminal, though we weren't allowed to touch it.
I also spent countless hours as an undergraduate library employee filing cards. A friend of mine working in the same unit who had somewhat of a Borgesian view of bibliographic control was so bored she took to filing fake postmodern cross-references in the massive university library card catalog.
Like most of my class, I decided cataloging was not for me. As a career path, it looked about as fun as creating a list of works cited eight hours a day. But it turns out cataloging is so much fun that everyone wants to do it. Or at least that's what folks at the Open Library think. Their new tagline is "ever want to play librarian? It's OK. We all do." The site then invites participation. "If you love books, why not help build a library?"
Crowdsourcing the catalog
The recently relaunched Open Library, part of the Internet Archive, aims to create a web page for every book ever published through an open platform that invites collaboration. The site describes the project mission as a lofty but achievable goal:
To build Open Library, we need hundreds of millions of book records, a wiki interface, and lots of people who are willing to contribute their time and effort to building the site . . .
Open Library is an open project: the software is open, the data is open, the documentation is open, and we welcome your contribution. Whether you fix a typo, add a book, or write a widget-it's all welcome. We have a small team of fantastic programmers who have accomplished a lot, but we can't do it alone!
With startup funding from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation, the project has built an infrastructure and has populated it with over 20 million records. Anyone can add or enhance a record using a simple form. Adding a book requires no specialized software, subscription, or exchange of monetary credits.
The Open Library and projects like it provide an example of Clay Shirky's idea that online social networks let us "do big things for love." These big things used to cost a lot of money, an expensive organization, specialized training, and a lot of paid staff; now, not so much. Do we lose something in the process? No doubt. Is there room for someone to make mistakes or vandalize records? Yes, though that's nothing new; I don't think librarians ever noticed the fake cross-references my friend inserted into the millions of cards in our university catalog. Do we run the risk that uncontrolled vocabulary will make books harder to find? Yes, though it also makes books a lot easier to find. A combination of standardized subject headings and more free-wheeling tags offers multiple ways to approach a book, far more than the sparse two or three headings usually supplied by official catalogers relying on the stripped-down "core cataloging" standards.
LibraryThing is another big thing done more for love than money, though it's a for-profit business that employs a handful of people; you'll find them at ALA at the small booth with an inflatable rhinoceros, which is quite a bit cheaper than the ginormous displays major vendors erect. Over a million members of LibraryThing have added 61 million tags to the 49 million books cataloged there. An individual, organization, or small library can purchase a lifetime membership for $25. For a higher annual fee libraries can have selected tags and reviews imported into their catalog or let patrons browse shelves visually or get book recommendations. There are other social networking sites for book lovers (GoodReads is a larger, slicker version with over three million members that sets out to "make reading fun again.")
All of these efforts are proof of two things: what libraries do is important to people, and we're not the only ones interested in cataloging. They also have taught me something I didn't learn in library school: cataloging is more than the mastery of arcane rules; it should include fun and experimentation. It doesn't have to be focused on control, but on freedom. Spalding thinks we can rehumanize the library with radical openness. And after all, isn't the library supposed to be open?
Close it, and they will still come
Recently, because of budget cuts so deep they really should be called amputations, Cal State Los Angeles cut 400 journals, ten databases, and two evening hours a day, closing at 8 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. Every academic librarian knows that unless their libraries are open 24/7, students ask for more hours. But because many students are experiencing the same economic hardships and may not have quiet places to study or Internet access at home, a handful of student activist made their own library, stringing cable outside, setting up tables, a photocopier, printer, and coffee machine, offering students a communal study space outside the locked library. After initial resistance, university administration supported the ad hoc arrangement. When the university closed the library's doors, students opened new ones creatively.
Times like these are challenging for us all, but they also shake us out of complacency. We can learn new, cheaper ways to do the big things we need to do. Our patrons teach us which things are too valuable to give up. And we discover that libraries can, after all, be open-open to new ideas, open to new modes of sharing information, open to involving our communities in the work we do.
Barbara Fister is a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN, a contributor to ACRLog, and an author of crime fiction. Her latest mystery, Through the Cracks (see review), has just been published by Minotaur Books.
