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As a cataloging librarian, I decide how a resource is described in its catalog record by assigning subject headings and a call number and determining whether notes or a summary is necessary. All of these decisions impact the findability of a resource and how a catalog user will perceive its content. So I am especially concerned with how a library resource is represented when it contains prejudicial content.

Treshani Perera, Music and Fine Arts Cataloging Librarian at the University of Kentucky, has written and spoken on critical cataloging—looking at knowledge organization though an equity lens, examining not only at how content is described, but why those systems exist and how they can be changed.

In 2021, the Annenberg School’s Library Archives accessioned the collection of Amy Siskind’s Weekly List website; however, the path to get there was complicated, and the final gift looked quite different from how it was conceived in the initial conversation. 

Machine learning (ML) tools can potentially help patrons discover relevant content and services as they search a library’s catalog. However, ML tools need to be trained with a lot of good data to generate good recommendations, and initially, contextual recommendations generated with high-quality library metadata may be more effective at achieving the same goal.

A launch date has not yet been announced, but OverDrive has been recruiting librarian advisors from public, academic, and K–12 libraries to offer input and refine Readtelligence—an upcoming suite of tools for ebook selection and curation developed by the company using artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning tools to analyze every ebook in the OverDrive Marketplace.

OverDrive is preparing to launch Readtelligence, a suite of new features for ebook selection and curation developed using artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning tools to analyze every title in the company’s inventory.

For many years, patrons looking for Khmer-language books had to search the Long Beach Public Library's (LBPL) catalog in English first, or browse the shelves. Now, thanks to a Library Services and Technology Act grant administered through the California State Library and an in-depth collaboration with Long Beach’s United Cambodian Community agency, readers can search LBPL’s online catalog by author, title, or subject directly in Khmer.

When Slave Biographies: The Atlantic Database Network launched in 2011, it aggregated data on slavery and enslaved people from three scholarly sources. Nearly 10 years later, Enslaved.org: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade—built on the original project and using linked open data technology for a new, more comprehensive iteration—launched in December 2020.

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries has developed CAMPI, a new web application that uses computer vision to assist librarians processing digital photograph collections.

Linked Data is only as useful as the metadata on which it depends, and poor quality metadata ultimately causes the challenges many librarians hope to address with Linked Data.

Consider these library (and library-adjacent) crowdsourcing projects as a fun way to connect to the community and make a difference during the COVID-19 outbreak.

A new company called SkyRiver has launched a bibliographic utility, directly challenging long-dominant OCLC. Over the last 18 years, strategic acquisitions by OCLC have narrowed competition, but SkyRiver—founded by Jerry Kline, the owner and co-founder of Innovative Interfaces—aims to expand the market and offer an alternative bibliographic utility for cataloging that could save libraries up to 40 percent off their expenditures for bibliographic services.