These are interesting times for people interested in library catalogues, given the changes that are happening as a result of the implementation of Resource Description and Access (RDA), which began in 2013, and the redevelopment of the MARC 21 exchange format, announced by the Library of Congress in 2011. Catalogue 2.0: The Future of the Library Catalogue is a collection of eight chapters written by authors with expertise in recent aspects of library catalogue development, edited by Sally Chambers from the Göttingen Centre for Digital Humanities, Germany. One of the strengths of the book is its international focus, with authors based in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands and the USA.
The book begins with a chapter examining user perspectives on the catalogue, written by Anne Christensen from Germany. Christensen begins by summarising the history of online catalogue development, and then discusses user-centred design methods. She concludes by summarising the results of recent studies of user perceptions of library catalogues, supplemented with observations from her experience of Beluga, a next-generation catalogue developed at the State and University Library in Hamburg. In the next chapter, Till Kinstler, also from Germany, discusses techniques for making, searching and presentation of search results, which is more effective for users. Kinstler outlines the weaknesses of Boolean searching and suggests that library catalogues could be improved by incorporating techniques used in search engines, such as relevance ranking, search suggestions and providing facets. Marshall Breeding, the creator and editor of Library Technology Guides, presents an overview of both proprietary and open-source discovery service products, including AquaBrowser, Arena, Encore and Encore Synergy, Primo and Primo Central, Sorcer, Summon and VuFind. All of these products complement traditional library management systems by providing more usable interfaces to library resources. This chapter also includes a short case study of the use of VuFind to provide an ebook-on-demand service to users worldwide, based on collections in > 30 libraries in 12 European countries, by Silvia Gstrein, Austria.
The next chapters cover library catalogues developed for mobile devices by Lukas Koster and Driek Heesakkers, The Netherlands, implementing FRBR by Rosemie Callewaert from Belgium and enabling the catalogue for the Semantic Web by Emmanuele Bermès from France. In the next chapter, Karen Calhoun, from the University of Pittsburgh, focuses on developments in research libraries, suggesting that there is now an opportunity for increased cooperation and collaboration in developing a shared “research library service framework” linking local and shared digital content. The concluding chapter, by Lorcan Dempsey from OCLC, discusses possible roles for the traditional library catalogue in a networked discovery environment and questions whether the catalogue will remain an identifiable service in the future.
Overall, the book contains considerable material to stimulate conversations about the future of the catalogue, and the authors collectively identify a number of projects and products that might be part of future catalogues and catalogue services. Each chapter includes references, and there is a comprehensive subject index. Catalogue 2.0 will be a useful resource for library and information studies courses on metadata and cataloguing, and I certainly plan to make my students aware of it. Recommended for cataloguers, library IT managers and decision-makers.
