There has been a lot of buzz around “next generation catalogs” in the past couple of years. Many of the next generation projects out there focus on updating the user interface to the catalog, but don’t do much about updating the guts of the systems that feed that interface. Now, in many cases this is a direct result of the developers not having access to the guts of their legacy ILS systems to change anything, and given that constraint, developers have been able to do some really cool stuff.

Those who say that this interface work is simply putting lipstick on a pig have a point, however. The emergence of the web has radically changed the information environment and it is simply impossible to aggregate metadata for all resources that might meet users’ information needs in a single database cum catalog. I believe that structured metadata remains vitally important in the web environment, but it will be distributed. We need to find ways to uniquely identify resources in the web environment and utilize extant metadata as much as possible, no matter where it lives.

For those who focus on building collections for a discrete group of users, “cataloging” work in the future will focus on manipulating and extending extant metadata in order to define relationships that guide users to resources. In order for this to happen, “catalogers” need a platform upon which build resource discovery tools that help users find information relevant to their needs, regardless of format or storage location.

If this is going to happen, “cataloging” has got to involve more than painstakingly creating individual metadata records that describe individual resources. Catalogers need systems that support the higher-level intellectual work that facilitates resource discovery. Right now, human catalogers must devote way too much effort to making sure that the correct alphanumeric code is in the correct sequential position in an individual record. How can we get beyond this?