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Accept, coach, and inspire: a formula for success

Sylvia D. Hall-Ellis Morgridge College of Education, University of Denver,

Denver, Colorado, USA

Abstract Purpose – Technical services librarians, catalogers and metadata specialists serve as the integral managers of comprehensive integrated systems designed to facilitate the ingestion, annotation, cataloging, storage, retrieval and distribution of organized, discoverable resources. Yet, despite the escalating costs to upgrade integrated library systems, maintain authority control for name and subject heading points of access and create original surrogate records for new library resources, technical services departments did not grow. Design/methodology/approach – The goal of sharing metadata is to reduce the local cost of its creation with minimal changes. However, research suggests that catalogers and metadata specialists review and authenticate the standards-compliant work of others, thus negating the goal of sharing and increasing the cost of building and maintaining online catalogs and discovery tools. How can a library administrator encourage the acceptance of metadata created at other information organizations and make prudent investments to support technical services functions? Findings – There are four strategies that administrators can adopt regarding these issues. Research limitations/implications – All libraries can benefit from considering the four strategies. Practical implications – First, cultivate a robust community of practice within the information organization. Second, recognize the importance of accepting standards-compliant bibliographic metadata with few modifications. Third, provide opportunities for managers to become skilled at coaching their team members. Fourth, inspire confidence. Social implications – Librarianship is a profession that an individual enters through graduate education in library and information science. As a new entrant, an individual becomes of a member of the community of practice and assumes personal responsibility for learning and mastering technical skills and competencies through experience, mentoring, professional development and continued actions (or tasks) comprising activities situated in a library or information environment. Originality/value – This is an original opinion piece.

Keywords Community of practice, Cost savings, Cataloging, Metadata

Paper type Viewpoint

Resource discovery and sharing knowledge in a dynamic environment of print, online and digital assets are critical tasks for information professionals. Patrons visit and rely on information organizations through the use of emerging technologies to access information. Libraries, research centers and information organizations use innovative business strategies to expand the availability of scholarly papers, research studies,

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0888-045X.htm

Accept, coach, and inspire

103

Received 16 June 2014 Accepted 17 June 2014

The Bottom Line: Managing library finances

Vol. 27 No. 3, 2014 pp. 103-106

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0888-045X

DOI 10.1108/BL-06-2014-0020

evidence and findings, and offer increased access to digital assets as textual content, images and multimedia converge to reinvigorate library services in communities, specialized collections and academic commons across the country.

Technical services librarians, catalogers and metadata specialists serve as the integral managers of comprehensive integrated systems designed to facilitate the ingestion, annotation, cataloguing, storage, retrieval and distribution of organized, discoverable resources. These information professionals and their paraprofessional colleagues are responsible for facilitating access to open access collections through the online catalog. They also may be charged with acquiring author rights, resolving copyright issues, protecting intellectual property, building institutional remote collections and contributing resources to collaborative repositories. Increasing, sophisticated user and market demands forced the technical services team to re-examine traditional bibliographic description and the incorporation of metadata schemas into daily workflow.

The adoption of Resource Description and Access (RDA) in March 2013 and rapid expansions of content-specific non-MARC schemas resulted in steep new learning curves for catalogers and metadata specialists. Growing collections of digital materials, a dynamic expansion of assets born on the Internet, uneven quality and authority control of Web-resident resources and the need for human intervention to organize these resources prompted information professionals to address metadata issues. Online catalogs and information seekers’ use patterns continued to evolve; demands for natural language searching and one-stop tools became dominant among users. Yet, despite the escalating costs to upgrade integrated library systems, maintain authority control for name and subject heading points of access and create original surrogate records for new library resources, technical services departments did not grow. Administrators examined the costs of these activities and considered the possibilities of collapsing professional positions into paraprofessional jobs, buying bibliographic data from third-party vendors and increased staff productivity expectations.

Librarianship is a profession that an individual enters through graduate education in library and information science. As a new entrant, an individual becomes of a member of the community of practice and assumes personal responsibility for learning and mastering technical skills and competencies through experience, mentoring, professional development and continued actions (or tasks) comprising activities situated in a library or information environment.

Analyzing tasks, actions and operations provides a description of a set of procedural steps that provides a partial understanding of what is occurring because it assumes that they are undertaken as ends in themselves. Creating and enhancing bibliographic records using machine-readable computer (MARC) and non-MARC metadata schemas are important tasks for the technical services team. This work requires an understanding of the relationship between local actions and the larger community of practice activity of which they are a part, as well as the potential to share metadata with colleagues globally. Catalogers, metadata specialists and technical services librarians use metadata created by members of the community of practice (Dweck, 2007). The goal of sharing metadata is to reduce the local cost of its creation with minimal changes. However, research suggests that catalogers and metadata specialists review and authenticate the standards-compliant work of others, thus negating the goal of sharing and increasing the cost of building and maintaining online catalogs and discovery tools.

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How can a library administrator encourage the acceptance of metadata created at other information organizations and make prudent investments to support technical services functions?

First, cultivate a robust community of practice within the information organization. Wenger et al. (2002) suggest that each community of practice establishes a common baseline of knowledge. Among catalogers and metadata specialists the baseline knowledge includes cataloging rules (RDA and anglo-american cataloging rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2)), subject headings (e.g. Library of Congress, medical subject headings (MESH)), classification schemes (e.g. Library of Congress Classification, National Library of Medicine, Dewey Decimal), the MARC format and non-MARC schemas (e.g. Dublin Core, encoded archival data (EAD)). Parallel efforts are needed to learn and master the functions and application of the local integrated library system, a source of bibliographic records (e.g. OCLC), Cataloger’ Desktop and related tools. Administrators can create a work environment in which the technical services team can prosper by valuing their work, acknowledging the core competencies, technical skills and knowledge they possess, and incorporating their contributions into the organization’s strategic plan (Wenger et al., 2002). By supporting the professional development of the technical services team, the administrator can work with department managers to develop an environment in which catalogers and metadata specialists can see themselves as active members of the community of practice and as a valuable contributor to the local high performance technical services team. Take three bold steps:

(1) base the community of practice on collegial relationships instead of reporting lines;

(2) rely on domains of knowledge to connect individuals in different units who are working on related projects; and

(3) incorporate social components into the community of practice.

Second, recognize the importance of accepting standards-compliant bibliographic metadata with few modifications. Established in 1992 under the auspices of the Library of Congress, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) provides bibliographic and authority records created to meet the metadata needs of all libraries. The number of institutions participating in the Bibliographic Cooperative component of the PCC is limited to 59 institutions. The PCC introduced a bibliographic record standard, the core level record, which emphasized a dependable description with full authority control, while providing timely access. Ellett (2005) reported that a significant number of catalogers and metadata specialists did not have sufficient training to identify a PCC record; consequently, local efforts were dedicated to edit notes and non-access fields and 34.7 per cent of the bibliographic records were modified before acceptance and addition to the online catalog. Consider that every person minute costs one dollar – how many can be spent on checking work that is already standards-compliant?

Third, provide opportunities for managers to become skilled at coaching their team members. The coaching process is a valuable management system that can be instrumental in working with staff to reach new work performance levels that relate directly to the unit and organizational mission. Learning which strategies are most effective and techniques that managers can use to work with individuals are worth the investment of time and money. Recognized coaching expert Fournies (2000) suggests

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that people management is composed of a series of interventions that have a cause-effect relationship on personnel. Leaders must identify the changes in behavior that is needed from team members and work with them to determine and reach desired goals. When the team member recognizes personal responsibility for behavior and that the manager is acting in everyone’s best interests, changes will follow. Learning to coach effectively requires time and practice.

Fourth, inspire confidence. Individuals acquire confidence through practice and experience (Kay and Shipman, 2014). Mastering the technical skills and competencies for the creation and maintenance of metadata requires years of dedicated effort. The novice practitioner may be progressing through the learning curve but may lack the confidence to contribute original bibliographic records or could be asking questions for which the answers is known. Psychology professor Dweck (2007) defines this process as growth mind-set. She suggests that successful individuals are life-long learners. With increased confidence and a positive mind-set, an individual can learn to do new tasks and reach higher levels of achievement. Inspiring confidence can result in a greater degree of prudent risk taking, willingness to learn additional skills, and acquire grater technical skills, master complex tasks and develop into a leader among peers and the greater community of practice.

The bottom line – accept the standards-compliant work of colleagues, coach staff and inspire confidence.

References Dweck, C.S. (2007), Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books, New York, NY. Ellett, R.O. Jr (2005), “An evaluation of program for cooperative cataloging (PCC) records Used in

Non-PCC Libraries”, Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL. Fournies, F.F. (2000), Coaching for Improved Work Performance, revised ed., McGraw-Hill, New

York, NY. Kay, K. and Shipman, C. (2014), The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance –

What Women Should Know, HarperCollins, New York, NY. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. and Snyder, W.M. (2002), Cultivating Communities of Practice: A

Guide to Managing Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Further reading Glennan, K. (2014), “From AACR2 to RDA: an evolution”, available at: http://bcc.

musiclibraryassoc.org/Descriptive/RDA_Evolution.pdf (accessed 26 May 2014). Tillett, B. “AACR3: resource description and access”, available at: www.ala.org/alcts/sites/

ala.org.alcts/files/content/events/pastala/annual/04/tillettch12.pdf (accessed 26 May 2014).

Corresponding author Sylvia D. Hall-Ellis can be contacted at: [email protected]

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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