Catalog 2.0: Your Library Catalog in a Global Environment

The State Library of Kansas cataloged about 1,000 Wikipedia articles analytically at the State Library providing links via the Kansas Library Catalog, WorldCat/OCLC and the State Library’s consortium OPAC, ATLAS. Most all of the Wikipedia articles they’ve cataloged are concerned with Kansas, Kansans or current topics with few resources initially available via standard library resources. They had one of the first records in WorldCat/OCLC linking to information on then-Supreme-Court-nominee, John G. Roberts, as well as an early record on Hurricane Katrina. They followed these entries with other cataloging records accessing more substantive resources, but yes, the initial records were for Wikipedia articles.

July 2, 2009 by Uncategorized 5

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5 Responses

  1. leeb says:
    July 5, 2009 at 4:20 am

    What’s the point???
    What’s the point of cataloguing Wikipedia??? These people have nothing better to do. This shows how much libraries are out of touch with reality. Librarians have to recognise that libraries are no longer have the monopoly. Wikipedia is fine by itself without being catalogued and given LC subject headings. People use Wikipedia directly, not through a catalogue.

    Reply
    • Anonymous says:
      July 5, 2009 at 11:13 am

      libraries cutting their own throats
      If I were a Kansas taxpayer, I’d tell them that this is a poor use of library resources paid for by taxes. Public funds should not be used to benefit Wikipedia, which is doing quite well, thank you. Will Wikipedia return the favor by adding text to Kansas-related articles encouraging readers to use the Kansas libraries for more information?!?

      This only encourages people to skip the library and go straight to a search engine. Better that the catalog entries point to library resources for Kansas subjects.

      Reply
    • Bibliofuture says:
      July 6, 2009 at 4:08 am

      The Point
      The point is that people in Kansas that use the catalog will now be pointed to these resources. Connecting library users with information that is not available in the library collection is good service. If the librarians in this story were trying to catalog all of Wikipedia I might questions that. But selecting resources in an intelligent way is what librarianship is all about.

      Reply
      • StephenK says:
        July 6, 2009 at 4:15 am

        What about LC?
        Didn’t LC have a symposium in 2000 talking about the catalog as discovery interface? I believe the record of those proceedings is available here: http://ur1.ca/6sq3

        For those with ERIC on microfilm, the number you’re looking for within the unpublished collection is ED454853.
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        Reply
  2. leeb says:
    July 9, 2009 at 7:24 am

    OPAC are not intelligent…
    But OPACs are not intelligent… They are cumbersome to use. I can use Wikipedia on its fine, thanks, without going through the silly interface of an OPAC. The less you go through OPACs, the better!

    Reply

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