Let’s Get Technical — “Bridging the Gap: MARC and NonMARC Workflows in Technical Services Departments” By Alex Whelan (Metadata Strategist, New York University, Division of Libraries) <ajw9744@nyu.edu> ORCID: 0000-0002-5551-8232 Column Editors: Kyle Banerjee (Sr. Implementation Consultant, FOLIO Services) <kbanerjee@ebsco.com> www.ebsco.com www.folio.org and Susan J. Martin (Chair, Collection Development and Management, Associate Professor, Middle Tennessee State University) <Susan.Martin@mtsu.edu>
The Balancing Act The academic library’s long road towards linked data and digital browsing environments has seen many technical services departments splitting staff time between describing physical resources for the public catalog in MARC and describing digital collections in non-MARC schemas. Trends in collection development such as the increased focus on electronic resource acquisitions and the possibilities of open access publishing have arguably impacted users to perceive library resources as more than mere physical collections stacks. This is to say nothing of the recent infrastructural demand for remote work, teaching, and learning, all of which have reprioritized which types of materials staff are practically able to describe. At times, I have observed divisions among technical service departments and expertise between those working with traditional MARC cataloging knowledge and those carrying out nonMARC workflows. The pressure for academic institutions especially to keep up with new and emerging trends like BIBFRAME and linked data can unintentionally emphasize recruitment and professional development around non-MARC expertise, even as fluency with MARC continues to be a necessity for library management systems and the organization of print resources. Attempting to balance these different methodologies in the workplace calls into question issues of staff communication, professional support, and the allocation of time and labor to cataloging and metadata creation. This blog post will explore the natural tensions that might arise between technical services colleagues, leadership, and institutional priorities as libraries learn to bridge the gap between MARC and non-MARC workflows.
Identity Crisis My first exploration into this topic came during the June 25, 2021 session of the Cataloging Norms Interest Group at the American Library Association Annual Conference. Facilitating a 30-minute virtual discussion, I posed questions related to my perception of a MARC and non-MARC identity crisis within technical services. The session invited live participation via voice and chat from the 300 session attendees. The discussion began with a survey of how MARC and non-MARC workflows are defined institutionally. A broad consensus formed among participants that “MARC workflows” referred to cataloging processes for resources in the public catalog, while “non-MARC” meant any other schema including but not limited to: MODS, Dublin Core, RDF, BIBFRAME, and Wikidata. Moreover, several participants expressed a strong correlation between institutions employing MARC workflows for physical materials and resource discovery through an Integrated Library System, as opposed to non-MARC workflows which had a strong correlation with resources in
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digital collections and institutional repositories made available through digital browsing environments. The discussion turned towards library software and types of patron-facing tooling, such as BiblioBoard, which often use proprietary schemas incompatible with MARC or even a system of loosely structured labels such as the Dublin Core schema. The most revealing part of the Cataloging Norms discussion followed a question about responsibilities around metadata maintenance and how workflows are divided up among technical services personnel. Namely — are there distinct areas of staff expertise that are supported through professional development and resource support, or are staff expected to handle all types of cataloging and metadata processes? Participants generally expressed that their institutions do have a standard division of labor and knowledge between “Cataloging as a traditional MARC cataloging and skill set will only non-MARC metadata creation. become more Several participants made the important for point that a third area of technical services staffing pertains standardization to information technologies and interoperability and systems, as well as the need as linked data for cross-training across units on how to handle complex data becomes a wider transitions such as linked data practice.” or systems migrations. This naturally led to another question about those in power of such decisions: does library administration understand the meaningful differences between MARC and non-MARC? One participant made the point that MARC is a standard built for interoperability, with consistent data encoding and extensible field / subfield structure meant to accommodate all types of resource description. They argued that proprietary vendor metadata schemas such as BiblioBoard present a significant obstacle because they lack the internal consistency of MARC encoded data. The discussion ultimately coalesced around the notion that library administration holds the perception that staff with non-MARC expertise have the freedom to accomplish data projects in ways that circumvent a formal cataloging department. Several concerns were subsequently voiced about the future of non-MARC metadata control, such as faculty and students contributing directly to institutional repositories by creating their own Dublin Core metadata without mediation. Another concern raised was about the tendency to reduce cost and time by creating and funding distinct digital projects each with their own set of deadlines, production criteria, and cross-departmental workflows, resulting in disparate standards for metadata across
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