reviews 470 College & Research Libraries September 2002 470 Book Reviews Bade, David. The Creation and Persistence of Misinformation in Shared Library Cata- logs: Language and Subject Knowledge in a Technological Era. Champaign-Ur- bana, Ill.: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Univ. of Illi- nois (Occasional Papers, no. 211), 2002. 33p. $8 (ISBN 087845120X). Serious cataloging, as is well known by those who have done it, can be both a hum- bling and frustrating experience—hum- bling because the vast number of subjects, languages, and types of publications the cataloger must deal with can be daunting, even to seasoned veterans; and frustrating because nearly all catalogers find them- selves torn between the demands of pro- ducing high-quality records and, at the same time, turning out a high volume of work in order to keep up with the flow of materials. In this issue of the University of Illinois’ Occasional Papers series, David Bade dem- onstrates more frustration than humility with the process but has some useful and important things to say about cataloging in this age of shared, online databases. As his title makes clear, Bade’s focus is on the number and persistence of errors in shared cataloging databases such as OCLC and RLIN, a problem he sees as only wors- ening with time. He categorizes errors into six types: (1) typographical, (2) ISBD for- matting and punctuation, (3) MARC tag- ging, (4) misapplication of cataloging rules, (5) linguistic errors, and (6) intellectual er- rors. The first four types of errors have been discussed a good bit in the literature, and Bade mentions them only briefly here. His real concern is with linguistic errors, which he understands as cataloging errors that result from an inadequate understanding of the language in which the work is writ- ten, and intellectual errors, which he un- derstands as errors (usually of subject analy- sis and classification) that occur because of a lack of subject knowledge on the part of the cataloger. How common are these errors in our shared databases, and what are their causes and conse- quences? Despite the fact that he has entitled a couple of sections of his book “The Extent of the Problem,” Bade never really tells us the extent of the problem. The evidence he cites is anecdotal, and we are left to won- der how pervasive the problem is. In fair- ness to the author, I think no one else knows either. Lois Chan, among others, has pub- lished studies of errors in subject heading assignment, but these focus mainly on whether assigned headings match current LC authorities, whether they are con- structed properly, and so on, not on whether they accurately reflect the content of the work in question. Given the complexity of the problem, it may be that all our evidence is anecdotal; but experienced librarians who regularly use these databases know that the problem is not a phantom. What is worse, as the author makes clear, after these errors are created in the bibliographic utilities, they propagate through local catalogs across the country as librarians and library database managers too often blithely load records without adequate quality control at the lo- cal level. What is to be done? Bade offers both specific and general suggestions for ame- liorating the problem. To catalogers, he recommends learning more languages, broadening their subject backgrounds by taking additional courses, making use of local and contracted knowledge sources to improve the quality of records, and, most important, abstaining from adding records to the shared databases when the necessary expertise—especially linguistic expertise—is lacking. To library admin- istrators, he recommends recognizing the intellectual nature of cataloging and be- ing willing to pay for it, hiring enough catalogers so that good ones are not made incompetent by being forced to cover too Book Reviews 471 many languages and too many subjects, and making use of intellectual talent in the library among staff whether or not they are professional librarians. It is hard to argue against any of these ideas in principle, but how practical are they? Sad to say, most library catalogers who work a forty-hour week for eleven months of the year and keep house and body to- gether in modern times have little time (or energy?) for advanced learning. And in a time of diminishing budgets, library admin- istrators will not be overwhelmed with the creativity of a suggestion to solve the qual- ity control problem in cataloging by hiring more catalogers, or even paying highly qualified nonprofessional staff more money to do specialized cataloging work. Bade is right to insist that we have a problem and that its consequences can be severe, but I am not sure how far his recommendations can go toward mitigation. Surely, a big part of any solution must be to reinvigorate and expand our efforts at cooperative cataloging, especially in the area of standards and in the sharing of ex- pertise. Whatever its limits and defects, co- operative cataloging has been a monumen- tal success in the library community, mak- ing possible the creation of giant world bib- liographic databases such as OCLC WorldCat and providing cataloging to lo- cal libraries at reduced costs. Bade is con- cerned that this open, cooperative process, together with the lack of a sufficient num- ber of adequately trained catalogers, threat- ens to slay the goose that laid the golden egg. This is an important warning. But just as we sometimes fight fire with fire, so per- haps we fight the downside of cooperative cataloging with better cooperation. That may mean more rigorous standards and stricter control on the input of bibliographic records to the national utilities. It may mean paying a little more for cooperative cata- loging products (rather than a lot more for catalogers in-house) to enable OCLC and RLG to do better quality control cleanup of the databases, although this is unlikely to do much for the correction of linguistic and intellectual errors that generally require having the work in hand. It may mean im- proving and expanding initiatives such as the Program for Cooperative Cataloging. I also would suggest the idea of allowing catalogers to join the PCC as individuals, making their special skills and knowledge available on a contract basis to other librar- ies as the need arises. Bade ends his paper on a somewhat vociferous note, asking whether catalog- ing is now a matter of intelligence or arti- ficial intelligence. He does a good job of reminding us that it is still very much a matter of human intelligence because it is the knowledge and the judgment of human catalogers that create the records that become the substance of our biblio- graphic behemoths. But it also is, of course, a matter of artificial intelligence, with computers processing, communicat- ing, and, in some ways, correcting bib- liographic records. It is likely to continue this way long into the future, with the proportions depending on what we value and what we can afford.—Robert Bland, University of North Carolina at Asheville. Brown, Carol R. Interior Design for Librar- ies: Drawing on Function & Appeal. Chi- cago: ALA, 2002. 143p. $45, alk. paper (ISBN 0838908292). LC 2002-1325. Carol Brown is assistant director of the Fort Bend County Library in Richmond, Texas. She has held library positions at Indiana University and the Houston Pub- lic Library, and has been a library plan- ning consultant. In addition, she is the author of Planning Library Interiors and Selecting Library Furniture (Oryx, 1989). This book is a good hands-on, basic manual written in a concise, easy-to-un- derstand style. Short and approachable, it is filled with interesting and enlightening information. It contains fifteen color plates and thirty-two black-and-white illustra- tions. In her second chapter, “The Planning Phases of a Library Building Project,” the author clearly delineates what is entailed by the programming, schematic design, design development, and development of construction drawings phases and what, as librarians and planners, we need to ex- pect to see and have happen during those << /ASCII85EncodePages false /AllowTransparency false /AutoPositionEPSFiles true /AutoRotatePages /All /Binding /Left /CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 20%) /CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CalCMYKProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Warning /CompatibilityLevel 1.3 /CompressObjects /Tags /CompressPages true /ConvertImagesToIndexed true /PassThroughJPEGImages true /CreateJobTicket false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /DetectBlends true /DetectCurves 0.0000 /ColorConversionStrategy /CMYK /DoThumbnails false /EmbedAllFonts true /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /EmbedJobOptions true /DSCReportingLevel 0 /EmitDSCWarnings false /EndPage -1 /ImageMemory 1048576 /LockDistillerParams false /MaxSubsetPct 1 /Optimize true /OPM 1 /ParseDSCComments true /ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true /PreserveCopyPage true /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveEPSInfo true /PreserveFlatness false /PreserveHalftoneInfo true /PreserveOPIComments false /PreserveOverprintSettings true /StartPage 1 /SubsetFonts false /TransferFunctionInfo /Apply /UCRandBGInfo /Preserve /UsePrologue false /ColorSettingsFile () /AlwaysEmbed [ true ] /NeverEmbed [ true ] /AntiAliasColorImages false /CropColorImages false /ColorImageMinResolution 151 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleColorImages true /ColorImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDepth -1 /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeColorImages true /ColorImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterColorImages true /ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /ColorACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /ColorImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000ColorImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages false /GrayImageMinResolution 151 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /GrayImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000GrayImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages false /MonoImageMinResolution 600 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.16667 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict << /K -1 >> /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile () /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False /CreateJDFFile false /Description << /ENU (IPC Print Services, Inc. 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