As Information Professionals we are used to welcoming and engaging new developments. The question is what will happen to cataloguing and cataloguers? The task is of course fundamental to information retrieval, but if we no longer have ownership of that task, what are we doing? We are now metadata specialists, knowledge managers, information architects, and technical service librarians engaging with Library systems management and navigation as well as records quality management.
Sustainable metadata and cataloguing roles will allow for personal growth, institutional expansion, professional customer service developments and changes in the library profession as a whole. In the current economic climate there is a trend to tackle ‘wastage’ and cut specialist tasks and service that could be out-sourced or devolved. Institutions are looking at creative ways of working with the resources they can ‘afford’ to keep, and these new sustainable roles form ideal opportunities for the cataloguer.
It is important to acknowledge that transparency in the workplace makes for better operational working practice; information sharing is paramount, and “visibility is the first step to valued”. It is the cataloguers responsibility to look to themselves for their current skills set and see how it can be adapted for the 21st century: attain new skills that will transport them into the future of metadata, and then, most significantly, tell everyone about it.
