Tag Archives: information practice

Ireland’s new National Public Library Catalogue

I would like to begin this post on an optimistic note because I want to give some thoughts on the concept of Ireland’s national catalogue in our public libraries without focusing on the inevitable teething problems that occur with any monumental change in direction that a service undergoes. So, let’s assume that the new national catalogue in Ireland works exactly how it is supposed to. Let’s take that as our starting point. Let’s forget about problems with the actual catalogue. Let’s also forget about SIERRA’s awful search engine that all too often returns unexpected and very inaccurate search results when trying to find a common title. Let’s not worry for now about the fact that paging (item request) lists cannot be trusted or that the system often refuses to clear or move along requests. Let’s not worry too much about barcodes not matching the barcodes on actual items, or the duplication of item records. Let’s not trouble ourselves with the fact that SIERRA was never designed to understand things like text messages, or fines in the public library service. Let’s forget about it’s love of connecting to printers and its complete disregard for the environment. Let us put all that aside and be positive and from there take a look at the idea of our new national catalogue from a conceptual and slightly philosophical perspective.

So what is the idea really? Well, that every public library in the country is connected, sharing items and services. A patron can search the catalogue, find an item anywhere in the country and can have that item delivered to their local library in 3 to 5 days. In many ways it reminds me of the EU. Who did not love the idea of the freedom of movement of both people and goods across the continent? Like all ideas, it was perfect in its idealogical state. But putting an idea into practice requires a measure of control and regulation. And the moment you try to regulate freedom, well, you destroy it. Library members express their surprise and excitement at the new national catalogue because, in truth, it is a brilliant idea that makes more information more accessible to more people. However, what is it like in practice? How well thought out has the idea been? How well has it been executed? And what are the future implications of this new departure for our public library service?

Cost of transportation and the environment

After expressing their joy at such a service, the next questions patrons ask are: ‘how much will that cost?’ and ‘whose going to pay for it?’ The figures will likely never be released by the LGMA as they have a penchant for secrecy at the best of times, but from what I understand the cost of transporting one item stands at around .75 cents. A request list in my local library, small and rural, is usually 20-30 items long. Not only this, but it is the library that has to send the item out that incurs the cost. I work in a smaller county that has spent a lot of its budget in recent years developing excellent stock. Because it is a smaller county it has a smaller budget. The worry is that now this budget is going to be swallowed up by the cost of transporting its excellent stock all around the country. Of course, on the upside it does mean that borrowers in libraries that are poorly stocked will now have a much better range of items to borrow. However, does transporting books around the country really make sense? Rather than sending a book out to a library ten times a year, would it not be better to spend that money on buying an extra copy in the county? Not to mention it being kinder on the environment too. What will happen to library stock in the long term? If book buying budgets are smaller due to the cost of book transportation then won’t that simply increase the demand for requests in the future because individual libraries will be buying less books every year? So while right now you can get books quicker, in the future the queues may get much longer if the service is not properly supported with generous budgets.

It is interesting to consider how wasteful this new system might be. A scenario could arise in which I send a book off to Donegal from Laois. A few hours later a patron comes into the library in Laois and requests the book I just posted to Donegal. I go onto the catalogue and place another request. The system grabs another copy of the same book from Kerry and transports it to Laois. Is this not a wasteful system? In work on Saturday I sent books from Laois to Clare, Sligo, Mayo, Dublin, Wicklow, Limerick and Cork. I checked the LMS to see where other copies of those books were available. The book I sent to Limerick was also available in Clare, which is obviously much closer to Limerick than Laois. The LMS does not understand geography. It will search the home county first, but after that it will simply take the next available copy it finds irrespective of where that copy is located. This means that every book that leaves a county is potentially leaking efficiency. The Limerick copy could have saved 150kms of distance, which will cost less money and less CO2 emissions. And anyone who works in a public library will know that a lot of items that are requested are never actually picked up in time by patrons. I wonder how much money is wasted transporting items to libraries around the country only for the item to never be collected and read? It seems like it is a system that is very wasteful and inefficient.

What ever happened to e-books/ e-resources?

Libraries elsewhere have been pumping money into e-reading services. Why? Well, because it is extremely efficient and location is not really a barrier to reading. Would it not be wiser to allow libraries to develop their own stock and for the money to be put into e-reading services nationally? In fact, we do have some great e-resources available through public libraries (including books and magazine), but currently the e-books service is not actually connected to the national catalogue so when a patron searches for a book it only gives them the option of physical items and ignores the fact that we do actually have a few thousand e-books as well. If every university catalogue can be connected to electronic resources, why can’t the public library catalogue?

My search for the National Geographic magazine returned the following result on Libraries Ireland:

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The results do not give me an option of an electronic copy despite the fact that I know one is available online through Zinio Magazine Collection and Laois Libraries website.

Searching for ‘My Husband’s Wife’ using the e-books filter returns the following result:

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This book is actually available to library members through Bolinda e-books services, again available through your local library’s website. Maybe spending some money connecting our already existing e-services into the national catalogue might actually prevent transportation wastage on physical items? Of course, the defence will be that it is not yet a finished product. But how much money is going to be wasted in the meantime while the LGMA work on finishing what they have started? Would it not be better to put the infrastructure in place first before rolling out a service? It certainly calls into the question the ability of the LGMA and the government to deliver an adequate and effective library service. Reading a review of a bicycle recently, a reviewer commented, “when you buy quality, it only hurts once”. Proper planning in this sense is a lot less painful in the long run, and the LGMA seem incapable of thorough research and planning.

Let’s digress: using an academic library LMS in public libraries

I worked in the UK at the University of Surrey last year. We used an academic LMS called ALMA. It is important to question why the choice was taken to use SIERRA as the LMS of choice for this new national catalogue. SIERRA was first used in Ireland by Trinity College and UCC. These are naturally two academic libraries. In fact, SIERRA is a system designed for academic libraries. I noted earlier that it does not understand geography very well. It has an option when requesting books to ‘hold copy returned soonest’. In an academic library, that may only have four library buildings (at most) in close proximity to each other then holding the next copy returned is sensible, especially because if there is more than one library in a university they will be stocked by subject anyway. The books don’t have to be transported from one location to the next. In the public library service, we have more than 300 library branches so holding the next copy returned means a book could be travelling 300kms from one branch to another. SIERRA has no understanding of geography; in an academic library it does not need to. Of course, it will search the local authority first and then default to the next copy outside of the county if none are available in county. However, by my estimation, this only actually happens about 80% of the time. I have received copies of items requested by members of my library arrive from outside the county when I know there to be a copy sitting on the shelf just a few feet away. Of course, you can alternatively find a copy of an item and make a specific item request. However, many items that were lost on HORIZON transferred over to SIERRA as ‘on shelf’ and so the item you request may never actually arrive. SIERRA does not understand time either. If a copy is due back the next day into the authority where it has been requested, it does not stall the request and wait for that copy to return. Instead, it goes outside of the county and pulls a copy from elsewhere. There does not seem to be any pattern or logic to how or where it pulls items from. It is hugely wasteful of resources and is not a system that understands public library processes or procedures.

Also in an academic library, you have a small team of cataloguers all working to the same standards. At the University of Surrey, we worked to British Library standards. With the previous LMS HORIZON cataloguing was a problem, but it was manageable. You see, some of the people cataloguing started out card cataloguing and in the last 30 years have never updated their understanding of cataloguing. When we moved over to electronic cataloguing and to AACR2, there were huge gaps in knowledge and new cataloguing standards were not followed consistently. And I imagine very few cataloguers today in the authorities really understand RDA/MARC21 because they are simply too busy to continuously up skill. In the past these inconsistencies were limited because even though the cataloguing standards may not have been the best, they were at least somewhat consistent within each authority. We now have a catalogue that has 15 million items and god only knows how many people are adding records on a daily basis in the individual branches. The catalogue is currently a huge problem. I frequently have to go back into HORIZON in order to find what I am looking for. I have seen items with mis-spellings in the author’s name. All item records should be attached to the same bib record so that when requests are place a nice orderly queue is formed. However, I saw one item with multiple bib records. The first had 6 items attached and there were more than 40 requests on the record. The second record actually had 60 items attached but with no requests on it. It was the same book, but the bib record had been duplicated. The main benefit of a national catalogue is the request system and the ability to share information, but the actual catalogue as it is is making the request system very inefficient and ineffective at times.

I could go on and on about the catalogue and the inaccessibility it creates. However, it is important to question why SIERRA and Innovative were chosen? The LMS is simply not fit for purpose because it is an academic library system being used in a drastically different public library setting.

The scenic route to ‘National Procurement’

Of course, national procurement is coming down the line as part of the national catalogue in which all libraries’ stock will be purchased centrally. The current national catalogue is impressively diverse. But this diversity will diminish with national procurement. Eventually, will all libraries in the country simply have the same stock anyways, thereby alleviating the need for a courier system? If every library has the same books and are equally stocked in terms of quantity, then there will be no need to borrow from around the country. Why not just do this now and save us all the hassle and expense? Or better still, develop e-book services instead?

My Open Library, ethics, surveillance, democracy, diversity and the future of public libraries

There are other questions of course. Like how does the national library catalogue tie in to the Open Library plans? Surely these two systems have been considered by the LGMA together? Surely they are part of the same long term vision. The National Catalogue certainly seems to suggest that users will have a better service if they go online and order items that they want and then drop in to pick them up at the branch. The national library catalogue does seem to be pushing people more towards online services and may well diminish the services for those who are not capable or inclined to visit their library online. This is because stock in libraries looks like it’s about to be negatively affected by the cost of the national catalogue. So, is the national catalogue simply a prelude or set up to the open library agenda?

Philosophically, there is a tendency to consider all authorities as the same in this strategy. There are fundamental problems with this. Not only in terms of reducing the diversity of library stock, but also in terms of failing to understand the diverse needs of library users which varies greatly from county to county. There is a bigger issue of controlling information rather than freeing up information. National procurement, coupled to a national catalogue, coupled to an open library results in greater control of library members and of library stock. It leads to greater surveillance in libraries (a fundamental principle that libraries are at odds with), but also greater control of information that people have access to. The cynics amongst us might suggest that what is really happening is that the government is exerting greater control over our freedoms. A national catalogue creates a national database of civilians whose personal information and reading habits are now accessible to government when before they were localised. A librarian in any branch in the country has access to a huge national database of phone numbers, emails and personal addresses, and while we cannot see reading history, we can see what anyone in the country is currently reading. I wonder how members of the public feel about this from a privacy and security perspective. National procurement threatens to centralise the control of information and people’s access to it, as well as exerting greater control over what information the public have access to freely through their libraries. And finally, add to this an Open Library system in which members of the public are no longer able to enter a public building without being video recorded and personally identified and you have the destruction of a key pillar of freedom in a democratic society. In fact, libraries could be the last truly free space left in our society and the national catalogue, for all of its promise, should not be viewed separately from other government initiatives.

Over-qualified & Under-experienced

Intro Slide
Intro Slide

The above slide best sums up my first year seeking employment as a new Information Professional. While I have made it to a few interviews for Assistant Librarian roles, I have failed to secure these posts due to not having enough direct experience in these roles. This means I need to find an entry level Library Assistant role in order to build experience However, I have found it much more difficult to get interviews at entry level Library Assistant roles. I am told that I am over-qualified for these by experienced librarians I have spoken to about this problem.

Slide 1
Slide 1

So what makes me overqualified and under-experience. I have 12 years experience in Teaching and Education. I have taught Secondary English and worked as an Examiner for the Leaving Certificate Mock Exams; I have worked as an Assistant Lecturer in English Literature at Maynooth University; I have taught English Language, Technical English and Academic English in university and private companies in three countries, including UCD her in Ireland; I have taught Academic Writing, Research Skills and Information Literacy at third level also.

Since graduating, from my MLIS at UCD, I have worked for 1 year as a Library Assistant in the University of Surrey in the UK because I could not find a job here in Ireland. For the past three months, I have been working as a Library Assistant in Laois Libraries on a temporary contract that could end at any moment. I also have two postgraduate degrees.

Slide 2
Slide 2

In 2016, I applied for Library Assistant jobs in 6 County Libraries and 5 Academic Libraries, but was only invited to one interview in Laois thus far. In the county, there are more than 17 Library Assistants, but I am the only one with a library qualification. I finished 10th on that panel, out of which 5 people were hired on full-time permanent contracts. 1 of the 5 had meaningful library experience and none had a qualification. I am happy for anyone who finds a job, but the numbers in public libraries are too heavily weighted towards those without library qualifications, suggesting the qualification is not valued for these positions. I personally do not have an objection to libraries hiring Assistants that have no qualification because I understand their need to have security and continuity in their staff as many Library Assistant are not interested in being upwardly mobile – unlike most MLIS graduates. Also, the people I work with at the University of Surrey and Laois Libraries are excellent at their jobs and I learn from them every day. My experience illustrates just how challenging it is for new professionals to land that first position in the current market.

Slide 3
Slide 3

So how can you maximise your opportunities? You need to work hard on your cv, creating a new cv for every job. I delete my CV every time I apply for a job because it forces me to create a new one for each application, in which I use the job description in order to guide how I describe my experience. The Library Association of Ireland is also an amazing community of professionals who you can learn from and build in-person and online networks. They do provide many CPD opportunities. This is something I need to work on more myself. Using your new cv and networking powers, you can land that first job. But from there you need make that job work for you. Rather than sitting at the information desk at the University of Surrey, I got involved in Teaching & Learning projects, I shadowed Subject Librarians, and took on Cataloguing projects when I heard Cataloguing were very busy. I travelled outside of my own job description in order to develop experience that strengthens my employment opportunities. So long as you are doing your primary job well, then your Line Manager will likely be open to supporting your development. In my current role, I catalogue donated items rather than sending them back to Library HQ; I get involved in collection development and weeding; I am currently organising workshops for Leaving Certificate students in the area; and am planning to run basic computer and web design courses in the library in the near future.

Slide 4
Slide 4

However, while there is a vibrant, helpful library community in this country, we do have to balance our view by considering that there is also a political and economic reality at work. Many librarians who act within the community and through the LAI are also going back into their daily professional posts and are failing to act upon the needs of new professionals in their hiring policies. They create CPD opportunities in the LAI but fail to realise that in order to really allow for career development to happen, more opportunities to apply these skills in a professional role need to be created. So by all means work hard on your CV, and doubly so on networking. But don’t forget to remind those senior librarians that you meet at CPD events, that the obligation they have to nurture the profession does not stop once they leave their LAI committee meetings. And that they need to carry that sentiment back out into the real professional environments, to their hiring committees and interview panels, so that we can be afforded the opportunity they themselves were once given. Thank you.

Slide 5
Slide 5

Part 3: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

Will the open library provide more or less access to information for all people within the community?

I initially started this article by suggesting that open libraries could provide greater access to information and that this could potentially be a good thing. They provide greater access to information simply because the library is open for longer periods of time. However, does an open library provide greater access to information than a less technologically enabled staffed library?

If the user is computer literate then the staffed library and open library provide the same access to information. However, if the user is not computer literate then the open library provides less access to information. This is because many people do rely on the librarians to help them use the IT facilities in the library. Many users do not know how to search the catalogue in order to find the books they are looking for; others do not know how to log on to a computer let alone search a digital database effectively; most users cannot use the photocopying and scanning facilities without help; and in libraries when there are self-service machines, most users come to the desk with their items anyway preferring the human interaction and service they get from the staff. Open libraries exclude all of these people. So, if it is cheaper to staff a library than to set it up for open access, and if open access excludes users, then is it not true that staffed libraries provide greater a access to information than open libraries given that a staffed library service in the evening provides access to more people and for longer periods of time? The simple truth is that librarians are as much a part of the access infrastructure of a library as computers are.


Part 2: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

Who are the designated end users and does the Open Library truly serve them?

The designated community of an open library are users that are computer liberate and technologically enabled. Many people who attend the library during the day are excluded because they do not know how to use the technology in the library. If the open library scheme is targeting those people that are working during the day then that is fine. It is acceptable to target these users if the library is open to everyone else throughout the day. However, if the end user is someone in full-time employment/ education and is already technologically enabled, is the open library the best solution for their needs?

The bottom line is that the library now provides more electronic resources than it does physical copies. You can borrow e-books and e-magazines through the library website, you can take courses through University Class and you can learn languages also. True open access for a technologically enabled user actually means ‘remote access’. That user can access electronic resources from home, work, while on the train or their lunch break. That user already has a broadband or 3G connection and is already connected to the information they need. Does it make sense that we are investing millions countrywide to set up individual open libraries to service people who are already connected to the internet and who are online? Does it not make more sense to invest this money in electronic and digital resources that can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere and by anyone that has an internet connection? This is also important because one countrywide electronic resources license actually serves the entire country. The open library initiative is setting up single, individual libraries in every county to provide greater access to information. It is like choosing to pay for hundreds of Windows licences when one will cover the entire country at a lower cost.

So, if the actually information can be provided electronically, whey else would someone need an open library? Of course, people will use it not just for the information it holds, but also for the facilities, ie. copying, computing and studying. Again, the designated or targeted user likely already has a computer and printer in their home, or alternatively, will use printing and photocopying services at work. So if the open library will only be open in the evening and the people using it will already be technologically enabled, is it worth the investment to open the library as a study space for professionals and students? There is no doubt that it would be useful for people to study and hold meetings in the library, but do we really need all of the additional security and technology to provide people with a desk, a chair, or a group meeting room? And will people feel safe and comfortable enough to use it anyway?

It appears that the reasons behind the open library are misguided. The attempt to appease disgruntled librarians and patrons by arguing that the open library will only be open for a few hours in the evenings and on Sundays simply does not add up or make sense from a financial or end user perspective.


Problematic Solutions to Controlled Vocabularies……

Controlled vocabularies in modern classification systems were designed to assist in making information more accessible to library patrons and professional researchers. The very idea that vocabulary can be controlled finds its origins in Enlightenment ideology in which modern science was founded on the principles of ‘knowledge and truth’. Within the field of linguistics, this meant that the greater an understanding of the mechanics of language and the greater the accuracy and control over words, the closer one could come to truth. In applying this ideology to library classification systems, both the Dewey Decimal System and the Library of Congress Classification System attempted to create subject headings under which library content could be listed. The claim that these systems are biased is no longer really in dispute as both systems have attempted in recent years to adapt to new emergent disciplines that have been marginalised due to the biases within the respective classifications. However, the continued attempt to regulate the classification of information through slightly more ‘flexible’ controlled vocabularies is detrimental to real innovation and creativity, not only in academic and scientific research, but also in terms of promoting real diversity and creativity privately and publicly in social, political, economic and cultural spheres. It is ironic that the very systems that set out to improve accessibility to information and to thereby foster greater innovation and awareness, has in fact lead to greater ignorance. The problem persists in so far as classification systems continue to be regulated by outmoded ideology in which classification ‘specialists’ take as their starting point the mantra that information can be classified in a coherent and organised way under specified subject headings. The truth is that until classification systems more fairly account for the differences and diversity that exists within singular texts, then these systems will continue to be biased, acting as an obstacle to knowledge as opposed to a medium to accessibility. The following paper sets out to explicate the problems created by controlled vocabularies in classification systems by discussing the issue from a poststructuralist perspective, specifically utilising Derrida’s work in Of Grammatology to explain the contradictions in traditional classification systems and to further critique some modern solutions to these problems.


Borges (1952, 104) asserts that “there is no classification of the universe that is not arbitrary and conjectural”. Borges identified that at the core of any attempt to classify or to organise objects through controlled vocabularies is the fact that this organisation is based on shifting premises that can be challenged from a point of difference. Beghtol (1986 ) illuminates the problem with traditional classification systems further by arguing that these systems are created through concepts of authority, status and control. In this sense, traditional classification systems become homogenous and hegemonic, leading to theorists like Shirkey (2005) to argue that classifications are, by their very nature, biased. Miksa (1998, 81) demonstrates that the problem with classification lies in its Enlightenment roots, arguing that classification is based on “the idea that somewhere, somehow, we can, or should try to, produce the one best classification system that will serve all purposes”. What is emphasised here is that there is one purely scientific system that pertains to truth in that this one system is complete in its ability to categories all knowledge. Miksa (1998, 81) goes on to highlight the assumption that “knowledge categories are by nature hierarchical and logical in a classical, systematic sense”. Any kind of hierarchy is established to deny real difference in a subject because everything that exists under that hierarchy must be shaped to fit into categories that the hierarchy dictates. If that hierarchy is Western, or North American, then there is naturally going to be a bias towards the ideological prioritisation for those demographics. Such systems, then, become too rigid and cannot adequately account for emerging disciplines or in fact, for the transferral of information across national and continental boundaries.

Theorists have developed the critique of traditional classification systems further to incorporate contextual elements into the debate. These contextual arguments all revolve around the idea that classification systems work to identify similarities between objects and to thus categorise them under related headings. Bowker and Star (1999, 131) suggests that “classifications that appear natural, eloquent, and homogenous within a given human context appear forced and heterogeneous outside that context”. Thus, extracting classifications from their original context within the system demonstrates just how biased the system actually becomes. Mai develops this concept further to highlight the prominence of ‘similarity’ in classification systems: “most bibliographic classification theory stipulates that documents are holders of concepts and concepts are context and human independent constructs and that classification brings together concepts based on similarity”. Lakoff (1987, 6) explains this idea of similarity further by explicating that since the writings of Aristotle, and following through the entire history of Western thought, objects were categorised based on whether or not they had ‘common properties’. Olson (2001, 116) develops the concept of similarity more to incorporate concepts of ‘sameness and difference’ in organising information: ‘once we collect this innovative material we try to organize it by gathering what is the same […] We build our classifications using these facets that bring things together according to some kinds of sameness’. However, Olson, like many contemporary theorists navigate more towards ‘sameness’ as a regulating principal of classification systems, ultimately, paying tribute to the dualism of difference but never seriously considering its significance comprehensively enough. Olson further relates the idea of sameness of that to ‘discipline’, referring to discipline as ‘the primary facet in our classification systems’. ‘Discipline’ is a word that implies an authority and strictness over controlling vocabularies and categories of information.

What is interesting is that any attempt by theorists to explain classification as biased through the concept of sameness, implicitly means using the concept of ‘difference’ as a critical hinge upon which to base those critiques. It is through this ‘hinge’ that solutions to the biases within controlled vocabularies start to emerge. Clare Beghtol (1982, 2), for example, suggests that “increasing multidisciplinary knowledge creation makes it critical to reconsider the traditional reliance on discipline-based classification and to try to solve the problems that orientation has created”. Olson (2001, 120) continues to highlight, in relation to English Literature classification, that this traditional mode privileges ‘colonisers over colonised’. She (2001, 118) further develops the importance of ‘difference’ in that she explains that “Recent recognition of the validity of oral literary traditions and the questioning of existing literary canons suggest that this definition of literature is exclusive rather than inclusive. It is defined by difference as much as by sameness”. It is through the importance of understanding difference in classification systems that some solutions to the biases begin to emerge. Olson’s solution appears to be more practical and achievable than many others. The problem is that Olson’s solutions (2001, 120-122) self-consciously lack real difference in suggesting change, preferring to base her solutions around ‘local control’ rather than any real radical changes. This means giving libraries, both regional and national, ‘notational options’ that allows them to make amendments to the subject headings so as to find vocabularies that are more suitable to the given context. Olson also suggests that “Flexibility can also be achieved by varying the citation order of classifications – shifting which samenesses get priority. It must involve rejecting at least some of the samenesses and differences of our classifications.” Olson justifies these changes by referencing postmodernism’s rejection of universals, seeing more local control as a disruption of traditional all-encompassing systems. However, she fails completely to really understand postmodern and thus poststructuralist concepts of difference and disruption. The suggested solutions simply replace one form of universal control with another more local version of the same thing. The solutions still rely on ‘specialists’ to assert authority over the vocabularies used to classify, taking the authority out of the hands of the users and placing it into the hands of individuals. It is as equally problematic as Mai’s (2010) concept of ‘cognitive control’ which allows for the continuation of the traditional system once it has been properly theorised, questioned and explained, so long as it is self-conscious to its own potential biases. The problem with this is that being self-conscious of bias does nothing to eradicate the bias, it is simply bias in a softer guise. And in any case, no matter how self-conscious we are of the bias, objects in our libraries will continue to be irretrievably buried under inadequate subject headings.


What becomes clear, then, is that there is an awareness of poststructuralism’s influence through the referencing of the concept of ‘difference’ in attempting to understand and solve the problem of controlled vocabularies in classification systems. However, there is also a clear reluctance to engage with poststructuralism in a meaningful way. In fact, there is a clear misunderstanding of poststructuralism in the dualism of understanding ‘difference’ as the opposite of ‘sameness’. This suggests that there is an assertion of poststructuralist politics in promoting some ‘difference’ at local and national level, but that this politics is built on structuralist rather than poststructuralist linguistic foundations, thereby rendering it contradictory and self-defeating. All of the ‘solutions’ to classification bias are retained within a traditional mindset in which texts ought to be categorised into similar or related categories that are hierarchal in nature. No matter how much flexibility one allows within this model, or no matter how much ‘trustworthiness’ is achieved due to cognitive control, there still persists a traditional model that gives authority control to an oppressive few. The remainder of this paper will attempt to explain the real value of poststructuralism to this debate and will further attempt to demonstrate the radical potential of poststructuralism to not only disrupt traditional classification systems, but to disrupt them in a positive way that could lead to more meaningful solutions to the problem.

Part two, explicating how poststructuralist theory impacts upon classification systems, is coming soon…………

Part 3: The Semiotic Approach to Citation Indexing


This brings us onto the final approach to theorizing citation indexing. This approach was termed by Chubin and Moitra (1975) as ‘phenomenological’ in that it looks at citing in terms of being a symbolic exchange. Small (1980) puts forward the idea that citations become markers or symbols which are indicative of theories, concepts, ideas or methods. Blaise Cronin has developed this approach in a more interesting way by looking at citations as both sign and symbol in his essay ‘Symbolic Capitalism’. Cronin (2005, 143) goes on to assert that a citation is a signaling device or action indicating that one is familiar with and have drawn upon a particular author and work. However, here Cronin once again places equal emphasis on the author and the work, meaning his semiotic approach draws more from structuralism than post-structuralism. The concept of the author becomes a regulating force over all future iterations of that text, meaning that the text can never be re-conceptualized leading to greater innovations having finally been released from the original hegemonic authorial context and given life of its own. Cronin is not alone in positing a semiotic symbolic relationship between texts. Wouters (1993, 7) suggests that citations act as two different signs, one that points back to the original text and one that refers to its own context. Warner (1990, 28) rejects this approach arguing that “the ambiguity of citation in aggregate form can be seen as a special case of the indeterminacy other written signifiers, such as words, can acquire when torn from their discursive context”. However, while there is some validity to this argument, Warner is still reliant on a citation being held within an original authoritative context. Cronin’s approach (2005, 156) is successful with regard to his focus on sign systems, arguing that “references and citations need to be unraveled in respect of their respective sign systems.” He (Cronin 2005, 159) goes on to suggest that this sign system is triadic in nature: “The referent of the bibliographic reference is a specific work; the referent of a citation the absent text that it denotes; in the case of large-scale citation counts, the referents are the cited authors.”

The problem with Cronin’s approach is that he views language from a structuralist perspective as is clearly evident from his triangular structure of language in which signs fall back upon an original context. But reference to Roland Bathes theory above demonstrates that signs do not necessarily operate in such a coherent direction. Rather, signs are dispersive entities that ripple out into the past, present and future thereby creating multiple contexts. They do not necessarily fold back upon the original text, but rather re-conceptualize that text pushing it into the future as a ‘new’ work. Baudrillard (1981, 150) would refer to Cronin’s sign system as the “mirage of the referent”. This essay supports Baudrillard’s concept of the sign becoming a kind of false referent that signals back to the original text. So, citations as signs do not really contain a past, rather, they only push past texts into a newly imagined future. In many ways, post-structuralism depicts citations as signs in terms of what Brian McHale (1987, 166) defined as heteroglossia, that is, “a plurality of discourse […] which serves as the vehicle for the confrontation and dialogue among world-views”. What this recognition must do, is destory any sense of hierarchy within the citation process. It can not only tear citing from their authorial and hierarchal structure, but it can also seriously undermine the normative approach that all theories appear to fall back into, nó longer allowing citations to be retained under a hegemonic capitalist scheme.

In conclusion, this paper has attempted to explicate the three main approaches to understanding and theorizing citation indexing. It has done this through a brief review of the literature available in the academic field. The suggestion is that citation indexing has become blinded to the hierarchy that now controls it. In this sense, Sosteric’s (1999) argument that hegemonic control over scholarship through the proliferation and globalization of citation practices in the wake of the technological revolution has well and truly been realized. This can be argued as we see scholars become blinded to the underlying capitalism that controls scholarly thinking by embedding scholarship within a fragmented and contradictory paradigm. Many scholars argue then for a more expansive theory through the interpretative, phenomenological, and semiotic approaches, but these become retained within authoritative contexts and ultimately collapse back into a normative approach. By identifying the persistence of an underlying capitalised structure, this essay has attempted to take a more holistic and ontological approach to the subject. It has also attempted to utilise some post-structuralist theory in order to develop the semiotic approach of Cronin. In doing so, this paper argues for the freeing up of Croin’s sign system to incorporate a more dispersed heterogenous theory that could ultimately create a freer, more authonomous citation system.


Baudrillard, J. (1981), For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, London: Telos Press

Chubin, D.E. & Moitra, S.D. (1975), Content analysis of references: adjunct or alternative to citation counting? Social Studies of Science, 5, 423-441

Cronin, B. (2005), ‘Symbolic capitalism’, The Hand of Science: Academic writing and its rewards. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow.

McHale, Brian (1987), Postmodernist Fiction, New York and London: Methuen

Small, H.G. (1980), Co-citation context analysis and the structure of paradigms, Journal of Documentation, 36(3), 183-196

Sosteric, M. (1999). Endowing mediocrity: Neoliberalism, information technology, and the decline of radical pedagogy. Radical Pedagogy. http://www.radicalpedagogy.org/radicalpedagogy.org/Endowing_Mediocrity__Neoliberalism,_Information_Technology,_and_the_Decline_of_Radical_Pedagogy.html

Warner, J. (1990), Semiotics, information science, documents and computers, Journal of Documentation, 46(1), 16-32

Wouters, P. (1993), Writing histories of scientometrics or what precisely is scientometrics?

Part 2: The Interpretative Approach to Citation Indexing


The second, and again, fragmented approach to citation indexing is best described as the interpretative approach which relies on the idea of citation as a communicative act that forms a relationship between texts. Firstly, May (1967: 890) suggests that citations are ‘deviants’ and are partly informed by the ‘scientific, political and personal motivations’ of the user. This has lead to citation indexing being viewed as a social science with the emphasis on communication between texts and also between authors. Mitroff (1972) questioned the normative approach in this way by suggesting that referencing relies on subjective behavior in the methods scientists use to cite. What this means, according to Gilbert and Mulkay (1982) is that citation behavior is context dependent. The problem with this approach was best summarized by Blackwell and Kochtanek (1981) who point out that while citation indexing is a communicable relationship involving two texts, it does not make it explicitly clear what the nature of the relationship actually is. This leads to the inclusion of psychological analysis in the debate. Harter, Nisonger and Weng (1993) suggest that there is psychological validity to citation usage in that they don’t always retain a clear topical relevance. However, little consensus was reached regarding what the texts are actually saying to each other given the rather slippery application of terms like ‘subjective’ and ‘context-based’.

Once again, as long as a fragmented, rather than holistic approach, is taken to the subject the real value of citation indexing, if any at all, will not be realized. For example, Stanely Fish (1989, 164) argues from a reader-response perspective that “the convention is a way of acknowledging that we are involved in a community activity in which the value of one’s work is directly related to the work that has been done by others; that is, in this profession you earn the right to say something because it has not been said by anyone else, or because while it has been said, its implications have not been spelled out.” However, Fish’s explanation only assesses the citation process through an insular relationship between two texts rather assessing qualitatively ‘why’ a specific cited text is valuable. His approach still falls victim to the idea expressed by Voos and Dagaev (1976) that citations function on the assumption that they have and equivalent value. In this sense, citations fail to distinguish between degrees of importance between differently weighted texts. This has lead to Czarniawska-Joerges’ (1998, 63) supposition that citations act as a “trace of conversations between texts”. In this sense, Merton’s (1977, 84) early argument that citations are too cognitively complex to be accurate and comprehensive in their citation behavior still holds true. However, this does not prevent Brodkey (1987, 4) and Bordieu (1991, 20) from falling back on the idea that there are normative procedures that regulate citation practices.

The key problem with the interpretative approach is that it takes the scientific tenet that the process of citing and the relationship between texts needs to be clearly defined. Post-structuralist theory can be useful in this sense in that it demonstrates that one cannot really assert clear definitions based around authorial intention onto context-based reading processes. Roland Barthes’s (1967) essay ‘The Death of the Author’ argues that understanding the intention of an author is neither useful or desirable when understanding textual referents. This is because language operates not as a circular reciprocal structure, but as a more dispersed set of signs. A citation marker then, cannot refer backwards to highlight the importance of an older text, but rather, a citation marker can only refer forward into the future of that ‘old’ text. This is because language does not work as a static system; in post-structuralism, language is a highly dispersive and heterogenous marker that pushes ‘past’ texts into the future while having the impact of re-contextualizing them in the process. The interpretative approach views language as something ordered and permanent. The fact that they cannot figure out what these ‘ordered’ citation markers are actually saying should act as a solid indicator that they do not engage in a conversation between the original cited work and the work that is citing, and that each time a work is cited it is transformed into a new context taking on new signification. In this sense, the author as an authority becomes irrelevant and dispersed in that he/she cannot possibly retain control of the original information. It is here where the academics theorizing citation indexing come unstuck. If they fall back upon a normative approach, then they must realize how ideologically corrupt that approach is due to the overarching commodification of education and research, not to mention the fact that the normative theory is an attempt to assert to control and authority in asserting predictable practices. However, if they embrace contemporary linguistic and culturally theory, then they must accept that they will loss control of the hierarchy altogether.


Barthes, Roland (1967), The Death of the Author, Aspen, No. 5-6

Blackwell, P.K. & Kochtanek, T.R. (1981), An iterative technique for document retrieval using descriptors and relations, Proceedings of the 44th American Society for Information Science Annual Meeting, Washington: ASIS, 215-217

Bordieu, P. (1991), Language and Symbolic Power, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Brodkey, L (1987), Academic Writing as Social Practice, Philidelphia: Temple University Press

Czarniawska-Joerges B. (1998), Narrative Approach to Organization Studies, London: Sage

Fish, S. (1989), Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies, Durham NC, Duke University Press

Gibert, G.N. & Mulkay, M. (1980), Contexts of scientific discourse: social accounting in experimental papers, in Knorr, K.D. et al (eds.), The social process of scientific investigation, Dordrecht: Reidel, 269-294

Harter S.P., Nisonger T.E. and Weng A. (1993), Semantic relationships between cited and citing articles in library and information science journals, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 44(9), 543-552

May, K.O. (1967), Abuses of citation indexing, Science, 156, 890-892

Merton, R.K. (1977), The sociology of science: an episodic memoir, The Sociology of Science in Europe, Carbondale: South Illinois University Press, 3-141

Mitroff, .I.I. (1972), The myth of subjectivity or why science needs a new psychology of science, Management Science, 18, 613-618

Voos, H. & Dagaev, K.S. (1976), Are all citations equal? Or did we op.cit. your idem? Journal of Academic Librarianship, 1(6), 19-21

Digital Curation & Preservation: At what cost?

brainIt continues to astound me on this MLIS course how many ideas, theories and practices blindly press ahead with the supposed ‘advancement’ of the industry without ever addressing important fundamental questions about the underlying nature, impact and value of the work being undertaken. It also amazes me at how information studies academics continue to theorise while passively ignoring the poststructuralist theory that has been informing many other disciplines uninterrupted for the last 50 years. Reading Helen Shenton’s work has left me no less bemused.

Digital curation and preservation takes as its starting point the mantra ‘we must preserve’ without ever asking whether or not it is right, or indeed valuable to preserve. Poststructuralism has worked hard to ensure that history and culture are not controlled as homogenous entities, but digital curation is now threatening to undo much of that good work. Poststructuralism is a theory of language that denies words as static culture building objects, and instead views language as a highly dispersive subjective heterogenous experience. It is the theory that underlies so much of our achievements in the last 50 years. It lead to the feminist movement, to the reconceptualisation of history as a discipline, and to the destruction of periodisation in literature. With real world artifacts we still have the potential to make new discoveries about the past. However, with born-digital objects which only have a lifespan of up to 25 years, we will not have the capacity to re-write the past through new discoveries. As a result, the digital curators of today are essentially the historians of tomorrow. The files that they choose to save will create a static history that cannot be questioned in the future. Howard Zinn, a postmodern historian argued that history has traditionally been written by those who win wars. Digital Curation, which is funded by governments or private organizations, is in danger of destroying the culture it is aiming to preserve in what could be become a Big Brother like scenario.


Helen Shenton’s work in ‘Virtual reunification, virtual preservation and enhanced conservation’ focuses on the digitisation of dispersed works. It is in many ways a hugely interesting project, but it needs to be taken to question about its real underlying value. It is disturbing that Shenton’s work has as its goal ‘reunification’. This word summons forth a whole litany of other terms like ’empire’, ‘colonisation’, ‘power’, ‘race’, ‘slavery’ and ‘control’ to name but a few. This word inherently references imperialism at a time when the breaking apart of the United kingdom has become a real possibility in the near future. The fact that some important texts exist in a dispersed format is in itself culturally significant because it is indicative of the breaking apart of empire itself. Bringing these texts together has the potential to create a false narrative and a homogenous cultural discourse, and in this sense Shenton, like many of her contemporary information professionals, uses an outmoded form of structuralism to inform her ideas. She argues, in relation to the Sinaiticus Project, that it requires ‘the production of an historical account of the document’ that needs to be objective. The very idea that a homogenous ‘objective’ narrative is being added to these documents is a regulating process that ignores the lessons learned in the arts through poststructuralism. Structuralism is also implicitly referenced in the layer of information in the form of digital links over the manuscripts, which again inherently asserts control and authority over the material. Shenton has not stopped to ask what is the cost of such a project. Nor has she asked why the British Library feel as though they have the right to oversee the reunification of material from different cultures around the world.

The British Library is not only collecting material, but they are seeking to play a role in culture building. I thought the function of a library was to provide non-judgemental access to information. Shenton talks about ‘enhancing’ culture through diplomacy insofar as cultural diplomacy can play a role in international relations. It shows that there is an implicit and dangerous politics behind these preservation projects. Questions need to be posed regarding for whom is the British Library attempting to play a role in international relations and to what end? This project seems to be going beyond simply collecting material, but is ‘using’ material to re-tell an old story of empire. It feeds into an attempt by governments to create and control fake grand narratives. Howard Zinn’s principle of postmodern history was a way of challenging power by telling history through dispersed narratives. Shenton’s digitisation project runs the risk of more easily cutting off avenues to the past for us here in the present, but more dangerously, for people in the future. It poses the danger of manipulating information in ways that reassert a new kind of imperialism, a new homogeny of information, and an oppressive future in which subjectivity is no longer valued.


Narrative and compassion in management practice


For many years now I have been reminding myself of the reasons why my studies in English Literature have been so important to my own professional development. Through this self-reassurance I have constantly re-affirmed the concept that if one can understand the way a story or narrative in constructed, then one can understand better how the world itself is created. In this sense, it is interesting that Peter Brophy draws upon theories of narrative and story to inform ‘Evidence Based Library and Information Practice’ (ELIB). However, I do feel as though there is one key characteristic that is missing from his theory and that is of primary importance to storytelling. This year, I have read a lot of information and management theory relating to managing, teamwork, collaboration and leadership among others, but nowhere in that material have I encountered reflections on the importance of ‘compassion’ in both management and teamwork. It is only through compassion that a narrator can effectively create characters in stories, and, in organisations, having compassion is the only way one can understand and work with people’s own subjective and personal circumstances that they bring to work with them everyday, as well as understanding and accepting employees’ and customers’ limitations, while finding a way to work within them to achieve goals.

Brophy, drawing from Eldredge, outlines that evidence based learning and practice is both quantitative and qualitative but that there remains an imbalance in which emphasis is placed more on objective quantitative measures. However, he argues that this positivist approach does not apply well to librarianship because it involves a social system with variables that cannot be controlled within human interactions. Brophy shows an awareness of the prevalence of poststructuralism in contemporary social, cultural and linguistic theory: “To add to the complexity, all we have to describe the world is language, which itself introduces ambiguity, bias and difference.” Poststructuralism dictates that signs are not word-images but are experiences which are directed towards other signs based on the context of the receiver. To then try and take quantitative measures and apply them objectivity is an impossible task. Even one can take objective measures, these still have to be related to other people who are free to interpret the findings based on their own observations, meaning there is never a complete consensus agreed about the evidence collected and how it is to be used.

This leads Brophy on to consider post-positivism and social constructivism as qualitative approaches the may inform EBLIB by affirming the prevalence of narrative in human interactions. He argues that “These approaches suggest that rather than emphasising the transmission of “facts” (accepted knowledge about the world), modern societies need to encourage learning which encompasses both openness to differing world views and the ability to relate new ideas to existing knowledge in meaningful ways, so that each of us is continually constructing, sharing, and reconstructing our understanding of the world in all its complexity.” Such an approach emphasises the value of narrative in developing a more complete understanding of contexts and that can lead to greater decision-making for managers. This is because narrative allows one to look at evidence in context through structures: Culture, Holism, In-depth Studies, Chronology.


One practical way that this can be applied to a library’s ability to understand user services could be in the use of surveys. Surveys are, of course, a quantitative method of research. However, it is also possible to hold interviews with users about the survey itself in order to add a layer of understand to the results in which users have the ability to express their ideas in more subjective, less structured ways. This kind of evidence feeds into Brophy’s narrative approach. Of course, what it creates is a sequence of narratives which will still need to be gathered together into a coherent structure so that it can be applied to improving a service. In order to truly understand a user-group, one not only needs to create quantitative analysis of their habits and needs, but also to understand why they behave as they do, their motivations and their needs or desires. In order to successfully achieve this, managers need not only to know how to read graphs and charts, but also need to be able to read and understand people. And for this compassion is a quality that all good readers and subsequent narrators retain because it allows them to more fully understand the qualitative aspects to social interactions and systems.