Crossing the threshold: digital cataloguing practices, some thoughts

Abstract

Digital cataloguing practices carried out by libraries, particularly public libraries, present a number of critical issues, that the Covid-19 contingency has greatly emphasised. Criteria adopted to identify and to describe digital reproductions of analogue publications, as well as native digital editions, appear to be inconsistent and misleading. So far cataloguers have acted on the assumption that digital reproductions have the same features of xeroxes, microfilms or microfiches. New software tools, combined with the greater flexibility of digital files, imply that differences existing between the two media should require a different treatment in terms of cataloguing. Characteristics specific to digital objects deserve to be described with the same care as those of analogue publications in the first place because they have an impact on the way readers can make use of them, and secondly because they could be used as search keys, especially as query facets. Another area of concern is the development of descriptive standards aimed at bringing into the catalogue resources of a different nature from bibliographic items. The reason for doing so is the idea of turning the catalogue into part of the semantic infrastructure of the web. Having given insufficient consideration to cataloguing principles and to catalogue functions, in favour of a more pragmatic approach, is threatening to strip the catalogue of its substance, encouraging at the same time the replacement of library services with those offered by subjects not sharing the same cultural and social goals.