National Library of Australia Staff Papers, 1999

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Kinetica:
Future Issues

Presented by Andrew Wells & Julia Trainor at the 13th National Cataloguing Conference, Brisbane, Queensland, 13-15 October 1999.

Introduction

Kinetica was implemented during a period of major change in Australian libraries. One of these changes has been the outsourcing of cataloguing. Another change is the increasing adoption of the Z39.50 protocol in cataloguing clients and cataloguing operations. These changes are especially significant for Kinetica's business and strategic planning.

After six months of operation, the National Library is preparing to review and evaluate the new Kinetica service, and revise the Kinetica business plan. There is strong interest, especially from cataloguers, in the features of the cataloguing client and its future development. The challenge for Kinetica is to align the development of the software with the changing business and strategic directions of the service.

An interactive session at the National Cataloguing Conference gave Australian cataloguers an opportunity to participate in the discussion of these issues.

Kinetica business

It must be stated from the outset that Kinetica is not ABN. ABN's major roles were national online shared cataloguing, and the management of interlibrary document requests. When ABN started life, only a few Australian libraries were using computer systems for these processes. Cataloguing and document delivery were largely manual operations. The National Library was a significant source of cataloguing records for Australian libraries, through the provision of catalogue cards and MARC records.

Nearly twenty years later, Kinetica's business environment is quite different. Everywhere cataloguing is an automated activity. Good quality cataloguing data is readily available. Most libraries have local systems to integrate their acquisitions, cataloguing and circulation activities. Many libraries obtain their cataloguing data from library suppliers, who offer 'MARC with books' services. Many local systems have their own Z39.50 client software which may be used to target other systems for cataloguing and location information. Library staff and their clients are heavy Internet users, and are requesting rapid links from citation data to full text data or document requesting systems.

In this environment Kinetica has defined its core business as resource sharing for Australian libraries. Cataloguing is a critical component of resource sharing, and cataloguing data is critical for Kinetica and the NBD. However, the activity of cataloguing is increasingly being done outside libraries, so the process of cataloguing can no longer be core business for Kinetica.

Kinetica strategic directions

Kinetica's challenge is to support resource sharing for Australian libraries, in an environment where libraries have many choices. Libraries may use Z39.50 clients to obtain cataloguing data from a range of different sources, to the extent that many libraries originally catalogue only a small proportion of what they collect. The same freedom will soon apply to the act of document requesting. With the ILL Protocol, libraries will be able to launch document requests from their local document request management systems, rather than log on to a national system. The LIDDA development, due for implementation in mid 2000, will enable libraries to manage their document requesting activity on a local system, and target the national system for location and national request routing services. In such a distributed environment, Kinetica needs to clearly define its core business, and run a lean and flexible operation to minimise costs and adapt to change.

Online cataloguing in Kinetica

While online cataloguing is no longer core business for Kinetica, there are very significant benefits arising from online cataloguing on Kinetica. For Australian materials, for which Australian libraries are the primary source of cataloguing data, online cataloguing on Kinetica maximises the timeliness of data availability, and the coverage of the database. The state and national libraries, which benefit from legal deposit to build their collections, have an important role in making Australian cataloguing data available in a timely and comprehensive manner. Many special libraries, especially government libraries, adopt a similar role in contributing timely and comprehensive cataloguing data for their institutions' publications.

However, it must be acknowledged that there are also difficulties associated with online cataloguing direct to a central database. The cataloguing activity lacks integration with the local system, where acquisitions and item control data are required. The cataloguer may need to work on both the local and national systems, and the technical services functions may not be able to be fully integrated in the local work flow. Cataloguers may prefer to exercise choice in the selection of cataloguing client software, rather than use the Kinetica client. Online real time interactive sessions on the national system will be subject to the performance of libraries' Internet connection and telecommunications links, and may be impaired by local firewall configurations.

Fortunately there are other ways to build the NBD, as alternatives to online cataloguing. Cataloguers may catalogue on the local system and upload their data at intervals. Many libraries are planning to change from online to batch contribution of cataloguing records. It is important to retain the timeliness of data contributed in batch mode. This represents an important change of direction for Kinetica, and means that future development needs to be focused on improving the efficiency of data loading, and needs to receive higher priority than improving the efficiency of the cataloguing client.

The Z39.50 standard has enjoyed wide acceptance among libraries and their system vendors. The National Library is keeping abreast of developments to this standard which would enable libraries to perform more of their cataloguing activity on the local system. Already many Australian libraries are interested in using the Z39.50 extended service for update, which will allow them to automatically update the NBD with their holdings. Kinetica is planning to introduce this service in a future release of the software. A further development would be the introduction of the Z39.50 union catalogue profile, which would support the automatic updating of the NBD with a full bibliographic record and holdings. It is too early to know the likely extent of uptake of the union catalogue profile among library system vendors, but this development would provide a boost to local cataloguing efficiency and the currency of the NBD.

Online cataloguing on Kinetica accounts for a tiny proportion of the cataloguing records on the National Bibliographic Database. Most records for overseas imprints come from national agencies (Library of Congress, British National Bibliography) and from overseas utilities (RLIN, OCLC). These sources are supplemented by original cataloguing created on local systems or provided by book suppliers. Although cataloguing records are significant assets of libraries, and are quite costly to create, they are increasingly regarded a free good. Some libraries expect cataloguing records to be provided ‘free’ with the purchase of books. Other libraries even use the Z39.50 protocol to help themselves to records from the catalogues which other libraries provide for resource discovery purposes. In this environment, there is no future in Kinetica being just a good MARC record shop. This is reflected in the evolving charging policy, which charges for searching and document requesting rather than for cataloguing records.

In this light it is interesting to consider the purpose of Table of Contents data. Table of Contents data was previously provided on the NBD to improve the quality of records available for downloading to local catalogues. In the new Kinetica environment, Table of Contents enhanced records are more significant in support of end user access to the NBD, to better inform interlibrary document requesting.

Kinetica’s future support for cataloguing

As more libraries decide to catalogue on their local systems, or to obtain their cataloguing from other sources, Kinetica’s future development needs to support distributed cataloguing rather than centralised cataloguing. In particular, there is a need to increase the range of copy cataloguing available to libraries via Kinetica. Kinetica’s new RLIN service has demonstrated the value of Z39.50 to download RLIN records direct to the requesting library’s database. To build the national union catalogue, and to meet future demand for batch contribution, it is essential that Kinetica continue to develop the speed and efficiency of its batch loading operations. With cataloguing being performed on local systems, there is a need to provide access to the Kinetica authority file, to improve the consistency of authorities used in cataloguing departments across the nation. These developments are much more pressing than significant further development of the Kinetica cataloguing client.

Collaboration after outsourcing

When cataloguing is outsourced, it is only the processing aspects of cataloguing which are outsourced. The management of cataloguing outcomes is still the responsibility of the cataloguing manager. With the outsourcing of cataloguing taking place in an environment of contracting library budgets, responsibilities such as contribution to the NBD, and management of data quality, have sometimes been left behind. The impact of outsourcing on the NBD has been considerable in recent years. Major data quality problems were experienced with the sudden wave of outsourcing in 1996. Since then, the commercial cataloguing services have grown and improved to meet the demands of libraries. With the outsourcing of cataloguing in universities, reporting to the NBD has been a casualty. Hopefully, libraries will correct this as they develop the facility to export records from their local systems to the NBD. If resource discovery and interlibrary resource sharing are to have a viable future, managers of outsourced cataloguing operations will need to make new arrangements for their libraries’ relationships with Kinetica, and Kinetica will need to find new ways to support these relationships.

Kinetica Interfaces Seminar, Melbourne 1998

When Kinetica implementation was under way in 1998, the National Library convened a meeting of selected libraries, library system vendors and library suppliers to consider how Kinetica will need to support the contribution of holdings to the NBD in an environment of outsourced cataloguing. The seminar identified three models for libraries to contribute their holdings to Kinetica after outsourcing. The two simpler models were preferred and endorsed. One model had the library contributing the records to the NBD. A second model had the cataloging agency simultaneously sending records to the customer library and to the NBD. A third model, whereby the agency supplied the records to the library via the NBD, was not preferred, for reasons of complexity and delay. The report from this seminar still makes interesting reading at http://www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/interfaceseminar.html

Bibliographic standards

As libraries elect to catalogue on their local systems, or to purchase cataloguing from library suppliers, there is an impact on bibliographic standards. With cataloguing records coming from a variety of sources, both within Australia and from overseas, records must use common standards to minimise compliance costs for libraries. ABN had a strong commitment to international bibliographic standards, but some local Australian practices were used. An Expert Advisory Group on the Application of ABN Standards Committee Resolutions to Kinetica recommended the more rigorous adoption of international bibliographic standards. The most contentious change has been the policy on the Australian extension to the Library of Congress Subject Headings. No longer will Australian terminology be substituted for LCSH terminology. Australian terminology will be supported in additional references, rather than hard coded in the bibliographic record. This will enable libraries to source their MARC records from any source, and to provide Australian subject access through the authority file and the OPAC software, rather than through the data itself. To exploit the benefits of this solution, libraries will need to load the Kinetica authorities to their local systems.

As Kinetica tightens its compliance with international standards, Australian cataloguers who wish to influence cataloguing standards will need to focus on international standards rather than Australian practice. Through the Australian Committee on Cataloguing, Australia is represented on two international bodies which shape cataloguing standards used in Australian libraries: the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR, and the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee.

Cataloguers and Kinetica: the future role

Practising cataloguers have been a significant source of advice for the development of the centralised cataloguing services of Kinetica’s predecessor ABN. With the changes in our industry, it is vital for cataloguers to keep in step with the strategic thinking of their library managers. Many cataloguers are still providing advice on Kinetica standards and the technicalities of the Kinetica cataloguing client, at the same time as their senior managers are planning to discontinue online cataloguing in Kinetica. Cataloguers have much to offer the future development of Kinetica, but to be relevant, their advice needs to be in step with the strategic directions of their libraries. The opportunities for cataloguers are increasingly to influence the shape of their libraries' catalogues and bibliographic access, by whatever means this is achieved. Similarly, cataloguers have opportunity to shape Kinetica and the NBD to deliver resource discovery and document delivery services into the future. And for cataloguers, that is as it should be.

Andrew Wells
Assistant Director-General, Kinetica

Julia Trainor
Director, Kinetica Implementation