Cataloging and Metadata Commons^™

Beyond Abstracts: Reflections On Locating Institutional Ethnography Studies In Bibliographic Databases And Navigating The Social Organization Of Knowledge, Sonya Hill

Journal of Institutional Ethnography

This article draws on the challenges encountered, discoveries made, and search strategies employed during a scoping review of Institutional Ethnography (IE). While informed by that review process, the article is not a scoping review and does not present review findings. Rather, it reflects on the practical difficulties of locating IE studies in bibliographic databases and offers guidance for researchers seeking to identify, retrieve, and enhance the visibility of IE scholarship. Grounded in my efforts to locate IE studies, the article uses those experiences as an entry point for reflecting on the social organization of knowledge and how database indexing, metadata, …

From Scrolls To Algorithms: A Critical Analysis Of Generative Ai, Digital Preservation, And Ranganathan’S Normative Philosophy, Madhu K S

Book Chapters

The paper discusses the developments in human information access across three historical paradigms including physical scarcity, digital abundance, and synthetic algorithmic mediation with Generative AI. History is discussed with the philosophical aspects of Floridi’s Philosophy of Information, Christine Borgman’s Digital Scholarship Framework, and S R Ranganathan’s Normative Library Science. This conceptual paper explores the transition from finding documents to creating answers with AI it has changed human thinking and reliability on information. This transition has changed how people believe and trust the source of information. This paper looks at the material ethics regarding how commercial large language models (LLM) are …

More Than A Name: Reparative Description For Women’S Archives, Allison Mccormack, Hallie Oines

Journal of Western Archives

This article describes a reparative description initiative at an academic library aimed at improving access to women’s archival collections. By hiring a metadata specialist through grant funding, the project revised legacy MARC records to update, expand, and standardize collection descriptions. Prioritizing inclusive language and accurate subject headings, the team addressed gaps that previously hindered discovery of women’s materials. Over two years, 818 records were remediated, enhancing creator, topical, and genre/form access points. The article discusses project challenges, strategies for respectful description, and the resulting improved discoverability, offering a replicable model for reparative archival work.

Ucf Libraries 2026 Faculty Research Showcase, Thomas R. Caswell, Patrick D. Green, Rae Mair, Yuqing Li, Athena Hoeppner, Sai Deng, Jeanne Piascik, Nokimul Hasan Arif, Peter Spyers-Duran, Tina Buck

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The University of Central Florida (UCF) Libraries’ Faculty Research Showcase is an annual tradition that celebrates the scholarly achievements, research, and creative work of library faculty.

The 2026 Showcase took place on August 4, 2026, and features six engaging presentations covering a diverse range of topics:

• Thomas Caswell – UCF Libraries Faculty Scholarship: Growth & Impact

• Patrick Green – Making Moves: A Cross-Institutional Presentation on Library Skill Transference

• Rae Mair & Yuqing Li – Generative AI as Peer Tutor: Designing & Evaluating a Prompt to Support Source Identification & Evaluation

• Athena Hoeppner – Have you ever …

Mississippi Libraries Volume 88, Number 1 And 2

Mississippi Libraries

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Katie Gill, Audrey Beach

Mississippi Libraries

Reviews of:

Alsup, William. The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. Athens, GA: New South Books, 2022.

Loewen, James W., Byron D’Andra Orey, and Charles Sallis, eds. Mississippi, Conflict and Change. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2025.

Mississippi Library Association Annual Conference: 2025 Recap, Janessa Ullendorf

Mississippi Libraries

Recap from the 2025 annual conference of the Mississippi Library Association.

Slis Notes: Psst...Do You Have This Dirty Book?, Stacy Creel, Crystal Walker

Mississippi Libraries

Romance fiction is one of the most commercially successful and culturally significant genres in contemporary publishing, and this is not a one-year instance; it is a multi-year trend (Adams, 2026). In 2025, sales were up in the United States, and the growth was across platforms and formats—digital audio, e-books, and print. Two subgenres have sparked greater interest—romantasy and dark romance. Romantasy, the combination of romance and fantasy, has drawn new readers with the explosion of Sarah J. Maas, and dark romance, which gained some notoriety with Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) has seen strong growth and acceptance. In fact, the …

President's Page, Dawn Zimmerer

Mississippi Libraries

Update from the president of the Mississippi Library Association.

Front Matter

Mississippi Libraries

No abstract provided.

Olac Best Practices For Cataloging Dvd-Video And Blu-Ray Discs, Objects, Streaming Media, Video Games, And Digital Media Storage Devices Using The Original Rda Toolkit And Marc 21, Kristi Bergland, Mary Huismann, John Dickson, Autumn Faulkner, Robert B. Freeborn, Jeannette Ho, Sarah Hovde, Kyla Jemison, Yoko Kudo, Junghae Lee, Jack Nighan, Alex Whelan

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

The OLAC Unified Best Practices Guide brings together the current published best practice guides into a single best practices guide that incorporates Best Practices for Cataloging DVD-Video and Blu-ray Discs Using RDA and MARC21, Best Practices for Cataloging Objects Using RDA and MARC 21, Best Practices for Cataloging Streaming Media Using RDA and MARC21, Best Practices for Cataloging Video Games Using RDA and MARC21, and Best Practices for Cataloging Digital Media Storage Devices Using RDA and MARC21.

Full Marc Examples To Accompany Olac Best Practices For Cataloging Dvd-Video And Blu-Ray Discs, Objects, Streaming Media, Video Games, And Digital Media Storage Devices Using The Original Rda Toolkit And Marc 21, Kristi Bergland, Mary Huismann, John Dickson, Autumn Faulkner, Robert B. Freeborn, Jeannette Ho, Sarah Hovde, Kyla Jemison, Yoko Kudo, Junghae Lee, Jack Nighan, Alex Whelan

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

Examples of MARC 21 catalog records to accompany the OLAC Best Practices for Cataloging DVD-Video and Blu-ray Discs, Objects, Streaming Media, and Video Games Using the Original RDA Toolkit and MARC 21.

Ethos: A Computational Framework For Material Culture Research, Chelsea L. Grafe

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Museum catalog records make large collections searchable, but they do not always preserve the reasoning behind the claims they contain. A record may present a quilt's identity as settled while leaving the reasoning behind that claim invisible, making it difficult for later researchers to check, question, or reuse. This project asks whether museum catalog data can be analyzed in a way that keeps each analytical claim connected to the evidence that supports it. To test this question, the project applies a material-first computational framework named Ethos. Ethos formalizes an object-centered inquiry sequence in which material dependencies establish where analysis begins …

Ai And Cataloging: What Do We Know, 4 Years In?, Emily Baldoni, Angela Yon

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This poster will disentangle AI hype from AI reality by providing a systematic review and meta-analysis of the current empirical research on AI applications for cataloging. Since the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI has been proposed as a tool for increasing efficiency and freeing up librarians' time across all areas of librarianship, especially in the area of cataloging and metadata. There is often a gap, however, between current AI realities and the requirements of highly structured library metadata. Surveys show that many catalogers are already using Large Language Model (LLM) tools, with human intervention, to assist in tasks …

Charting Queer Visibility: A Content Analysis Of Queer Picture Books, 2000-2024, Amanda Melilli, James W. Rosenzweig, Alicia G. Vaandering

Library Faculty Research

This poster session presents findings from a content analysis of queer picture books published from 2000 to 2024. In an initial review of more than 650 books, the authors analyzed narrative themes and the identities, orientations, and BIPOC and/or disability intersectionality of queer characters in each book. This research built a final book sample of more than 430 unique titles with identifiably queer characters. The findings map queer representation and narratives in picture books published in the U.S. and Canada during the twenty-first century.

Using Ai To Add Tables Of Contents To Cataloging Records, Marissa Bischoff, Lance Hansen

Faculty Publications

A table of contents and summary are important metadata that improve the discoverability and description of our materials. They are optionally included in catalog records, though, because transcribing these by hand is time intensive.

We sought the most efficient way to scan and AI format the table of contents pages for inclusion in the 505 field of catalog records.  We explored different AI software, iterative prompting and the time-effectiveness of the process, in comparison to hand-typed metadata fields.

How Systems Use The Research Organization Registry (Ror) For Research Integrity, Maria Gould, Adam Buttrick

FORCE 2026

As scholarly publishers strive to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record, verified author affiliations have become a key metric to assist with assessment of manuscript submissions. For instance, a recent article in Nature used author affiliations to identify problematic research practices at particular institutions, and a recent STM report on Trusted Identity in Academic Publishing points out that a verified author affiliation valuable as it links an individual to an organisation, providing a route for accountability where there would otherwise be none.

Knowing that there is a confirmed link between an author and a reputable research organization is a …

From National Pid Strategies To A Global Pid Standard: Defining What Counts As A Pid, John Chodacki

FORCE 2026

Over the last two years, national and regional PID strategies, including the US National PID Strategy, have helped communities to adopt and integrate persistent identifiers into research workflows. These strategies have highlighted a crucial next step: reaching a shared understanding of what actually constitutes a PID.

Building on the momentum of these strategies, NISO and RDA-US have launched a working group to develop a formal standard defining the characteristics of a persistent identifier system. This standard will help funders, institutions, infrastructure providers, and policymakers make consistent decisions about which identifiers to mandate, support, and integrate into workflows. This presentation will …

Building Trust From The Ground Up: Implementing A University Pid Action Plan For Research Integrity And Provenance, Jodi Neindorf, Kate Croker

FORCE 2026

Trust in research begins with transparency — knowing who did what, where, and when. Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) provide the infrastructure to support this transparency, making it possible to trace the provenance of research outputs, link contributors and institutions, and ensure that research is findable, accessible, and verifiable. In this presentation, we will share our university’s newly developed Persistent Identifier (PID) Action Plan — a strategic, institution-wide approach to implementing and integrating PIDs to enhance integrity, provenance, and trust across the research ecosystem. By aligning with the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) National PID Strategy, our university ensures interoperability with national …

A Mixed Score Card: Findings And Recommendations From Australia’S National Pid Benchmarking Toolkit, Simon Porter, Ann Campbell, Natasha Simons, Lyle Winton, Matthias Liffers

FORCE 2026

In 2024, Australia launched its National Persistent Identifier (PID) Strategy to accelerate research quality efficiency, and impact through the universal use of connected PIDs. To measure progress against this strategy, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) commissioned Digital Science to develop a comprehensive PID benchmarking framework and conduct Australia’s first national assessment of PID adoption. This presentation will share the key findings from the final report, the Australian National Per-sistent Identifier (PID) Benchmarking Toolkit (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29281667).

The report reveals a “mixed score card” for the nation’s research ecosystem. While Australia has achieved world-leading success in ORCID adoption for researchers …

Designing Provenance-Based System; The Chula Amata Digital Preservation System, Siriporn Khamyard

FORCE 2026

When the authenticity of digital objects is questioned, provenance serves as crucial evidence that archives use to attest to their authenticity. As an archive committed to long-term digital preservation goals, the Chula AMATA—Chulalongkorn University’s in-house developed digital preservation system, was designed and developed with the goals to capture all digital provenance information automatically as much as possible and record the contextual and administrative information as the additional provenance information that affects the capability and effectiveness of digital preservation actions. The system design was implemented the provenance principles at the workflow level across two main modules, two functions, and one separate …

Open Research Information - How To Support Publishers To Make Metadata Openly Availble, Bianca Kramer

FORCE 2026

Research information, or scholarly metadata, is important for decision making around strategic priorities, distribution of resources, and evaluation of researchers and institutions. It is also used to assess the effect of policies, and to find and assess research results. Open research information (free to access and free to (re)use) is increasingly valued for fair assessment and equitable decision making, and is also important in digital sovereignty.


The Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information calls on organizations performing, funding and evaluating research to make openness of research information the default, work with services and systems that support and enable open research …

Mapping Themes, Aligning Strategies: Institutional Research Analytics With Bertopic And Genai, Danping Dong, Pin Pin Yeo

FORCE 2026

Libraries and research offices are increasingly tasked with making sense of unstructured institutional data, such as research publications and strategic documents. These insights help inform decision-making and leadership planning. This session shares how SMU Libraries leveraged BERTopic, an open-source topic modeling tool, together with generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, to extract meaningful insights from faculty publications and support institutional sensemaking.

In one use case, we applied BERTopic to university-authored publications to surface thematic groupings related to research about Asia. Generative AI tools were then used to summarize each cluster into human-readable narratives, enabling research landscape mapping, identification …

Sharing The Load: Building An Open Research Information Collective, Cameron Neylon, Bianca Kramer

FORCE 2026

The rise of open research information resources is transforming the way we track, analyse and study research systems. Increasingly sources like OpenAIRE, OpenAlex, Crossref, DataCite, ORCID, ROR and others are being used as the basis for making decisions, designing interventions

and understanding progress. This operates both at the small scale, where access to data and evidence is easier than it has ever been, to the very large scale analysis of whole systems. Modern open data sources provide access, including access to full copies of the data, but there has been less focus on providing this access in a way that …

Pre-Conference Workshop 4: Global Perspectives On Open Research Information, Dominika Tkaczyk, Bianca Kramer

FORCE 2026

Research information (or metadata) relates to the conduct and communication of research. his includes bibliographic metadata, information about research software, research data, funding, research contributors, and more. It is located in systems such as bibliographic databases, software archives, data repositories, and current research information systems. Many research information infrastructures are closed, and yet they play an important role in research assessment and resource allocation in many countries. The Barcelona Declaration on Open research Information seeks to drive fundamental changes in this landscape. How do these concerns play out in other regions—are they shared globally? In this session, with a series …

Pre-Conference Workshop 3: Pids And Research Integrity: Paths To Increase Provenance For Research For Asia Pacific Universities And Researchers, Brian Minihan

FORCE 2026

Interest in persistent identifiers (PIDs) is growing for metadata simplicity of research, but details of provenance also accompany connections between people, works, and organisations through PIDs. Are there paths of cooperation for those entrusted with curating research in South, South East and East Asia?

The veracity, simplicity and ability to authenticate metadata stored by PIDs is why several nations are exploring national strategies.

This interactive workshop seeks to engage stakeholders with a focus on the Asia Pacific region to discuss methods to bring institutions to consider whether PIDs adoption increases research integrity, or practical methods institutions can undertake in their …

Volume 46, Number 2, June 2026 Olac Newsletter, Laura Kane Mcelfresh, Kyla Jemison, Tanesa G. King, Nerissa Lindsey, Amanda Mack, Michael Herrick, Heather Pretty, Lisa Romano, Janelle Zetty

OLAC Newsletters

Digital version of the June 2026 issue of the OLAC Newsletter.

What Collaboration Means To Me: From Coordination To Collective Action: Cclp And Cyclops As Infrastructure For Collaborative Collection Stewardship, Boaz Nadav-Manes

Collaborative Librarianship

Academic libraries face growing pressure to manage complex collections under significant resource constraints. While consortial collaboration has long been recognized as a strategic response, existing models remain limited, often failing to influence the full collections lifecycle. This article examines how the Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Project (CCLP) and the Cyclops platform together offer a new model for moving beyond coordination toward genuine collective action in collection stewardship. CCLP provides a community-governed framework structuring collaboration from selection and acquisition through preservation and deaccessioning, while Cyclops complements it with an open, analytics-driven infrastructure that aggregates data across institutions, enabling cross-institutional analysis and translating …

But That’S Not What We Said: Communication Strategies For Digital Project Collaboration, Robert G. Weaver, Matthew Mceniry, Megan Scott

Collaborative Librarianship

The Texas Tech University (TTU) Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) often collaborates on digitization projects with the Southwest Collection (SWC) archives. Within the past three years the DSL has branched out to new sources of projects, including university research institutions, other colleges and departments, and Lubbock community entities. At times, these partnerships became entangled with the SWC’s collecting goals, resulting in the need for expanded and more effective communication about integrated project management. This paper will look at three examples of communication and collaboration between the DSL and the SWC on unique projects, their results, as well as the interdepartmental enhancements …

How Open Is Merlot? A Descriptive Study Of Oer Availability In A Major Learning Object Repository., James Thibeault, Jamie Schmidt

Open Educational Resources Publications

The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) has long been regarded as a reputable source of open educational resources (OER). However, this reputation has rarely been subjected to systematic empirical scrutiny. This preliminary descriptive study examines how reliably MERLOT's Business section surfaces OER. Using a browsing-based methodology mirroring typical user behavior, 500 catalog records were manually evaluated across six access status categories. Results indicate that only 134 of 500 sampled resources (26.8%) qualify as OER under a definition requiring both open licensing and immediate accessibility. Of the 315 live links, 42.5% were OER, while 136 records (27.2%) …