We now turn to a discussion of "Telecataloging, Telecommuting and Remote Cataloging" hosted by Dr. Brad Eden. Dr. Eden is currently coordinator of technical services, automated library services, at the North Harris Montgomery Community College District in Houston, Texas. Previous experience includes cataloger for the NEEDS Project, an NSF grant which included telecataloging remotely from Houston for Iowa State University (see http://www.needs.org); 3.5 years as head cataloger for the Johnson Space Center, NASA; and seven years of paraprofessional experience in music cataloging and authorities work at the University of Kansas. Dr. Eden holds a master's and a Ph.D. degree in medieval musicology, as well as a Master of Library Science degree from the University of North Texas. Dr. Eden serves on a number of ALA committees dealing with cataloging, and has done book reviews for JILDDIS, The Serials Librarian, and TER.
Please join us for a discussion of "Telecataloging, Telecommuting and Remote Cataloging: Alternatives to Traditional Technical Services."
Telecataloging, telecommuting, remote cataloging -- all of these terms describe a phenomenon that has just begun to emerge as a work option in the library environment. Telecommuting appeared in the early 1990's as an experiment in some large multinational corporations, and has so far been a resounding success as a viable workplace alternative for both employers and employees alike. In the library environment, telecommuting experiments have been particularly geared towards the technical services area. These experiments have engendered new terms, such as telecataloging and remote cataloging. Here are some interesting statistics to consider:
A person working one or two days a week at home can save a company or library $6,000 to $12,000 a year through lower turnover, reduced office space, and hikes in productivity.
In 1994 almost nine million people telecommuted, a 20 percent increase over the previous year. By 1998, that number will increase to 13 million.
Over the past three years, Ernst & Young, the accounting and consulting firm, has reduced its office space by two million feet, resulting in a savings of $25 million a year.
AT&T has 3.5 percent of its employees telecommuting, and hopes to raise this number to 15 percent by the year 2000. It saved $80 million in real estate costs last year from its 35,000 telecommuters.
2,500 employees out of 56,000 at Hewlett-Packard telecommute at least part-time as of November 1995.
Savings on lunches, wear and tear on a car, and clothing can amount to $1,000 a year savings for employees, as well as reduced stress and an increased sense of freedom.
Employee productivity increases about 8 percent to 20 percent.
A GSA survey, released after the first annual Telecommute America! celebration, asked Fortune 1000 executives who incorporate telecommuting as a workplace alternative what their opinions were on this topic. Sixty-four percent cited savings on office space costs, 58 percent cited increased productivity, 63 percent mentioned improved employee retention, 61 percent cited reduced absenteeism, 63 percent mentioned reduced employee stress, and 79 percent cited improved employee morale. An overwhelming 92 percent of these executives said that telecommuting had produced advantages in savings for their companies.
Such amazing statistics in favor of telecommuting are transforming the way corporate America does business in this era of downsizing. Only recently are libraries exploring the possibilities of telecommuting, especially in the area of technical services. I personally worked full-time for nine months and currently work part-time as a remote cataloger for Iowa State University from my home in Houston, Texas (see a description of the Synthesis Coalition and the NEEDS Project and database at http://www.needs.org. While cataloging computer files remotely is more feasible than books or other physical objects, libraries need to explore the opportunities that telecommuting can provide. Please take a look at a special issue of LIBRES, an electronic, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal in the field of Library and Information Science Research, where I have been editor of a series of articles on this topic (http://indigo.lib.lsu.edu/epubs/libres). There are also quite a number of links to telecommuting sites on the Web. Hopefully, these articles and links will help to stimulate discussion on this issue. Some questions that I would like everyone to consider and answer, in order to begin discussion:
We do not use any sort of tele-workers, but I see great potential for this approach for libraries that are located in remote areas that may not be able to locally support the staff with the needed expertise in cataloging, etc.
Telecommuters by nature can literally be located anywhere. Our library in Houghton, Michigan, USA (about as far north in the state of Michigan as you can get) could hire trained/experienced telecommuters that are located in Ann Arbor, Chicago, New York City, or even Sidney, Australia!
I believe that the greatest barriers to this type of approach (and perhaps why there are not many replies to this subject?) is that this concept is little used in the library world and is foreign to many of us. I confess that while I find this approach intriguing, I have no idea of how to work it out. What technology do I need? Who is willing to do this kind of work? How do I locate them? Do I hire them as actual staff, contractors, or ?
I do authority control and database maintenance and need access to my on-line sources, e.g., OCLC and constant communication with my local database to move data and update information. I also live about 1 hour+ away from work I would like to telecommute but to maintain constant communication via the Internet, discounting direct lines would be extremely expensive. Most people I know who telecommute do specific tasks then send the information in bursts to cut costs.
The second factor is supervisory, as I view telecommuting. Supervisors need definitive ways of evaluating work accomplished, therefore a system to do monitoring would need to be brought into being.
The concept of telecommuters as contractors seems most likely to me to lead the way.
Im Ahorngrund 21
D-50996 Cologne (Hahnwald)
Germany
U.S. Office: (734) 764-9572
Fax: (734) 763-8937
German Office (49) 223-66-2157
Fax: (49) 223-66-2157
kwillis@umich.edu
I'm involved right now in Telecommuting and send this from my office in Germany. You are quite right that the opportunity to attract highly skilled personnel is geographically unlimited. I have also become convinced that telecommuting for those who live locally may enhance their productivity and reduce space requirements at the library. There are some articles that have been written by telecommuters and their bosses which contain generic insights into the type of person and type of project that will work well. They also talk about the equipment needed. However, the specifics will be determined by the nature of the work assignment. Cataloging would seem to be a good match. The Internet Public Library suggests possibilities for some reference activities as well.
Companies such as Lexis, IBM, AT&T have substantial experience with telecommuting and you might contact either the account person with whom you deal or the company's human resource office. They use both models-employees and contractors. I think the decision of which model again depends on the work assignment. For those which have a specific duration, a contractor relieves you of the long term commitment that an employee necessarily brings. If you want to experiment with the model, you might see if someone on your current staff would be interested or you might try advertising in one of the library publications. I suspect you may be surprised by the interest and response you receive. Testing this is definitely worth the effort.
Because we were at one time all in state, I invited all of our selectors to Ann Arbor (and paid their way) so they could meet and get some sense of team environment. We all worked together to create the selection criteria for the overall project and then worked separately on collection policies for their individual collections.
I've found that the supervisors who worry about the loss of direct supervision and possible loss of productivity can alleviate their fears with good management techniques. Every job has an expected outcome either in quantity, tasks accomplished or a combination of the two. Clearly stated expectations at the beginning and a stated outcome can let the supervisor determine on a monthly (weekly, quarterly, etc.) basis whether the employee is indeed putting in the work required to meet that goal. If not, investigate why the goal isn't met -- extenuating circumstances, unrealistic expectations and a host of other possibilities could be having an affect.
Telemanaging a group of telecommuters has been challenging to get started but the network we've built is working quite well. I keep suggesting we put up a virtual water cooler, but our team seems to eschew the old icons and prefers to create new paths and traditions. Maybe we should look at gathering around the office router. ;-)
To address telecataloging specifically, although I'm not a cataloger, most cataloging is done from the piece (book, video, whatever) in hand, and I'm not sure I'd want to lug large quantities of library materials home and back on a regular basis. Some might find that it would be worth their while, of course.
I could see someone cataloging internet resources from home, at least if the employer subsidized an ISDN or higher speed line to the employee's home. I'm sure that some employees would also expect the employer to subsidize the computer.
What about the human urge to congregate with others? Is this met by chat rooms, newsgroups, etc.?
I'd appreciate some response from those who have either been telecommuters or deal with these issues.
However if we want to think or having some employees not in technical service having employment in a library but working out of their home - now that is something different. Imagine outsourcing our "ready reference" or telephone reference services. Just as the airlines hire people in remote areas to answer our telephone queries for passage to anyplace - we could have individuals make a local call which would be answered in a less expensive place which would have access to all the on-line information normally housed at reference desks. But the would we pay for this type of service?
Again, I would like those with Web access to visit the LIBRES Web page, where a recent special issue on Telecommuting and Technical Services was published (http://indigo.lib.lsu.edu/ and follow the links through the e-journals). I have provided links to all the major telecommuting operations currently on the Web, as well as their papers and current research/discussion on this topic. For those of you looking for more information, and how the corporate world is handling this new method of working, please check out these links.
I would like to describe for you my experiences as cataloger for the National Engineering Education Delivery System (NEEDS) Project, which I did from March 1995 to December 1995 full-time and from March 1996 to June 1996 part-time. When I graduated from library school in December 1994, I was looking for an innovative and exciting job for my first "professional" jump, having been a paraprofessional in various libraries for over 10 years. I saw an advertisement over the Internet for a cataloger on the above project, which is an NSF grant project supported by eight universities across the United States (Cornell University, University of California-Berkeley, California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, Stanford University, Iowa State University, Hampton University, Southern University, and Tuskegee University) (see http://www.needs.org in order to view the database). Their goal was to invigorate and develop the engineering curriculum, in order to produce team-oriented engineers rather than loner engineers, since this was what companies were moving towards. To make a long story short, they offered me the job (which was based at Iowa State University), but the grant was up for renewal, and I didn't want to move my family, in case the job fell through with renewed funding. The cataloging involved engineering computer courseware, available over the Internet to anyone who wanted to use it. The person in charge of the project saw no problem with providing me with the appropriate equipment and financial support to do the cataloging from my home in Houston, Texas. I made three two-week trips up to Ames, Iowa during the full-time status, in order to check in, to work with the library and engineering staff there, and to stay in touch. I also made several trips around the country for various meetings with other members of Synthesis. All of these costs were paid for by the NEEDS project. It was an interesting experience, one that I hope to write an article on, I was provided with both a Mac and an IBM computer, Internet hook up, and all expenses were paid when I attended meetings or went to Ames. Dilys Morris and Greg Wool at Iowa State were my supervisors. As for costs, the Internet monthly expenses were about $40 a month for the telephone connection and $30 a month for the Internet service. That's it; I sent the bills to Iowa State for payment. There were no costs to myself for anything; occasionally I had to pay for items and be reimbursed, but I always had everything paid for.
Are there other telecommuters, telecatalogers, remote catalogers out there who would like to share with us their costs and their experiences in this area? Let's keep this great discussion going!
Im Ahorngrund 21
D-50996 Cologne (Hahnwald)
Germany
U.S. Office: (734) 764-9572
Fax: (734) 763-8937
German Office (49) 223-66-2157
Fax: (49) 223-66-2157
kwillis@umich.edu
How about a different image:
An office with a broad window overlooking a bountiful flower garden and a sparkling green lawn. A dog curled up on his bed gently sleeping. Uninterrupted peace. A stack of completed work to the side of the desk representing yesterday's accomplishment and a new set of tasks waiting this morning's effort. Freedom to organize the order and timing of the work to achieve the best output.
When an organization starts to consider telecommuting, it gains the opportunity to rethink a lot of assumptions about work and our traditional ways of organizing and managing. You raise two of these.
The ability of a boss to send E-mail day and night is not unique to a telecommuter. Any boss can do this to any employee especially with the increase in those who have home PCs. What changes is the fundamental level of trust that a manger has for the employee and the understanding that (s)he is going to get work done without the need for daily oversight. In many cases that, too, exists in work settings in which the employee arrives each morning. It is just clearly a mandate of a telecommuting arrangement.
The urge to congregate with others is highly variable. Other than a mid-day break of about an hour, I spend my day engaged in my various work projects. I read E-mail once a day and I do visit campus one week a month because that enables me to update my bosses and to meet with others with whom I am working. I have some meetings here in Europe but for the most part I focus on the projects in which I am involved. I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to concentrate and to produce at a high level. I have also found that although there are meetings that I miss that would be helpful there are many more that are not useful and which draw me away from more productive activities.
With the progress in affordable technologies like desktop video and good phone connection, a telecommuter can participate in staff meetings and can feel a member of a work unit. It does take some effort by both manager and telecommuter until the new ways are learned but once done, the outcome is quite productive.
http://www.wired.com/4.08/scriptorium/
As some of the preceding discussion has illuminated, teleworking and/or telecommuting has been shown to possess both added value to organizations as well as potential managerial concerns. Such value would include the freeing of need for on-site space and resources for staff with all the implications this might entail as well as what some planners refer to as access stress and its subsequent reduction. This of course referring to time, energy, and environmental impacts to commuting to and from the workplace.
Management issues include both the issues of employee character, reliability and so forth and the need to truly measure advantage in productivity and employee satisfaction. It is often said that a happy staff member is a more productive one. Conversely of course, are the concerns over isolation and the potential fragmentation of corporate culture. Some organizations have tried to blend telecommuting with onsite activity to retain some dimension of this very issue.
Added to all this is what we are seeing in some of the "reengineered" workplaces where hierarchial structures are giving way to team based decision making with power structures flattening and so on. This change contributes to the cultivating of trust within an organization culture and does lend itself to successful teleworking efforts and greater cohesion of values, etc. albeit in a virtual domain.
The upshot of all this is that, teleworking and telecommuting does indeed work but it is not without issues of concern. The European Commission's Information Society Project Office (http://www.ispo.cec.be) is keen to this as much of their literature demonstrates.
Telecataloging proper (or even technical services), given the capabilities of file transfer, open systems, priority mail and so forth is quite feasible and can work quite well for libraries both for outsourcing ambitions and as the Electronic Scriptorium so competently demonstrates, for retrospective conversion. Having the right staff is critical. Having objectives and expectations clearly defined is also essential.
My sister telecommutes transcribing medical OR dictation. She juggles three children at home thus saving on childcare. She also gets paid by the deliverable, not by the hour or salary. Technology has made this possible, but again, circumstances, employee character and organization needs have factored centrally is such arrangement's success.
I too fear that telecommuting could ultimately result in "sweatshop" conditions. There have been a number of reports on TV or in the print media which pointed out problems for telecommuters. Many such employees have ended up being pushed into the position of being essentially "contractors" who received few, if any, company benefits. They often had no job security, no health insurance, no sick or vacation leave, etc. This would be especially troublesome for lower-level employees, who earn less to begin with. These are facts which an employee who is considering telecommuting might want to think about.
Another trend which concerns me is the current infatuation with "outsourcing." Especially in situations such as the public library system in Hawaii which eliminated its entire cataloging department. Now they will have no one on staff who is responsible for ensuring that the outsourcers provide good quality, accurate cataloging. There will be no one to work with the database to keep it clean. Not to mention the cataloging staff who were either exiled into public service areas or effectively fired.
Both trends seem to me to reflect an attitude that cataloging is nothing more than slapping a record of some sort on a book or other material and that anyone can come in off the street, be told how to catalog (in 25 words or less... lengthy training costs money) and start right in. It is in effect deprofessionalizing cataloging and catalogers. It concerns me even more to know that apparently ALA no longer requires accredited library schools to require courses in cataloging for their M.L.S. (or other degree names) programs. If our own professional organizations are willing to de-emphasize the importance of professional cataloging, what hope can we have that management will not do the same?
These things concern me not only because they threaten the jobs of catalogers and their staff but also because they threaten to leave library databases in chaos, eventually. As I work from day to day I run across numerous problems, errors, inconsistencies, etc. I can't see how a telecommuter would be able to do this. And outsourcers, whose primary concern is the bottom line on the profit/loss statement, seem unlikely to provide much help in this regard.
Perhaps telecommuting and outsourcing will be able to play a role in cataloging, but let's hope that it never comes to the point that there is no one left who understands what cataloging is all about in the individual libraries. I believe that there are still many questions to be answered before irrevocable decisions are made.
I'm currently a researcher on a project looking into the changing skills requirements for staff working in what has been termed by our funders "the electronic library" (in higher education). The issues Shirley mentions regarding the de-professionalising of cataloguing hold true for the UK.
Cataloguing is an option on many library school curricula in England but few people select it. Interviews at various '"state of the art" higher education institutions here have revealed that nonprofessional staff often do the cataloguing -- after training. The large majority of records are downloaded from centralized databases for a small fee, and may only require minimal "tweaking" to fit in -- house requirements. Thus cataloguing is perceived to be a thing of the past for many organizations -- and is regarded as a traditional (i.e., outmoded) library skill. I'd be interested to hear other viewpoints regarding the type of skills people feel are essential for those working with electronic and printed media, especially the range and type of IT skills.
As this is not part of the telecataloguing/telecommuting debate people might like to reply to me personally.
>I cannot speak from a standpoint of library education or management. I am a "working cataloger" with a bit over 25 years experience. I do have some concerns about the development of telecommuting, outsourcing, etc.
>I too fear that telecommuting could ultimately result in "sweatshop" conditions. There have been a number of reports on TV or in the print media which pointed out problems for telecommuters. Many such employees have ended up being pushed into the position of being essentially "contractors" who received few, if any, company benefits. They often had no job security, no health insurance, no sick or vacation leave, etc. This would be especially troublesome for lower-level employees, who earn less to begin with. These are facts which an employee who is considering telecommuting might want to think about.
I think that isolation from other co-workers, which is where we lose the daily human face-to-face interaction, is another notable loss. It seems to be a trend that E-mail and telecommunications have enabled. While "quality time" can be encapsulated into weekly or monthly trips to the office, it's just like the myth with "quality time" and children. Something is lost when meaningful human relations must be jammed into a set amount of time -- it's the opportunity to relate personally and totally at any moment. With this trend, we're being driven to textual relationships, over E-mail, and time-limited direct relationships, with telecommuters going only periodically to visit the office. Work should not only be bottom-line production in a human-considerate environment. Work should be meant to serve the organization, the workers and the customers. In telecommuting I feel the organization loses some of its human relationship to workers, and workers may gain the ability to stay at home but lose the working relationship with co-workers. This is no small loss. However, in a society driven to find efficiency, that is focused on production values over human values, that is enamored with technology, I can see that the idea would be enticing -- another technological game or problem to solve.
>Another trend which concerns me is the current infatuation with "outsourcing." Especially in situations such as the public library system in Hawaii which eliminated its entire cataloging department. Now they will have no one on staff who is responsible for ensuring that the outsourcers provide good quality, accurate cataloging. There will be no one to work with the database to keep it clean. Not to mention the cataloging staff who were either exiled into public service areas or effectively fired.
>Both trends seem to me to reflect an attitude that cataloging is nothing more than slapping a record of some sort on a book or other material and that anyone can come in off the street, be told how to catalog (in 25 words or less... lengthy training costs money) and start right in. It is in effect deprofessionalizing cataloging and catalogers. It concerns me even more to know that apparently ALA no longer requires accredited library schools to require courses in cataloging for their M.L.S. (or other degree names) programs. If our own professional organizations are willing to de-emphasize the importance of professional cataloging, what hope can we have that management will not do the same?
Well said and how very true. In the rush to become more "modernistic," library schools are opting for more information science and computer systems analysis and in the process placing less value on "traditional" and less glamorous curricula, such as cataloging. All are essential to the optimal running of libraries and their provision of access to "information." All have value. All involve technical training, ethics, and philosophy. To be sure, cataloging, as well as current information science, will change and library schools must expand curricula to keep pace with, and outstrip, the changes. But nothing of value, such as cataloging, should be left behind. Cataloging, as Shirley said, is not just plopping a MARC record in a database, sticking a call number on a book, labeling the book and getting it to the shelf, and that's all. It's organizing the collection, now online instead of with cards, and being sure that all the collection interrelates and is consistent in access points (classification, subjects, headings) and description (a Boolean access point). This holds true whether the item is a book, computer program, video, serial, or Internet resource. To leave "cataloging" to anyone that doesn't understand this is to allow the database to eventual entropy and disassociation.
>These things concern me not only because they threaten the jobs of catalogers and their staff but also because they threaten to leave library databases in chaos, eventually. As I work from day to day I run across numerous problems, errors, inconsistencies, etc. I can't see how a telecommuter would be able to do this. And outsourcers, whose primary concern is the bottom line on the profit/loss statement, seem unlikely to provide much help in this regard.
As it takes a community to raise a child, so it takes a cataloging community to create and maintain a database. Hokey-sounding, yes, but if think about it, it makes sense. Lone workers can do much on their own. Outsourcing companies can get more end products created. If both are conscientious, and have standards and goals, then the outcomes will be good. However, they won't have the ability to focus on the database as a whole, as an entire cataloging department would. Sole telecommuters won't be able to, and outsourcing companies probably won't have the time-cost margin to allow them to, be concerned with the quality of the entire database and how each record interrelates with the whole.
>Perhaps telecommuting and outsourcing will be able to play a role in cataloging, but let's hope that it never comes to the point that there is no one left who understands what cataloging is all about in the individual libraries. I believe that there are still many questions to be answered before irrevocable decisions are made.
Yes, I think you're exactly right. I'm sorry to have gotten on such a soapbox but I've felt this way for some time, and Shirley Richardson's letter was so true, I thought I would chime in.
Thanks for E-mailing and "speaking" up.
There are also people who communicate better electronically than they do in person. These people might also benefit from telecommuting.
In general, we have all types of people who can contribute to information organizations, there is no reason why we can't have multiple working environments for the various types of people employed. It's not an either/or situation.
As for the work place being someplace to become a better, more enriched human being, I'm not sure that most places of employment provide such an atmosphere, in fact many tend to hinder human growth and development. Some departments or libraries are currently run as sweatshops, employing people at less the poverty wages, not providing adequate benefits, stifling individuality, etc. It's not a function of telecommuting that dehumanizes the work-force, it is a function of some social organizations that dehumanize the work-force. Good organizations enrich the lives of their employees, bad ones dehumanize.
As for the side-thread on the death of original cataloging. Perhaps we should see the writing on the wall and seek other methods for the provision of access to information in our collections. There's more than one way to provide access to collections of information, each individual organization will decide how to accomplish this. More and more are opting for para-professional/clerical staff to accomplish this, maybe the profession should seek methods which require less "art" and less "professionalism" and more automation.
The specific mix of info organization knowledge needed will be different, but it will draw on the same talents. I believe that current catalogers can ensure a continued and interesting career by learning about the digital world, including SGML, TEI, Z39.50, database design and data dictionaries, digital and multimedia archives, etc., and attending and speaking up at conferences. This knowledge will make it possible to find those places in this new world to insert their expertise, play a role in 21st century organization of knowledge, and, even, find that next job.
Cataloging does not, or cannot, equal AACR II. I have fought for years at UCLA for such a broader vision of cataloging, and we are now beginning to have that with our new faculty teaching the core Info Org course, Greg Leazer and Anne Gilliland-Swetland.
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