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The Association of Library Collections and Technical Services, better known as ALCTS, is a division of the American Library Association.

Approximately once a month, ALCTS hosts an “eForum”, which is a moderated email-based discussion. The February 2016 ALCTS eForum was called “Career Progression in Cataloging and Metadata”.

It was led by Lisa Robinson of Michigan State University and Stacie Traill of the University of Minnesota. Lisa and Stacie have provided a summary of the discussion on a publicly accessible website which is referenced at the end of the column.

There were a number of comments and discussion threads which reflect the changing nature of library data or metadata; how it is created and managed; and the specific skill sets of catalogers and metadata librarians. This installment of the Data Deluge contains an examination and discussion of challenges associated with the role and career progression of catalogers and metadata specialists as they establish their place in the emerging linked data movement in libraries.

The inaugural installment of the column data deluge and open knowledge comes at the close of a year which saw changes, developments and new beginnings for libraries in the areas of linked data, open data, metadata, open access publishing and other related movements.

The methodology adopted is a literature review.

Sometimes, changes in the information environment present themselves like towering waves crashing into rugged cliffs and librarians stand at the edge in awe of the spectacle. At other times, despite the crashing waves, librarians lead massive projects to build the standards and infrastructure to capture the water and direct its flow.

The overall trend for the latter librarians is toward developing and adopting new ideas, methods, approaches and services to support finding and sharing data in an increasingly large and complex online context. As many of author’s colleagues have commented in recent years, “now is an exciting time to be a librarian”.

The author heartily agree and look forward to sharing, through this column, the highlights of these exciting times.

For those immersed in the environment of academic and research libraries, the word “data” seems to be everywhere. One hears about linked data, big data, open data, proprietary data, research data, metadata, geospatial data, data repositories, etc.

Some libraries even have data librarians and data services departments.

The author of this column wonders if she were to collect all of the library and information science literature published in the past three years and plug it into a word cloud app, which of the two, i.e. “data” or “books”, would be displayed in a larger font.

The author suspects that the chances are more than good that “data” would come out on top.

The purpose of this column is to explore the relationship between the increasing presence of computers and communication technologies during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries on the changed perception of the level of personal time available to individuals.

In recent years, there is considerable writing in research journals and the popular media around a cluster of time-related issues which is sometimes referred to “the time crunch”, “time poverty”, “time famine”, “overwork”, “time scarcity” and countless other similar phrases.

A predominant contemporary struggle is that we seem to lack the time. We cannot seem to do everything we should and want to do.

The issue of time poverty is likely to remain with us in both our professional and personal lives. The question “where did the time go?” has been growing in importance since the mid-twentieth century, and it appears reasonable that even if some of the other causes of time poverty such as gender and class inequality, lack of new experiences in later life and cultural tolerance of obsessive attitudes toward work were to be miraculously reversed, the growing persistence and invasiveness of technology in our lives are not likely something that will diminish.

In 2016, the “Data Deluge Column” explored the sometimes frustrating reality of cataloguing and metadata librarians as their discipline underwent change.

The column, called “Metadata specialists in transition: from MARC cataloguing to linked data and BIBFRAME”, alluded to the ongoing and significant changes in the practice of cataloguing and metadata creation, but did not delve into the nature of the changes and what they mean for libraries in general.

This instalment of the “Data Deluge Column” expands that discussion by exploring the emerging model for the data that libraries create and manage.

It seems that it has taken about 20 years to overcome the inertia required to begin to reinvent the practice of and environment for creating library data. Perhaps, some of this inertia is because of predictions of the current distress and pressure felt by cataloguing departments today.

The emoji, is it an endearing image to add to your text messages and email, or is it an increasingly important type of electronic data? According to a 2013 article by Jeff Blagdon, the idea of using some sort of symbol in electronic communication has been with us for about two decades. Japanese in origin, the earliest symbols of this type were developed in the era of pagers and old-style cell phones and were commonly called emoticons.

As devices developed a greater capacity to display graphical elements these keystroke representations were replaced with Unicode characters which display on our electronic devices, which we now call emoji. This instalment of the data deluge will look at the emoji as a form of data and explore how and why their ubiquity may create new opportunities for libraries.

Some readers, as well as the author of this column, may be tempted to scoff at the idea that the emoji is anything more than a form of shorthand for use in electronic communications or cutesy decorations.

One night she showed up at the class, and the instructor wrote on the board, “Computers in school libraries: A new tool or a flash in the pan?” He went on to warn school librarians to not be dazed by this “new computer phase” which he felt distracted both teachers and students from the real work of teaching and learning. He felt that if there were computers in schools, they only belonged in the mathematics classroom and that, even in that context, they only had limited application.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of technological change, the data deluge, social change and policy change on the materials in their collection, the services they offer and how service is provided.

The author examines over four decades of personal experience as a library user and library worker to discover the progression of library resources, reference practices and the storage of information from analogue to digital.

Since the 1970s, there has been a gradual shift away from analogue technologies towards digital ones. One exception is that of the low-tech analogue book which, while it is not as central as it once was, remains important for most library collections. The change was and is driven by internal and external pressures and can be impeded by factors such as financial and skill limitations or decision makers who do not support changes.

While the Data Deluge Column has many instalments that examine problems created by the growing mass of data and information and the progression to technological change, this instalment puts all of that into a human or lived perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theory regarding how professional and academic women face career-limiting barriers when they are no longer associated with a professional or academic or professional employer.

This paper presents literature review and presentation of a new conceptualization of the digital divide.

In the past 30 years, communications and information sources have become increasingly digital. To make use of digital information and communication systems, an institutional account is required. Women who are no longer employed by the institution or are no longer students lose their accounts and don't have access to the digital services they require.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper presents an original description of a new facet of the digital divide, as the author was not able to locate any papers discussing this particular issue.