CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Law libraries are cornerstones of legal
education, research and practice all over the world. They are special libraries
and serve the information needs of law students and law teachers, legal
practitioners, paralegals and general public. Law libraries generally are found
in universities, law schools, law research institutes, courts of all kinds,
legislative houses, ministry of justice and private law firms.
The
importance of law libraries (university law libraries inclusive) can be better
understood from the stand point of lawyers who equate its importance to a
laboratory. Just as a laboratory is important to laboratory scientists, so also
is a law library to lawyers (Milles, 2004; Dada, 2011). Thus, the success of
any lawyer or a law student depends on the access and utilisation of a large
collection of legal information resources. Gilbert (1908) succinctly explains
that there is no class of men, professional or otherwise as dependent upon
books as the lawyer and that the lawyer’s books are his tools without which he
would be unable to provide for himself and his family. These assertions have a
strong bearing on the study and practice of law. Whether as a law student, law
teacher or legal practitioner, a lawyer engages in finding, interpreting and
applying the law to solve societal problems. The law is embedded in legal
information resources which the lawyer must have access to in order to do his
job.
Legal information
resources are made up of local and foreign primary and secondary sources of
law. Ryesky (2007) explains that constitutions, statutes, judicial opinions and
administrative regulations are considered primary authorities while
pronouncements of private parties or entities such as journal articles,
treatises, restatements and model codes are secondary legal authorities. Legal
information resources generally consist of parliamentary publications such as
Acts, laws, by-laws, constitutions; courts decisions in form of law reports;
and legal texts such as text books, journals, reviews, reference sources, case
books and non-legal texts. The multi-disciplinary nature of law makes the law
library collection enormous. Moreover, advances in information and
communication technologies have greatly impacted on law and its information
resources. Thus, among the collections of law libraries are included digital
resources such as Easy law, Digital Rules of Courts and Legalpedia and well
established legal databases such as LexisNexis, Westlaw, Law Pavilion and
Bloomberg. Other free online legal resources and legal sites exist that the law
libraries organise for access.
The law
library services are geared toward the provision of the right kinds of
information needed for legal education, research and practice. The services are
divided into two broad parts- readers’ services and technical services. The
technical services include acquisition, cataloguing and classification.
Cataloguing and classification, also known as organisation of information
materials, are the back bones of any law library services. Acquisition
department takes charge of collecting enough of the legal information resources
both in print and digital formats. Acquisition service follows the normal
acquisition processes existing in other types libraries. On the other hand,
organisation of law information materials provides intellectual access to the
law collection but differs so much from that of other subjects. Levor (2006)
and Ryesky (2007) concur that an academic law library is different in its
content, organisation and use from other types of academic libraries. Kenyon
(1963) explains that the organisation of law is different from that of other
subjects due to the nature of legal materials and the method of supplementation
by pocket parts, loose-leaf pages, semi-loose-leaf supplements, replacement
volumes, advance sheets and other devices.
Organisation of
information materials has both theoretical and practical underpinnings in
library and information science and practice (Hjorland, 2008; White, 2011). It
is an aspect of a broader term, knowledge organisation (KO). White (2011)
acknowledges that terms such as classification, documentation and information
organisation are used to mean KO in library and information science. KO is
about activities such as document description, indexing and classification
performed in libraries, databases and archives (Hjorland, 2008). According to
Hjorland, these activities are concerned with the nature and quality of such
knowledge organising processes (KOP) as well as the knowledge organising
systems (KOS) used to organise documents, document representations and
concepts. They are performed by librarians, archivists, subject specialists as
well as by computer algorithms.
Organisation of information materials is a process of
making the information already acquired in the library available to users so
that it will be easy to retrieve for use when needed (Aina, 2004). Knowledge
organising processes (KOP) are employed in libraries to describe, categorise
and identify information resources are known as cataloguing and classification
in Library and Information Science (LIS) theory and practice. Cataloguing is a
process by which information materials are identified by their attributes-
authors, titles, editors, editions, imprint (place of publication, publishers,
and date of publication), pagination, dimension, series and subjects.
Classification on the other hand is the process of assigning class numbers
(class marks or call numbers) to the identified subjects. However, Cataloguing
is a general term among library professionals used to cover both cataloguing
and classification activities. Esse (2013) also alludes to this when she said
that the activities of cataloguers in the cataloguing work environment are
cataloguing and classification. Thus, a cataloguer performs both cataloguing
and classification work. For the purpose of this study, cataloguing is used as
a general term to cover cataloguing and classification.
These processes produce bibliographic data that
assist both the library users and the librarians in retrieving appropriate
resources with ease and on time too. Dunshire (2006) explains the cardinal
function of a bibliographic metadata, i.e., cataloguing records, as assisting
people and machines to find, identify, select and obtain relevant information.
This function is particularly crucial to libraries of all types around the
world. Thus,
as far back as 1942, Hicks stated that “a law library is not merely a
collection of books. It is a collection of legal literatures properly housed
and organised for service” (cited in Jegede, 2007:17). Nwalo (2001) deliberating
on the essence of library organisation maintains that a building filled with
books and other information resources is not necessarily a library unless those
books and resources have been organised for access and made available for use.
Thus,
organisation of collections available in a law library facilitates easy access
and retrieval of the information sources (Amusa and Iyoro, 2011) which enables law students have access to relevant
materials that will help them accomplish their educational objectives
(Olorunfemi, Mostert and Ocholla, 2012). Cohen also concurs to the need to
organise legal information resources stating that “one of the primary
professional obligations of law librarians is to assure their readers access to
the literature of the law” (cited in Butler, 2006:336). Hence, the overall goal
of law library is to provide access to its priceless collections to its
clientele in order to satisfy their information needs. Cohen concludes that
“law librarians must assure
their readers access to the materials they collect and administer… Without both physical access to the books and bibliographic access to the
information within them, our readers cannot be adequately served” (Butler,
2006: 337).
Tools and
resources used for cataloguing and classification are referred to as KOS
(Hjorland, 2008). A resource according to Miller (2011) is any object or
collection of objects that is of interest to the information providers and the
users and that can be described in some ways. He identifies two types of
resource as physical or analogue resources and digital resources. Though his
definition fits more of information resources like print and digital
information resources found in libraries, museum and archives, it can also be
applied to cataloguing resources which are also of interest and necessity to
cataloguers and which are also of benefit to users indirectly. The users of the
library benefit when cataloguers use the cataloguing resources effectively in
cataloguing work. This enables access to information resources in the
libraries. Furthermore, a resource can be seen as something that one uses to
achieve an objective. Thus, cataloguing resources are used to achieve the
purpose of information retrieval in libraries.
Tools, on the other hand, are equipment used in a
profession. Every profession has its tool of trade. Thus, cataloguing tools are
equipment used by cataloguers for the purpose of information retrieval. They
are used in cataloguing and classification activities, and also in encoding
bibliographic information into the library catalogues. According to Manaf,
Nadzar and Ibrahim (2009:13) cataloguing tools are “authoritative rules, codes, guidelines
that are acceptable and used by the communities of practice, and regarded as
essential to attain accuracy and consistency in the creation of a catalogue
record”. Nampeya (2009:17) also defines cataloguing tools and resources as,
“any device or document (print-based or electronic) that assists in the
creation of an original bibliographic record or in the verification of
bibliographic information in existing records”. Cataloguing tools and resources
can also be viewed as reference sources and equipment used for bibliographic
description, subject classification and for encoding bibliographic information
into library catalogues. For the purpose of this study, cataloguing tools and
cataloguing resources are used to mean one and the same.
Cataloguing tools and resources are in the form of codes,
rules, subject headings and classification schemes. Anglo-American Cataloguing
Rule 2 (AACR2) was developed in 1978 but before then many other codes and rules
were created by people like Anthony Panizzi, Charles Coffin Jewett and Charles
Ammi Cutter. Other codes were developed by American Library Association,
Library Association of the United Kingdom and Library of Congress. Esse
(2013:8) observes that “AACR2 is the standard rule for document description
(cataloguing) for printed materials” while Nwalo (2009) says that it is the
most popular code. Today, the AARC2 is being replaced by a more robust code
that is friendlier to the digital information environment. This code is called
Resource Description and Access (RDA). Cerbo (2011:4) states that RDA is a new
cataloguing standard designed to improve “flexibility in rules for dealing with
the changing landscape of resource description and access”. RDA was initially
envisioned as a third edition of AACR and was accordingly called AACR3 but in
an effort to emphasize the break from the past, it was renamed RDA (Coyle and
Hillmann, 2007).
Subject heading lists are another important
tools use for subject cataloguing and providing subject access to the items
being catalogued. Subject cataloguing enables a user of the library to retrieve
information resources on a given subject that the authors might not be known to
him. In subject cataloguing it is important to “ensure uniformity and
consistency” (Aina, 2004:150). According to Aina it is the basic principle in
cataloguing that ensures that cataloguers all over the world assign the same
subject(s) to the same document. The only principle that can produce uniformity
and consistency is a controlled vocabulary. Subject headings are examples of
controlled vocabulary used in most university libraries around the world. The
two most popular subject headings being utilised in the library are the Sears
List of Subject Headings and Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) (Nwalo,
2012).
Classification schemes are the tools used in
assigning class notation (number) or call number to a document. According to
Amusa and Iyoro (2011),
the most popular classification schemes are Bernard Classification Scheme (BCS), BLISS Bibliographic Classification (BC), Colon Classification (CC),
Dewey Decimal
Classification (DDC), Library of Congress Classification (LC) and Universal Decimal Classification (UDC). These classification schemes are
general schemes used in school, academic and public libraries and other
information centers all over the world. Special libraries by their nature
(special user needs and special information materials) tend to employ special
schemes in classifying information resources. Some of the popular special
schemes used in special libraries are National Library of Medicine by National
Library of Medicine (NLM), Oxford Decimal Classification (ODC- for special
libraries generally) and Moys Classification and Thesaurus for Legal Materials
(MCT) developed by Elizabeth Moys in 1968.
Other
cataloguing tools are online resources which aid the cataloguer in his/her job.
Some of these are: MARC formats, Dublin core; integrated library systems (Alice
for Window, Millennium, GLASS, KOHA, among others.); social media such as
MARCit, collaborative tagging, LibrayThing, among others; and online catalogues
(Library of Congress Online Catalogue, WorldCat, and Adelaide University Online
Catalogue). Reference materials such as Black Law Dictionary and other
dictionaries, national bibliographies, union catalogues; and typewriters, computers,
catalogue cards, pen, pencils and rulers are also part of the cataloguing tools
and resources.
The concept of utilisation is a common phenomenon
in library services. This means the act of using something, the manner in which
something is used, or the state of being used. Use as an activity has been the
most valid measure of any item of worth to a library or information system. Utilisation of cataloguing tools and
resources in libraries is very crucial to the work activities of the
cataloguer. From the definitions of cataloguing tools and resources, it can be
deduced that the use of cataloguing tools and resources and cataloguing job
activities are inseparable.
According to Nwalo (2001), the classification
schemes used in Nigeria for the arrangement of books on the shelves are
traditional ones. Academic libraries mostly use LC while the public libraries
tend to use DDC. Nwalo, however, observes that the three popular schemes which
are used in teaching and learning cataloguing in the library schools in Nigeria
are the DDC, LC and UDC. Therefore one can reasonably conclude that special
classification schemes like MCT and NLM are not utilised in the library
schools. Thus, efficient use of these resources in the work place cannot be
guaranteed.
The concept of availability is another phenomenon
which is associated with use. It is impossible to use what is not available.
Hence, for cataloguers to perform optimally cataloguing tools and resources
must be readily available and the cataloguers must possess the necessary
competencies to use them. It has been observed that cataloguing tools and
resources are not always available in libraries, even in library schools. Nwalo (2001) laments the dearth of these
resources in the library schools. Some law librarians have also complained
about lack of cataloguing tools and resources in their libraries. In fact, at
the recent Workshop organised by the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal
Studies, law librarians were photocopying the current edition of Moys
Classification and Thesaurus for Legal Materials. Aderinto and Obadare (2009)
confirm high cost and obsolete cataloguing materials as major challenges facing
cataloguers. Notwithstanding that cataloguing tools and resources are usually
very expensive, they should be made available for use in the libraries for
effective organisation of knowledge.
A cataloguer is a librarian who performs the
task of cataloguing and classification for the sole purpose of providing easy
access to materials available in the library. Sung (2013) states that the
minimum qualification for a cataloguing librarian is Masters in Library and
Information Science (MLIS) or Masters in Library Science (MLS). However,
Aderinto and Obadare (2009:138) describe cataloguing staff as comprising
professional librarians, Para-professionals (library officers), library
assistants, data entry clerk or typists and clerical staff. They further explained
that the professional staffs are cataloguers who spend most of working hours on
cataloguing the library materials in the collection from the scratch most
especially the original cataloguing. They are responsible for the intellectual
analysis of the materials before users could retrieve them. The library
assistants usually engage in copy cataloguing, making bibliographic entering,
preparing catalogue cards, labelling book spines and filing them in the
catalogue cabinets and shelf list catalogues.
In these days of digital technology, the
library assistants use computers to input cataloguing data which will be
accessible from online public access catalogues (OPAC). For the purpose of this
study, cataloguers include librarians and lawyers with PhD, MLS, MILS, LLB,
LLM; library officers, and library assistants that work in cataloguing
departments in university law libraries in Southern Nigeria. A good number of
law cataloguers have dual qualifications in law and librarianship.
A Job
is a task, an economic role for which a person is paid. It is also defined “as
a group of homogeneous tasks related by similarity of functions www.businessdictionary.com/definition/job.htm). When
performed by an employer in an exchange for pay, it consists of duties,
responsibilities, and tasks that are defined and specified which and can be
accomplished, quantified, measured, and rated. Cataloguers’ job in university
law libraries include identifying legal and non legal information sources,
assigning appropriate headings and class marks to them. This will provide
access tools that aid retrieval and use of the resources to law students,
teachers and other students and staffs who are interested in law information
materials.
Job
performance on the other hand, can be viewed as “scalable actions, behaviour
and outcomes that employees engage in or bring about that are linked with and
contribute to organisational goals” (Viswesvaran and Ones, 2000:216). Saka and
Haruna (2013:10) see it as “the ability to carry out statutory functions which
are based on the field of specialisation or areas of development as well as an
organisation’s objectives”. For the purposes of this research, job performance
can be viewed as the quantity and quality of work done by employees and set of
abilities that contribute to the organisational goals. Job performance can be
high or low depending on some variables inherent in the work environments,
including competencies of the employees.
The
competencies required of a cataloguer to perform cataloguing job optimally are
basically professional knowledge. Sung (2013) succinctly explains it saying
that no competence is more important in cataloguing than professional knowledge.
These include theoretical background as well as technical skills for
cataloguing. According to Sung, knowledge of cataloguing tools is a must-have
and the cataloguer must keep abreast of the latest changes and updates since
cataloguing tools and rules change regularly to reflect or accommodate changes
or new developments. It can be deduced from the literature that in the whole
gamut of job performance, personnel competence is very central. Without a
certain level of competence (knowledge and skills), the law cataloguer will not
be able to produce qualitative and quantitative bibliographic records nor
provide timely access to legal information to law students and teachers.
The
primary responsibilities of a cataloguer are to prepare bibliographic records and
provide efficient access and retrieval tools for users. Cataloguers have
constantly described this task as tortuous, brain tasking, boring,
time-consuming and expensive. Omekwu (2007:65) supports this claim when he
asserts that “the journey of the book and other information resources do not
just jump to the shelves, it follows a delineated process that is both
technical and intellectual”. Thus, for the job performance of the cataloguer to
be effective and efficient, certain competencies in terms of knowledge and
skills in the application of the rules and use of appropriate schemes, subject
headings and ICT technologies are expected.
A cataloguer’s job activities involve
firstly; identifying and describing the information items based on the
information provided in the items such as the authors, titles, editions,
imprint, collation, ISBN/ISSN. The
cataloguer uses the cataloguing codes or rules to arrange the bibliographic
information according to internationally accepted standards. This aspect is
commonly done by support staff- paraprofessionals and even library assistants
with the supervision of the cataloguer. Secondly, he assigns subjects to the
items using standard subject heading lists. This aspect is the most difficult
and requires cataloguer’s judgements to be able to provide and not misdirect
access to the items. Sung (2013) concurs to this by saying that in assigning
subject headings, many issues arise causing uncertainty and ambiguity. Sung
also notes that these issues are not easily dealt with and thus require good
judgement.
The third aspect is the assigning of class
marks or call numbers to the items using classification scheme chosen by the
library. Levy (1995) categorises cataloguers’ work into two distinctive
activities-descriptive cataloguing and subject cataloguing. According to Levi,
descriptive cataloguing is concerned with creating catalogue records for items
by describing their characteristics. Subject cataloguing on the other
hand, is concerned with classifying the
subject matter, the intellectual content of an item and it is the subject
cataloguer who assigns an item to a class within a classification scheme which
in turn determines a place on the shelf.
From the above discourse concerning
cataloguers’ job activities, it is obvious that cataloguers cannot perform
these activities without the use of cataloguing tools and resources. Sung cited
above says that knowledge of the tools is a must have. Miksa (2008) opines that
just as a carpenter cannot build a house without his tools, so also a
cataloguer cannot catalogue without using cataloguing tools and resources.
However, a survey by Modeste and Dina (2007) on the use of Moys Classification
Scheme in the Caribbean did not establish whether the use or none use of MCT
affected law cataloguers’ job performance.
In this
study, demographic variables such as subject background, law cataloguing
experience and continuous professional development of law cataloguers were
examined in relation to cataloguers’ utilisation of cataloguing tools and resources
and cataloguers’ job performance in university law libraries in Southern
Nigeria. Subject background or subject degree in the context of this work means
having background or subject degree in law; law cataloguing experience means
having experience in cataloguing of law materials by having worked for a long
time with law information materials; and continuous professional development
has to do with training and retraining through either formal education or
attendance to specific training, mentoring, conferences and workshops.
Subject
degree has been discussed in literature to influence cataloguers’ job
performance. According to Levor (2006), providing bibliographic access to
scholarly research in general relies heavily on subject matter expertise and
familiarity with specialised resources. As bibliographers, librarians must
possess sufficient levels of these qualifications to organise and manage
information and to guide researchers to ample and appropriate information.
Boydston and Leysen (2006:7) concur by using “describing chemistry department
photographs” as an example. The writers conclude that a cataloguer with
knowledge of chemistry can provide accurate and detailed subject access by
supplying the correct names of scientific apparatuses and processes.
Subject knowledge of law is particularly
required by a law cataloguer to be able to assign appropriate subject headings
and classification symbols to law materials. Raju’s (2014) study found that
subject knowledge requirement emanates largely from law libraries. Mayer and
Terrill’s (2005) survey on subject degree reveals a positive relationship with
job performance in reference, bibliographic instruction, cataloguing,
collection development, distance education and electronic resources. Also, Gede
and Lawanson (2011) found a significant relationship between educational
background and job performance. However, no study has proved whether having a
law degree improves law cataloguers’ use of cataloguing tools and resources and
thus their job performance or not.
Another important factor in cataloguing job
performance is professional experience. Generally, the longer the year an
employee is engaged on a particular job, the more experience (knowledge and
skills) he/she acquires. Thus, experience of employee is a measure for skill
levels. An employee is expected to improve his/her skill level depending on the
length of time employed with the organisation. This may invariably increase
productivity and job performance. Hence, “employers frequently employ persons
with previous work experience to fit for the knowledge and skill that
contribute to performance” (Sallah, Yaakub and Dzulkifi, 2011:33). Law
cataloguing is a complex technique which requires a combination of general
cataloguing principles, intellectual skills and experience with legal
publications (Keyon, 1963). Having experienced cataloguers in the law libraries
will be tantamount to opting for a high job performance. Gede and Lawanson
(2011) found a significant relationship between experience and job performance
of employees. Modesta and Dina (2007) also found a positive relationship
between experience of law cataloguers and their use of Moys Classification and
Thesaurus for Legal Materials in the Caribbean law libraries.
Continuous
professional development/training has long been recognised by all professions
to impact on the work force performance. Quite a number of literatures in the
LIS have alluded to the poor training in cataloguing and classification in the
library schools globally (Li, 2005; Nwalo, 2009). The general notion is that
such training cannot equip entry level cataloguers to perform optimally. Hence,
there is need for continuous professional development for law cataloguers in
university libraries in Nigeria. Moreover, new cataloguing tools and resources
are emerging especially as it relates to digital environment and so continuous
professional development will be needed. Morrow, cited in Adebayo (2013:16)
reported that “in many library schools, cataloguing courses are essentially
traditional and do not cover new trends and issues in the organisation of
knowledge and information”. Adeboye also discovered that graduates of the
library schools surveyed lacked required skills for various cataloguing
positions in libraries, especially in an electronic or automated environment.
Continuous professional education will impact on the knowledge and skills of
cataloguers to efficiently use cataloguing tools and resources thereby
improving their job performance. Saka and Haruna (2013) posit a high
correlation between training programme and job performance.
Despite the established importance of the use
of cataloguing tools and resources to cataloguers’ job performance, it has been
observed that cataloguers generally and law cataloguers specifically experience
some challenges while using cataloguing tools and resources. For instance,
using MCT to classify legal information resources presents some challenges.
Jegede (2010) observes that the MCT is very suitable and easy to classify the
common law legal materials than to classify civil law materials. Common law countries include England,
Australia and U.S.A among others. Africa and Asian countries are mostly civil
law countries. The challenge stems from the fact that the Scheme has an obvious
English-speaking common law bias (Moys, 2001). Dada (2010) also concurs that
“Moys designed her scheme for the classification of materials on Common Law”
(p.10). Experience has also shown that law cataloguers find it difficult to use
the Tables in MCT. Another challenge posed by using MCT is lack of frequency in
updating the scheme. This in particular contributed to the University of
British Columbia (UBC) decision to abandon it in 2006 (Abaee cited in DeCaen,
2008).
Barman (2011) further observes that the cost
of purchasing DDC is very high and as such many libraries in India and other
developing countries cannot afford to have their own set of DDC. Another
challenge of using cataloguing tools and resources is lack of awareness of the
tools (Miksa, 2008). For instance, most law cataloguers are not aware that
Library of Congress Subject Heading List could be used to assign controlled
vocabulary to law materials. They use Thesaurus attached to MCT as subject
heading list. This may not be elaborate enough to take care of law subjects
which are robust and constantly emerging.
Furthermore, Manaf, Nadzar and Ibrahim’s
(2009) study revealed that the cataloguers encountered various problems with
the tools which most of them attributed to a lack of training to adequately
prepare them for cataloguing requirements. In addition, the majority of
libraries had cataloguing backlogs which were attributed to various factors
such as a lack of professionally trained staff in cataloguing and a lack of
cataloguing tools and resources.
To be
able to overcome most of the challenges discussed above, it has been suggested
that university libraries should provide financial resources to acquire the
right cataloguing tools and resources. Another widely suggestion made towards
improving the use of cataloguing tools and resources is training and retraining
of cataloguing staffs (Nampaye, 2009). Bello and Mansor, (2012) opines that the
quality and quantity of education cataloguers received in LIS programmes is
observed to be insufficient, hence, the need for continuous professional
development. El-Sherbini and Klim (1997) recommend that library schools must
now also relate their teaching of cataloguing and classification to the
emergent technology.
A
correlation study is a scientific investigation of the associations between
variables. This research design is used to identify the extent to which values
for two or more factors are related. According to Akinsola (2005), correlation
studies are used to quantify the magnitude of the relationship between
variables being studied. In this type of research, a statistical measure called
the coefficient of correlation is computed to identify the extent to which the
values of the two variables or factors are related or changed in an
identifiable pattern. In this study therefore, the researcher is set to
establish a relationship (if any) between the law cataloguers’ use of
cataloguing tools and resources and their job performance in federal and state
university law libraries in Southern Nigeria.
University
law libraries in United States of America are called the law school libraries
or college of law libraries. This is because law is studied as a graduate
course, thus, one system of legal education is practiced. The law school
library is not under the control of the university librarian (Milles, 2004). In
the United Kingdom, two tier systems of legal education and training
(university and law school) exist, thus, separating the academic from the
vocational stages (Onoloja, n.d). Most of the law school libraries in US and UK
are autonomous and are being manned by the directors who are professors of law
and also hold library qualifications.
In Nigeria, like the Unite
