From a Spoof Press email I received courtesy of the Library of Congress Professional Guild, AFSCME Local 2910 representing 1600 professionals at the Library of Congress. Saul Schniderman, President:
More than half of the systems responsible for managing the nearly 17 million titles in the Library of Congress catalog have tested positive for prohibited "performance enhancing" content, according to an Inspector General's report expected to be published next month. In a public statement issued by the IG, he stated that "The use of taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and other performance enhancing content often referred to under the catchall term 'metadata' has long been suspected by Library fans. For much too long, Library owners have simply turned a blind eye, choosing not to question how their high-priced key assets had been able to break one long-standing performance record after another. As long as they were seeing the performance, nobody wanted to question or acknowledge how it was being achieved." The investigation was triggered by anonymous tips and overheard conversations between certain unnamed staff members alluding to "a card catalog on steroids." continued...