ArLiS: Sunday, March 27

Well, readers, here it is: my final post about ArLiS in Minneapolis. I think this was my favorite day, as it had two sessions of great interest to me - the Museum Libraries division meeting, as well as the RDA Test Kitchen presentation in the Cataloging Section meeting. I only thought it appropriate to include a photo of the art cataloging godfather, Sherman Clarke:



The Museum Libraries division meeting was filled with a variety of topics, but key among them for me was a presentation about RFID in art museum libraries. The implications and applications of this new technology are wide-ranging - the one that amazed me was the ability to shelf read like this:



That would seriously cut down on mis-shelved books, as well as the time it takes to complete a shelf read. Of course, security is built in to the tags, as well as easier self-checkout - something that is not a key issue in museum libraries. Although museum libraries have no great need for such an extensive system, check out the system that takes RFID to its fullest potential at the Seattle Public Library:



The conclusion of my ArLiS conference was the panel titled RDA Test Kitchen, led by Elizabeth O'Keefe of the Morgan, and Penny Baker of the Clark Art Institute library. To save you, reader, from my ramblings, let me be succinct about RDA: it's a mess. There are some great features of the rules, but overall it is confusing, and will be difficult to implement on a national level. If you'd like more specificity, and some humor, check out Penny's presentation notes from the conference, as well as the Resource Description and Access Happy Fun Time Companion.