Library Day in the Life: Day 1

Well, readers, from now until the Friday, I am doing my best to participate in the Library Day in the Life, Round 8.

Here’s the brief about the project, taken from their website:

A Bibliographic Framework for the Digital Age: My Take

At one of my committee meetings at the University of Arkansas this week, I was asked to give a brief overview of the document shared by the Library of Congress, titled A Bibliographic Framework for the Digital Age. I begin this post with my cover note, and then pick up with the thoughts I shared with the committee and want to share with you, reader. If you have any comments about the report, or my opinions about it, I would love to hear from you!

Cataloging Nursery Catalogs

Readers, I have been working on this paper about cataloging nursery catalogs for the past few weeks, and I think I am ready to share it. I would love to hear your feedback! (PS - thanks to Jen and Penny Baker for their help!) The paper is below the jump!

Catalogers on the Reference Desk

To start the post this week, I would like to start with a quote from Autocat, the cataloger’s discussion listserv:

There is no question that technical services librarians who serve on the reference desk often come back with a great idea or two for improving entries in the catalog. Where the unfairness lies is that reference librarians are not expected to do the reverse. A better knowledge of cataloging would be a huge benefit to reference librarians and yet, while you see many technical services positions advertised that require evening and weekend hours on the reference desk, how many reference positions do you see advertised that require cataloging knowledge and experience? I am willing to bet that if you go to a library jobs site right now and check the first few reference position openings, you are unlikely to see even one that requires a contribution in technical services. It's a double standard. I suspect that this is the reason why many good catalogers will not apply for positions that require reference work.

OCLC WorldCat Quality Report

My job as a cataloger (as you probably know) requires me to use OCLC’s WorldCat daily, through the Connexion Client. For you intrepid readers that skimmed that jargon-heavy first sentence, allow me to explain. WorldCat is the largest bibliographic database in the world - meaning that it has more catalog records in it than any other database. It is where I start when I catalog a book, as well as where I do the majority of my work. As we are an OCLC member library, we are expected to contribute records (and update our holdings) for every item we have in the library collection. As you can imagine, in the course of cataloging items in the collection, I come into contact with records of a wide array of quality, from very minimal level records, to records that (to me) seem to have too much information in them. There is truly no standard level of quality in the WorldCat database, and even records indicated to be of the best quality are often not exactly that. When my colleague Penny Baker at the Clark posted this tweet recently (in her usual humorous style), I came across OCLC’s report on the quality of records in the WorldCat database.

On the Impossibility of Classification

Last week was an exciting week for me, cataloging-wise, as the library where I work just received our subscriptions to Cataloger’s Desktop and Classification Web. In addition, we wrapped up training on our integrated library system, Millennium. I also finished up the new book of Alberto Manguel’s compiling his writings, A Reader on Reading. I don’t think there is a more erudite and pleasant author who writes on books and libraries than Manguel. Of course, little did I know that the Classification Web subscription and finishing the Manguel book would end up in the same busy week, prompting me to write this short discourse.

Is, or About?

A series of conversations in different contexts have me thinking about the age-old question for catalogers - do you describe the "about" of an item or the "is?" Let me back up before I continue...

200 Million Records

In the latest issue of C&RL News (Nov. 2010), there were a few things of note for me. First, if you are going to put a QR code on your cover, please don't cover it up with an address label! Second, Erin Dorney, young librarian extraordinaire, had another great Job of a Lifetime article - so cool!

A Catalog Mashup Idea

I was cataloging a book about the Hudson River school yesterday, and as I examined the record, I wondered to myself what purpose the 043 fields in a MARC record serve. I know they "have" to be there when you have a 651 field. Before I go further, allow me to explain myself a bit.

RDA Discussion

Readers,

I know I rarely do this, but I just want to share a link with you. This post over at Bibliographic Wilderness is one of the best overall discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of RDA I have seen. So, if you are interested, here's the link:

ALCTS RDA Presentation, at Bibliographic Wilderness

What do you think about what is said over there?

The Semantic Web

This idea of the semantic or linked web is a concept I have been wrestling with over several months. It's a concept I see bandied about regularly in American Libraries, but I think it's something few people outside of the programming and IT world take the time to familiarize themselves with. As a librarian, I think it's my responsibility to at least be conversant with this new web initiative, and (as I think it's a great concept) it is something I would like to advocate for.

Indexing

Readers,

Once again, The Dean Files is back in action. Last week was great, but very busy, full of things that I hope to be able to share with you at a later date. Jen and I celebrated our second anniversary, which was lovely!

Cataloging is Suddenly... Cool?

Diane Shaw's post for the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System blog titled What It's Like to be a Cataloger has been getting a great deal of traction in the online library world. I think it's great - especially when a specialization in cataloging and metadata generation has been under attack in this era of shrinking staff and budget cuts. It's also nice to read the thoughts of other professionals about why they love cataloging (as I do). Here's a lovely quote from Ms. Shaw's post:

Baseball Archivists and Metadata

You know, it's aways interesting where metadata pops up. I was reading the New York Times on my iPad on the 13th of this month (October) and I read the article For Baseball Archivists, a Tag Ends Every Play, by John Branch, that combines two things I am very passionate about: baseball and metadata. This fascinating article discusses the task of describing all of the games in a "baseball year" (approximately 10,000 hours) with metadata, or, tags.

Cataloging, RDA, and MARC

There has been a great deal of talk recently about MARC and RDA - which should not be surprising to those of you all who are catalogers (which is a few of us). Jason Thomale's recent article in Code4Lib, Interpreting MARC: Where’s the Bibliographic Data? was an excellent semi-outsider look at cataloging from a programmer/systems perspective. It has sparked some great discussion around the internet and has, yet again, raised the question - why should we go to RDA for an input standard when the format (MARC) is almost comically outdated?

Google Books and the Importance of Good Metadata

(It's Friday, and so it's time for me to wave the librarian/metadata flag once more. I wonder what a flag like that would look like? MARC fields? If you have a thought about that, let me know.)

If you keep track of any metadata-related librarian blogs, I feel sure that you've seen Laura Miller's article on Salon - The Trouble with Google Books. The Google Books project has been fraught with problems since its inception, chiefly licensing rights associated with the scanned works still under copyright. We've all heard about this, and I think that the issues surrounding rights resolutions will continue to be dealt with for years to come. What appealed to me about this article was that it takes one of the fundamental problems associated with Google Books - metadata and searching - and explains it in plain English. Librarians, and especially those of us that catalog, tend to use a great deal of acronyms and jargon in speaking to one another (MARC21, XML, DCMI, LCCS, DDC, LCSH, Authorities, Main Entry, Chief Source of Information, etc, etc.) so it's nice to see the problems highlighted and well illustrated in the article.

In Defense of Catalogers

If you are a regular reader of The Dean Files, and specifically my posts here about my library experience, you know that I love cataloging. I might be one of, oh, a hundred people in library schools across the country right now that would say that. My love of cataloging comes from my belief that cataloging is the key interface between a library's patrons and the information resources a library holds. I was re-reading this blog post this morning:

Reading Tea Leaves, by Diane Hillmann

Assessment Metrics and the Catalog

By way of introduction to this post, I want to tell you, I am terrible at math. This posed something of a challenge for me in one of my classes last semester - Library Planning, Marketing, and Assessment. The assessment part was a challenge, but I think I have a good grasp of the practices and broad theories of assessment in libraries. I filed away my assessment tools and have been thinking about them vis a vis the Manifesto project.

Diderot at the Carter

I know we have had many posts today, but I wanted to share a link with you all. Last week, Sam Duncan (Library Director at the Carter) asked me to catalog one of the hidden treasures of the library - Diderot's Encyclopédie. He also asked me to write for the Carter's blog about my experience in researching and cataloging the work. Please click through to this post at the Carter to read more, and please leave a comment (and let me know if you want to see the Diderot!)

Diderot's Encyclopédie, at the Amon Carter Museum blog!

Social Tagging and Library Catalogs

Well, I wrapped up my paper earlier this week, and so I am proud to share it with you below. I am very curious to hear what you think and such!





http://www.scribd.com/doc/30301737/Social-Tagging-Library-of-Congress’-Subject-Headings-and-Library-Catalogs