Cataloging Thoughts

In my classification class this week, our professor asked some very interesting questions, which I would like to share with you here, along with my responses:

Is it true that the more information we provide in a record about an item, the better?

My initial response to this question is no. Creating a good bibliographic record is important, but too much information can be detrimental to the fundamental purpose of the bibliographic record - helping patrons find what they need in a quick and efficient manner. It seems to me that the important thing is to be attuned to the needs and habits of your user population and tailor your records to their searching habits and preferences. Inclusion of the key elements of an item are important (author, title, publisher, etc) but so also might be the reproduction of the table of contents in a searchable field. The amount of information in a record should depend upon whether or not it includes the data your patrons need to decide if an item is what they need, or not.

Why do library records seem to be frugal in offering information about materials?

I think this has to do with how many items there are to be cataloged, and how few staff members in a library actually do the cataloging. At the Carter, we have two staff members who routinely catalog, and (I would estimate) 500 items in our backlog to catalog. It seems that the dearth of information in a cataloging record has partially to do with the lack of staffing - but also because of the standards established in AACR2r and MARC. These standards provide (for good reason, I think) limitations about what you can, and cannot, include in a bibliographic record. There is a fine line between too little, and too much information in a record - and those standards help cataloguers to find that line.

To what extent should we follow cataloging rules in creating records? (is it ok to be a rule breaker?)

As a cataloguer/creator of metadata, it is very important to follow rules for several reasons. First, it ensures that the same vocabulary, information, and placement are used for all items - avoiding the confusion of many different standards and terms of description. Second, as I mentioned above, the rules assist the cataloguer in finding the right balance of information in a record. Third, the standardization of fields and terms ensures that the record can be used, and read by a multitude of user systems, instead of being proprietary to one system.

Happy 101 Award

Happy 101 Award

Well, thanks to the super cool Erin Dorney over at Library Scenester, I am happy to say that I this wee blog is a recipient of a Happy 101 award. What is that? Well, frankly, she knows more about it than I do, so allow me to quote her:

It’s basically one of those Internet meme dealies – once someone gives it to you, you blog a list of ten things that make you happy. Then you pass the award on to 10 of your favorite bloggers (essentially tagging them to do the same).

So, without further ado, here is my contribution - and if you are tagged, please pass this on!

10 things that have made me happy recently:

1. Going to the gym (for the first time for me) with my wife, Jen.
2. Filing our joint tax return this past weekend.
3. Hearing Jen get so excited about her future career (she’s going to be a neurologist, folks!)
4. Thursday dinners with our nephew, Quinton.
5. The beginning of new friendships.
6. The renewal of old friendships
7. New books!
8. Several classes this semester that I am excited about taking.
9. Learning more at the Amon Carter Museum Library.
10. This awesome winter we have had here in Fort Worth!

10 of my favorite blogs:

1. The staff of Blue Barnhouse, a great letterpress shop
2. Kevin at Fort Worthology
3. Luke at Luke C. Miller
4. Aaron at Walking Paper
5. Dr. Dave Lankes at Virtual Dave... Real Blog
6. Laurel at The Cataloguing Librarian
7. David at David Bram
8. Allison at SUPERFICIALsnapshots
9. The staff of The Desk Set
10. The staff of the Barry Whistler Gallery

Once again, thanks Erin - and I hope that at least one of the above blogs continues the award!

Pants On The Ground

I really enjoyed Neil Young’s contribution to the internet phenomena that is the Pants On The Ground song.

Library OPACS and Me: A Love-Hate Relationship

This week marks the beginning of spring classes at Syracuse. In the class discussion for my class on classification (did I say class enough just now?) we were asked this question by the professor:

How were you frustrated/satisfied with information searching systems? List any complaints, grumbles, frustrations, ...

What are the priority items on your wish list if the system needs to be improved?

And here is my response, which I thought would be good blog material:

As no one else has touched on this, I feel as if I should talk about my myriad frustrations with using library OPACS. (Online Public Access Catalogs)

First, as many people have pointed out in their database complaints - there is no standardized way of searching OPACS - each is a bit (or very) different from the other, requiring the user to search in a different fashion.

Second, the lack of permalinks to the bibliographic records in an OPAC is really frustrating. In fulfilling some reference queries for patrons, I would like to link to the bibliographic record in the catalog - but the link is only good for about 24 hours.

Third, touching on the idea of relevancy, I feel like social cataloging/tagging and LOC SH (Library of Congress' Subject Headings) need to be integrated in some meaningful way. Knowledge of those headings is helpful, but many people don't have knowledge of them. This lack of knowledge leads to the need to create some method in which the subject headings can be linked to terms generated by the users (increasing their relevancy).

Furthermore, it seems that the idea that, for the most part, libraries "lock up" their bibliographic data (outside of OCLC or RLIN, for instance) seems to run counter to the very concept of libraries - the free and unfettered dissemination of information. This data/information should be free for all to share and use.

So, as a prioritized wish-list for a better OPAC would look something like this:

1. Integration of social cataloging tags and subject headings.

2. Standardized searching terms across all OPACs.

3. Free access to bibliographic data.

Permalinks to bibliographic records.

What would your wishlist for an OPAC look like?

PS - I just updated the “library” link up top, check it out, and the accompanying flickr post here:

Our Library

Photos of Our Library

Readers,

I just wrapped up the library photo project I mentioned earlier this week, and you can check it out here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eloquentlight/sets/72157623091002657/

Weekend Librarian Link

I just want to share this great post by Dr. Dave Lankes with you today:

http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/blog/?p=917

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Our Personal Library

As a fledgling librarian, I think it’s about time for me to share with you all, fair readers, my own personal library. I feel confident in assuming that many of you have glanced at our library through the link above, and so you have a good idea of the titles we have. At last glance, we are at about 230 volumes in our growing library, covering a wide range of topics, but with special emphasis in:
United States History
Texas History
Libraries
Psychology/Neurology
Photography
Architecture
We prefer to purchase non-fiction works, as you can tell. However, today I write about the classification (and a few other librarian-related items) of our library.

Logically, the first step is the acquisition of new titles. I recently wrote about my new acquisitions for this year, but for the most part we go abut purchasing books as follows. First, we frequently browse our local booksellers and if something looks “interesting” to us, then we put it in our respective Amazon Wishlist. Usually, when we get some gift cash, or have run out of books to read, we begin carving out an order from Amazon, either new from them, or used from their marketplace sellers. I would love to spend my money locally, but Amazon is so much cheaper that it really makes very little sense for us to buy locally.

After receiving the books we ordered, they go into our catalog. (Come on, you knew we would have a catalog, right?) For our catalog, we use a pretty decent program called Delicious Library. It has a great interface, but for me (the librarian part of me), the descriptive bibliographic data is a bit lacking, as it scrapes from Amazon. Amazon’s metadata about older, or out-of-print books is pretty lacking, so I end up creating a fair amount of that metadata myself - not a major problem, but it could be easily corrected. After creating a record for the item, the new item is placed either on mine or Jen’s “To-Read” shelf in Delicious Library

As for the books themselves, they are stored in three distinct areas: our bookshelves in our living room, the lowest shelf in our built-in in the dining room, and our bookshelf in the dining room. Really, size determines where these books go, most books in the living room, larger books in the built-in, and the largest books on the bookshelf. The books (especially those in the living room) are sorted according to what their subject seems to be, and within those subjects, they are sorted alphabetically by the last name of the author.

After the few remaining Amazon books come in from our recent order, I will be photographing and uploading images of our library so that you get a better idea of what I am talking about - and the photos will be linked to and from here.

Hope you liked the little tour!