Planet Cataloging

Taking part in Code Year (JavaScript) and working with SQL, I find it helps to get a few principles and differences straight, especially for a beginner like me. First off, JavaScript is Turing-complete and SQL is not (not considering extensions like PL/SQL which implements e.g. loops and variables). Moreover, JavaScript is an imperative  and SQL is a declarative programming language – in SQL I tell the program what it should do without having to tell it how to do it (here’s a nice explanation of this contrast). Basically, I focus on describing the result I want to see and leave the execution up to the inner workings of the RDBMS. As a query and data manipulation, i.e. domain-specific language, SQL requires knowledge of the data structures which are its basis.

Two more formal differences that spring to mind:

• SQL is not case-sensitive

• syntax is easier in SQL (no brackets and braces, which I got a bit confused about – color coding helps to clarify the blocks that need these “boundaries”)

The precision and abstraction skills gained from cataloging prove to be invaluable when tackling coding. I realize that logic as one of the paradigms of programming is creeping in more and more, so in the long run it probably won’t be possible to avoid that subject …

On 7 February, OCLC is hosting two thirty-minute free webinars on the new abridged and full editions of the DDC.  Each webinar is being presented live twice to accommodate the Dewey worldwide user community.  Rebecca Green will present “DDC Abridged 15 Sneak Preview” at 10:00 a.m. EST and 5:30 p.m. EST, and Julianne Beall will present “DDC 23 Update” at 11:00 a.m. EST and 6:30 p.m. EST.  Please register for either or both webinars using the link to the desired time slot for each. 

The presentations from the Dewey Breakfast/Update at the ALA Midwinter Meeting on 21 January are now available here.

 

 

It was announced today that the RDA terms for Content Type, Carrier Type, and Media Type have been published as open linked data in the Open Metadata Registry. The terms in these vocabularies have been “derived from the RDA/ONIX framework for resource categorization which established an extensible methodology for categorization of resources according to [...]

CIG Scotland is delighted to be holding its 5^th annual Metadata and Web 2.0 seminar, once again exploring the relationship and use of metadata in the Web 2.0 environment.  Following the success of previous years this event is likely to fill up quickly, so please book early.

 

When               Friday 2^nd March 2012, 10:00-16.15

Where              National Library of Scotland, Board Room, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

How much        £30 inc VAT  (includes refreshments and sandwich lunch)

 

Once again we have an exciting mix of speakers covering a range of topics - see the draft programme below (schedule and titles may change)

 

Draft Programme

 

10.00  Registration and coffee

10.30  Use of Web 2.0 in Digital Research / Nora Daly, British Library

11.15  Professional Tweeting for Cataloguers / Lynn Corrigan, Edinburgh Napier University

12.00  Social Media and National Libraries / Bryan Christie, National Library of Scotland
12.45  Lunch
13.45  Mobile Strategies for Libraries pt1 / Karen Stevenson and Kay Munro, Glasgow University

           Mobile Strategies for Libraries pt2 / Martin Morrey, Edinburgh University

14.45  Use of Libguides in Academic Libraries / Vicki Comrie, St Andrews University

15.30  Developments in Web 2.0 / Nicola Osborne, Edina

16.15  Close

You can register for the event by contacting CIGS Secretary Colin Duncan at Colin.Duncan@inverclyde.gov.uk.  Please indicate whether you wish to be invoiced or pay on the day, and include details of your organisation and invoice address if applicable, and a purchase order number if required by your institution.

 

Please check the Slainte events calendar for further details, including updates to the programme - http://www.slainte.org.uk/events/EvntCalendar.cfm

 

 

The source code listed below has been recently approved. The code will be added to the applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes list. See the specific source code list for current usage in MARC fields and MODS/MADS elements.

The code should not be used in exchange records until 60 days after the date of this notice to provide implementers time to include the newly-defined code in any validation tables. Subject Heading and Term Source Codes

The following source code has been added to the Subject Heading and Term Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

collett

Collett-bibliografi: litteratur av og om Camilla Collett (Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket)

Image by American Library Association Publishing via FlickrNews about RDA vocabularies.

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC), the DCMI Bibliographic Metadata Task Group (formerly DCMI/RDA Task Group), and ALA Publishing (on behalf of the co-publishers of RDA) are pleased to announce the publication of a second set of vocabulary terms as linked open data. The RDA Carrier Type, Content Type and Media Type vocabularies have been reviewed, approved, and their status in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR) changed to ‘published.’ The finished vocabularies can be viewed following the links from the terms above. (The links lead to the description of the vocabulary itself, the specific terms can be viewed under the tab for ‘concepts’).

Terms in the Content Type vocabulary refer to the intellectual or artistic content of a resource, such as text or notated music; terms in the Carrier Type vocabulary refer to the means and methods by which content is conveyed including volume, sheet, computer disk; terms in the Media Type vocabulary specify the general type of intermediation device (if any) required to view, play or run the content of a resource. These vocabularies are derived from the RDA/ONIX framework for resource categorization which established an extensible methodology for categorization of resources according to content and carrier.

This is the fourth in a set of posts on changes in 004-006 Computer science in DDC 23.  As a previous post noted, some of these changes were incorporated into the DDC in November 2008, but others were new with the publication of DDC 23 in print and in WebDewey 2.0.  Here we specifically address changes involving the World Wide Web (WWW), in the context not only of 006.7 Multimedia systems, but also of the expansion for 025.042 World Wide Web under 025.04 Information storage and retrieval systems.  An expansion in 006 Special computer methods will also be introduced.

Continuing technological advances lead classifiers to question where best to class specific new and/or evolving computer and information science topics.  Sometimes the number for a topic is provided in the schedules through an expansion for the topic, so that the topic has its own number.  Sometimes information on where to class a topic is provided in Manual notes; sometimes it is given in other types of notes, especially including- and class-here notes; sometimes it is reflected only in indexing, which may appear in the print Relative Index or may appear only in WebDewey.   (Hint:  the classifier may need to check all these sources to find if the schedule gives guidance on how to handle a specific topic.  Absent such guidance, classifiers have been known sometimes to make surprising choices!) 

The table below indicates where selected WWW-related topics are to be classed under 006.7 Multimedia systems, as designated in DDC 23 through various of the means listed above:

Topic	Class number	How designated
Information architecture	006.7 Multimedia systems	In class-here note
Web page design
Web site development
Style sheet languages	006.74 Markup languages	In class-here note
Wikis	006.75 Specific types of multimedia systems	In including note at expansion (expansion from 006.7 introduced in 2008)
Blogs	006.752 Blogs	Expansion
Online social networks	006.754 Online social networks	Expansion
Web application frameworks	006.76 Programming	In class-here note
Rich Internet applications	006.78 Programs	In including note
Web services

The following are examples of works on these topics:

Title	Class number
Information architecture for the World Wide Web	006.7
The Web designer's idea book	006.7
The zen of CSS design: visual enlightenment for the web	006.74
The complete guide to wikis: how to set up, use, and benefit from wikis for teachers, business professionals, families, and friends	006.75
David Busch's quick snap guide to photoblogging with Wordpress: an instant start-up manual for creating and promoting your own photoblog	006.752
The complete idiot's guide to Facebook	006.754
Enabling context-aware web services: methods, architectures, and technologies	006.78

While all of the topics above are WWW-related, the interdisciplinary number for the World Wide Web is not in 006.7, but in 025.04.  The Manual note at 004.678 vs. 006.7, 025.042, 384.33 gives guidance on which aspects of the web are classed in these several places.  With regard to the numbers we have just looked at, it says:  “Use 006.7 for general works about the use of HTML and XML to create hypertext documents on the World Wide Web, and works that discuss web page design or effective web pages.”  The types of works which ought to be classed under 006.7 typically are works on the conceptual design of web sites and pages or works on the use of software that enable web operations. 

Interdisciplinary works on the World Wide Web have been relocated from 004.678 Internet (where interdisciplinary works on the Internet remain) to the recently expanded 025.042 World Wide Web.  The Manual note referenced above goes on to say that 025.042 is to be used for works “that emphasize search and retrieval” on the web, plus “works that describe information resources available on the Internet or WWW, or on how to find information there.” 

The basic development under 025.042 is as follows: 

025.042     World Wide Web (“Class here digital libraries, Internet literacy;” Web2.0 has been added as an index term displaying only in WebDewey, i.e., not in print)

025.0422        Web sites (“Class here directories of web sites, portals”)

025.0425        Search and retrieval (“Class here Internet searching“)

025.04252           Search engines

025.0427        Semantic web (the Relative Index term Resource Description Framework has been moved here; previously it had been assigned to 006.74)

The following are examples of works on these topics:

Title	Class number
Participative Web and user-created content: Web 2.0, wikis and social networking	025.042
Web portals: the new gateways to Internet information and services	025.0422
The extreme searcher's Internet handbook: a guide for the serious searcher	025.0425
The Semantic Web for knowledge and data management technologies and practices	025.0427

The final development to introduce is an expansion under 006.2 Special-purpose systems, where we now have:

006.2    Special-purpose systems

006.22       Embedded computer systems [formerly 004.1]

006.24       Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) (“Including magnetic stripe encoding”)

(See references lead to numbers for optical character recognition, speaker recognition, and biometric identification.)

006.242          Bar coding [formerly 006.42]

006.245          Radio frequency identification

006.246          Smart cards

By establishing classes for special-purpose systems and, under it, for automatic identification and data capture, we have provided a better organization for topics—embedded computer systems, bar coding—that had previously been classed less felicitously elsewhere. 

The following are examples of works on these topics:

Title	Class number
Real-time embedded systems: optimization, synthesis, and networking	006.22
Scan me : everybody's guide to the magical world of QR codes-- barcodes, mobile devices and hyperlinking the real to the virtual	006.242
RFID: radio frequency identification	006.245
Multi-application smart cards: technology and applications	006.246

New developments in 004-006 will continue indefinitely as new technologies, both new products and services, are created and more established technologies evolve.    But for the time being, this and the previous posts on developments in 004-006 in DDC 23 are a snapshot of significant changes in the past several years.  You can find the other posts by following these links:

Computer programming, programs, and data

Networking and computer communications

Computer hardware and storage

Issue 166 of Catalogue & Index will look back at two recent CIG events, on re-classification and on shelf-ready, including some of the papers presented on those days and also other papers on the same themes. If you have experience on either topic that you would like to share, do please get in touch with the editors, Heather Jardine (email: heatherjardine402@hotmail.com) or Cathy Broad (email: library@ethicalsoc.org.uk).

We would love to hear from you!

 

In case you missed the update from the Dewey Blog (or ignored it because there were no pretty pictures)…There are new icons appearing in the WebDewey search results.

Built numbers are represented by a puzzle piece icon.    

Manual notes are represented by a book icon.     

Both types of icons are included in search results.  For example, the search results for a search on 005.3 include the Manual note 005.3 (identified with the book icon) and the built number 005.3742 (identified with the puzzle piece icon).  The puzzle piece icon also is used to identify built numbers in browse results.  On the individual record display screen, the Manual icon appears next to the number and caption for the Manual note (for example, look at the Manual note for 005.3).   In hierarchical displays for built numbers, the puzzle piece icon can appear anywhere in the hierarchical display for the number.  For example, display the record for 338.47004 Computer industry.  In the hierarchical display, the built number icon appears next to 338.47004, and also next to two built numbers in the downward hierarchy, 338.4700411 and 338.470046.  (If you don’t see the icons associated with the aforementioned examples, it may be because relevant information has been cached in your browser.  If you want to see the icons immediately and do not want to wait until the cache is refreshed, you can press <ctrl> + <F5> inside a WebDewey screen associated with one of the examples, which will cause your browser to reload the cached information.)

Thanks to A Portal to my Cataloging Aids and the Dewey Blog

Posting to Autocat

On 1/25/2012 6:44 PM, Billie Hackney wrote:

<snip>
I have been surprised that no one has yet remarked on the articles about Technical Services areas at Harvard being targeted for layoff. Does anyone have any further information?

Feral Librarian: "What's Happening at Harvard?" (Jan. 19) Link: http://chrisbourg.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/whats-happening-at-harvard/

LJ article: "After Furor, Harvard Library Spokesperson says 'inaccurate' that all staff will have to reapply" (Jan. 19) Link: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/01/academic-libraries/after-furor-harvard-library-spokesperson-says-inaccurate-that-all-staff-will-have-to-reapply/

Article in The Crimson: No Layoffs for Harvard Libraries, yesterday: Link: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/24/Harvard-no-layoffs-library-HUCTW-SLAM-Labor/
</snip>

I would like to add another link to these, in the Daily Kos, no less: "The Great Librarian Massacre of 2012": a cataloging librarian's view
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/20/1056635/-The-Great-Librarian-Massacre-of-2012:-a-cataloging-librarians-view

The news about Harvard shows that even the greatest libraries are unable to escape the changes that the rest of the information world is experiencing.

For my own opinion, this news makes me question once again, whether instituting RDA is such a great idea, especially in the current climate. The costs and general disruption will have serious impacts on catalogers, on other librarians and on libraries in general, from the smallest to the largest, and these impacts should not at all be discounted or ignored. When faced with fundamental problems of just maintaining current services, how are cataloging managers supposed to argue for the nebulous "advantages" we will supposedly get from RDA? What advantages will the manager be able to point to? Not additional copy records, not records that are simpler for catalogers to create, nor a catalog that is easier for the public to use. What is the responsible decision?

While I admit that there are immense problems with traditional library cataloging, and have discussed them at some length in previous posts, I still do not see how RDA solves any of them. "Cataloging reconsidered" does offer many solutions to problems of information management and retrieval--this I sincerely believe, and there should be an important place at the "solutions table" for catalogers but it will take some radical re-thinking for all involved.

It is hard to say how all of this will turn out.

The 1st operational eXtensible catalog is Cute.Catalog at Kyushu University Library.

Cute.Catalog completely covers the bibliographic information of academic resources in Kyushu University which contain not only library holdings but also research output produced by Kyushu University researchers.

Cute.Catalog http://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en

Cute.Catalog includes:

• Research Outputs by Kyushu University Researchers: 250 thousands
  
• Library Holdings of Printed Materials in Kyushu University Bibliographies: 1.6 million, Holdings 4 million
  
• Accessible e-Journals: 51 thousands, e-Books: 53 thousands
  
• Institutional Repository records: 17 thousands
  
• Digital Collection: 10 thousands

Key enhanced features are:

1. advanced search
   
2. online link with 360 Link XML API
   
3. put a label of institutional production
   
4. social links and exporting features and more...

Dailykos published a useful short essay by a former harvard librarian, reflecting on the Harvard reorg/layoff news. 

I see a couple interesting points here.

Harvard has a famously byzantine library system comprising over forty libraries, and administratively divided into two separate library systems (confusingly called the Harvard University Library or HUL, and the Harvard College Library, or HCL) has changed very little in terms of organizational structure since the late 19th century.

Harvard is not alone here. In fact, I’d suggest that the oldest academic libraries, and ironically especially the old ones that really excelled 80+ years ago, are most likely to have completely dysfunctional organizational structures and organizational behavior today.

Libraries today aren’t the same as libraries 80+ years ago, especially with regard to electronic content we purchase, which has different workflows to manage and different economies to purchase; and in terms of metadata maintenance as well, something which the blog author rightly points out libraries realized the benefits of cooperating/coordinating/sharing many years ago — but sharing cards (or data to print cards) through LC is a different beast than than modern metadata control needs.

I also generally agree with the blogger’s conclusion — but with less optimism:

But second, the importance of catalogers, and more broadly speaking, librarians is not necessarily diminishing into nothingness.  The environment has changed radically, and there are sure to be plenty of future “massacre-like” events that will painfully remind us of these changes.  But librarians do have a future, and I think it may even be a bright one: they just need to accept that it won’t be quite the same as the past.

I fully agree that there is still as much of a need for the tasks librarians have always done as ever — most definitely and even especially including cataloging/metadata control.

However, despite agreeing with that, I am actually not optimistic, like that blogger is.  We are running out of time to demonstrate that our profession, community, and industry is capable of meeting the metadata control needs of the 21st century.  We are not doing a good job of it. We do not seem to be capable of changing our priorities, expertise, organizational structures, and inter-organizational collaborative infrastructures, to deal with it.

The traditional goals of libraries have traditionally are still useful and needed just as much as ever, but with different ways of accomplishing them. There is still a great need for an organization specializing in information management on behalf of a user community, and without trying to make a profit off that user community.  But I am, sadly, no longer particularly optimistic that libraries as they are are actually capable of accomplishing those goals.  However, even in the best of cases, trying will result in some painful organization reorgs — nobody likes change. (It’s of course also possible for painful reorgs to end up entirely useless or even counter-productive, or simply admissions of defeat as libraries slowly die).

Hint: If you or your organization thinks if we can just put all our metadata into RDF as quickly as possible and therefore be “doing linked data”, that this is necessary and sufficient to handle modern metadata control needs — you have not only missed the boat, you are on the wrong boat.   I have lately been seeing a worrying increase of people suggesting “oh, we just need linked data to solve that problem”, with “linked data” meaning “the data we’ve already got expressed in RDF”, with a worrying ignorance/disregard for what good data actually entails in the 21st century systems environment.

Filed under: General

Are you in the enviable planning stage of a DAM project considering metadata fields? If so, check out this information from Another DAM blog and podcast on metadata standards.

Henrik de Gyor touches upon some of the core resources for metadata planning including the NISO guide to understanding metadata. This comprehensive guide covers metadata standards, creating metadata and other related topics like interoperability.

A newer valuable resource is the Visualization of the Metadata Universe by Jen Riley. "The sheer number of metadata standards in the cultural heritage sector is overwhelming, and their inter-relationships further complicate the situation. This visual map of the metadata landscape is intended to assist planners with the selection and implementation of metadata standards."

Examining these resources when planning metadata will provide a solid foundation from which you can incorporate and create elements specific to your organization's needs. One of my favorite tactics is creating a "metadata mashup" by combining elements from several different schemas in a customized manner. For instance, I like to use Dublin Core, IPTC and VRA Core for a lot of image related cataloging.

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

There's a lot of talk about doing away with bibliographic records and replacing them with collections of linked data. In this scenario keeping track of the links is of vital importance. The recent paper How To Track Your Data: The Case for Cloud Computing Provenance by Olive Qing Zhang, Markus Kirchberg, Ryan K. L. Ko, and Bu Sung Lee addresses this topic.

Provenance, a meta-data describing the derivation history of data, is crucial for the uptake of cloud computing to enhance reliability, credibility, accountability, transparency, and confidentiality of digital objects in a cloud. In this paper, we survey current mechanisms that support provenance for cloud computing, we classify provenance according to its granularities encapsulating the various sets of provenance data for different use cases, and we summarize the challenges and requirements for collecting provenance in a cloud, based on which we show the gap between current approaches to requirements. Additionally, we propose our approach, DataPROVE, that aims to effectively and efficiently satisfy those challenges and requirements in cloud provenance, and to provide a provenance supplemented cloud for better integrity and safety of customers' data.

The latest MarcEdit update has been baked and pushed out the door.  If you are running a current version of MarcEdit, you can expect to see the program prompt you for update (unless you’ve disabled that functionality).  Otherwise, you can find the update at: http://people.oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/downloads.html.  Originally, this update was planned to be primarily cosmetic, with two small bug fixes.  However, after working with a colleague playing with some large Hathi Trust metadata files, a few other updates ended up squeezing in.  So what’s changed?  See below:

1. Enhancement: MARCXML => MARC enhancements.  When translating from MARCXML
   to MARC, MarcEdit will truncate records if the record data is too long (over
   the 99,999 bytes) or the field data is too long (over 9,999 bytes).  MarcEdit
   will truncate records that are too long or split the field data if too long.
   If either operation occurs, MarcEdit will recode the 008/38 to an "s".  This
   enhancement only affects the MARCXML=>MARC conversion function — however,
   that means that any function that converts data to MARC through MARCXML is
   affected by this change. 

I discussed this change in more length here, but essentially, this change was necessitated because I’m occasionally running into XML data that I’d like to translate into MARC, but simply is too large.  The changes here allow MarcEdit when translating data through the MARCXML=>MARC process to automatically augment records that would otherwise be generated as invalid (as currently happens).  If you’d like to see how MarcEdit handles these types of errors, you can look at a sample file at: http://people.oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/anonymous/long_xml.xml.  This file has 3 MARCXML records.  The first one is roughly 3 times too large for a traditional MARC record thanks to the many 9xx fields in the record.  Prior to this update, MarcEdit would generate a record, calculating the length of the record incorrectly (it would calculate the length, then take the first 5 numbers in the value – since the record is longer than 5 values, the record length would be incorrect).  After this update, MarcEdit will now truncate fields once the record limit has been reached and notify the user through the UI that the truncation took place, in addition to the 008 modifications mentioned above.

Bug Fix: Swap Field function:  Under certain rare conditions, moving data
from a control field to a variable field results in the delimiter value being
dropped on the swapped data.

Bug Fix: Set Font function — when the function fails, the program will now exit the function gracefully and render the font in its default state.

Enhancement: Validator has been augmented so that invalid record
identification of records in .mrk format can be done outside of the
MarcEditor.

Enhancement: Added a new Change Case shortcut that allows users to set the
initial character in a field to upper case, without modifying the case of any
other characters in the subfield.

So that’s it for the updates.  The MARCXML=>MARC changes were very significant changes, but hopefully they will be useful ones.  I know that they will be welcomed at OSU since we occasionally run into issues of fields being too long when harvesting our ETD records from DSpace to generate our MARC records for the catalog.

–TR

This term I’m on leave from teaching classes, in order to focus on my own studies. I’m working towards the Upgrade from MPhil to PhD, with the smaller (but important) deadline of the Progress Review approaching fast. There’s still marking, of course, and meetings with personal tutees, and dissertation supervision. Students on the MA LIS [...]

Posting to Autocat

On sabato 21 gennaio 2012 17:12:48, Marian Veld wrote:

<snip>
On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 3:29 PM, James Weinheimer wrote:

I have mentioned several times that the FRBR user tasks provide nothing essentially new, and that catalogs today can achieve those user tasks right now. Perhaps it's kind of a pain at the moment in some catalogs, but in Worldcat and other catalogs, it can be done now. With some programming magic, the public can very easily "find, identify, select, obtain: works, expressions, manifestations, items by their authors, titles, subjects". The undeniable fact is, our catalogs provide FRBR capabilities right now, they just haven't allowed it through keyword until relatively recently, but anyway, catalogs have always aimed to provide this kind of access.

"Perhaps it's kind of a pain at the moment..." EXACTLY. That's why change is needed. As for user tasks, your comments consistently show that you don't have public library patrons in mind. Easily over half of the reference questions at the public libraries I've worked at have been known item requests. Well sort of... As in, "I'm looking for this book about<supply subject here> but I don't remember the author or title. They're looking for a specific item they saw on tv, or heard about on the radio, or a friend recommended, etc... Amazon.com is the best reference resource for those kind of questions. Which shows just how much our catalogs need to change.
</snip>

I have said repeatedly that change is needed. What is important to keep in mind is that *if* we want to take steps toward implementing the FRBR user tasks, then the most efficient and cheapest way is definitely *not* to institute FRBR data model and RDA. Computers can implement the FRBR user tasks and you can do it with open-source catalogs. Right now,
today.

While implementing an open source catalog is not "free", I admit, it is much cheaper than retraining the entire cataloging community to implement rules that are much more complex than what we have now, and then to expect our library catalogs to retool.
 
But with the example you give, of someone looking for a book that they heard on TV or only by the subject, I've had lots of those questions too. How will going through all the expense of FRBR and RDA supposed to help answer those questions better than what we have today? Our  catalogs have always been specifically designed to answer known-item questions. They still do, and could do it better with better cataloging software. Here's an example of how powerfully it can work today for Shakespeare's Hamlet in Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3Ashakespeare+william+ti%3Ahamlet&qt=advanced&dblist=638.

With this search, we are looking at the "work" of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Then look in the left column to see how it implements the FRBR user tasks. Quite brilliant.

With these new types of functionalities, undreamt of just 10 years ago, the searcher can limit this result for the work of Hamlet, by clicking on different formats, languages, dates, and other limits. This is incredibly easy for anybody once you have the right search for uniform title. This wonderful functionality can be improved tremendously and made even simpler for the searcher, but nevertheless, it demonstrates how someone can go through the user tasks right now, today.

Precisely this same functionality is found in the open source catalog, Koha, but other open source catalogs have it as well. So, there is no need to change anything we do today *if* the purpose is to implement the FRBR user tasks. It is a pain for the user *only if* your catalog
software does not allow it. Otherwise, as we see with the OCLC example, it's not such a pain.

Still, I have tried to point out that most people do *not* need the FRBR user tasks, but want something else, so just getting the FRBR user tasks to work solves very little. For instance, the Shakespeare's Hamlet search is nice, but does it provide the searchers with what they really need and want? I don't think anyone can answer that at this moment.

One of the first jobs of librarians should be to find out what the user needs of the public *really are*, such as Google and other big information companies are doing now. I still say that this is one reason why they are so far ahead of libraries--Google etc. are closer to giving the public what they want because those companies have done the work and have a much better idea of what the public really wants.

Once librarians get an idea of what the public is doing and what their needs may be, then we can really begin to move forward.

My suggestion: libraries should implement the facets in their own catalogs using the functionality as found in Worldcat and Koha, then declare that FRBR is implemented, so that they can move on.

Indexers have long turned to ISO 2788 and ISO 5964 for guidance on thesaurus development (for monolingual and multilingual thesauri respectively). Although primarily designed for post-coordinate indexing, they have applications for pre-coordinate indexes too. But the most recent versions of these standards came out in 1986 and 1985 respectively, when print was still the prime medium for information delivery.

To bring us all into the twenty-first century, the British Standard BS 8723 was published in five parts during 2005-2008. Then began the slog to turn BS 8723 into an International standard - ISO 25964. At last in 2011 the first part of ISO 25964 has been published, and has completely replaced both ISO 2788 and ISO 5964. At last the international standard's guidance is written for creators and users of the information that flows over intranets and the World Wide Web, as well as other digital media. For more details see this news item.

(Posted on behalf of Stella Dextre Clarke)

 

One of the benefits of moving the MARCXML=>MARC translation algorithm away from XSLT to an inline function is the ability to provide some sanity checking beyond the simple XML validation.  One of the issues that I see periodically when working with XML conversions is the need to code data truncation into my XSLT stylesheets.  For example, the ETD process that we use with DSpace looks for the abstract and makes sure that the data in the abstract doesn’t exceed the 9,999 bytes for a MARC field. 

Recently however, I found a different problem that I don’t run into often, but showed up when working with some data provided by the Hathi Trust.  Some colleagues were given a large sample of data (32 GBs of MARCXML) data to do some research into providing better identification of government documents records.  The new MarcEdit MARCXML process is able to make short work of this 32 GB file, translating the data into MARC in ~20 minutes.  The problem however, that arrives, is that some of these records are too long.  For reasons I cannot understand, the Hathi Trust data includes a local 9xx field, that from the context, appears to be item information.  Unfortunately, some records include thousands of items, meaning that when the data is translated, the resulting record is too large (exceeds the total length of 99,999 bytes). 

However, because of the new MARCXML process, I’ve been able to create a work around  for situations like this.  When processing MARCXML data, MarcEdit will internally track the record length of a translated record.  If that record would exceed the maximum record length, MarcEdit will truncate the record by dropping fields off the end of the record.  The program will also modify the 008/38 byte, setting the value to “s” (means modified) and will visually notify the user that a truncation occurred by changing the results panel purple.

While I generally take a hands off approach to modifying MARC data through the translation process, this seems to be a good compromise for dealing with what is now, a rare situation, but what I predict, will become an all too common situation as more data is created in systems without the MARC record limitations.

These changes to the translation engine will occur on the next MarcEdit update (scheduled for 1/23/2012), when I’ll post both an announcement and include a small record set that can demonstrate the new functionality. Hopefully, folks will find these changes useful, especially as technical services departments find themselves having to deal with more and more non-MARC metadata.

–TR

This is the 4th book that I have finished in my Two-Thirds Book Challenge. I started it 6 October 2011 and finished it 15 January 2012. I had not intended to take so long but it is somewhat complex and, in all honesty, the rampant Freudianism/psychoanalysis is simply too much at times.

I have almost 6 pages of notes but I think I will ignore them for this review.

The central thesis is, I believe, reasonably sound. Although, certainly, it is not the only way to spin a description of cross-cultural mythology. It is in some of the (psychoanalytic) interpretation that the spinning out of control happens.

This past fall semester I took a course in classic literature and mythology, and as of today I finished a quick 3-week romp through 30 of the Grimm’s fairy tales. This book explains, or at least describes, much of what is present and happening in these stories.

One of the things I appreciated and respected is that Campbell clearly includes the stories of the Christian Bible–Old and New Testaments–in his analysis of myth.

One of the things I am unsatisfied with—I fear to be expected in Western culture and, in particular, with psychoanalysis—is the gendered explanation.

I do think the book is worth reading; some parts are certainly much better than others. In most places my notes are fairly detailed but in a few I wrote “This [such and such] is crap!” or “mumbo jumbo.”

I am going to provide a detailed list of the contents as perhaps that will provide the best overview of what the book contains/discusses:

Prologue: The Monomyth

• 1. Myth and Dream
• 2. Tragedy and Comedy
• 3. The Hero and the God
• 4. The World Navel

Part I: The Adventure of the Hero

• Chapter I: Departure
• 1. The Call to Adventure
• 2. Refusal of the Call
• 3. Supernatural Aid
• 4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
• 5. The Belly of the Whale/li>
• Chapter II: Initiation
• 1. The Road of Trials
• 2. The Meeting with the Goddess
• 3. Woman as the Temptress
• 4. Atonement with the Father
• 5. Apotheosis
• 6. The Ultimate Boom
• Chapter III: Return
• 1. Refusal of the Return
• 2. The Magic Flight
• 3. Rescue from Without
• 4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
• 5. Master of the Two Worlds
• 6. Freedom to Live
• Chapter IV: The Keys

Part II: The Cosmogonic Cycle

• Chapter I: Emanations
• 1. From Psychology to Metaphysics
• 2. The Universal Round
• 3. Out of the Void–Space
• 4. Within Space–Life
• 5. The Breaking of the One onto the Manifold
• 6. Folk Stories of Creation
• Chapter II: The Virgin Birth
• 1. Mother Universe
• 2. Matrix of Destiny
• 3. Womb of Redemption
• 4. Folk Stories of Virgin Motherhood
• Chapter III: Transformations of the Hero
• 1. The Primordial Hero and the Human
• 2. Childhood of the Human Warrior
• 3. The Hero as Warrior
• 4. The Hero as Lover
• 5. The Hero as Emperor and as Tyrant
• 6. The Hero as World Redeemer
• 7. The Hero as Saint
• 8. Departure of the Hero
• Chapter IV: Dissolutions
• 1. End of the Microcosm
• 2. End of the Macrocosm

Epilogue: Myth and Society

• 1. The Shapeshifter
• 2. The Function of the Myth, Cult, and Meditation
• 3. The Hero Today

As a follow-up book to this one, I began another of my 2/3rds Challenge books, Mircea Eliade’s The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History. It, too, is in the Bollingen Series. So far I am enjoying it. It is also a quite deep book and I am taking many notes. Thus, it may also take a while to get through.

Kate and I will be at ALA Midwinter in Dallas this weekend, stop by to say hi! We’ll be at booth 1650.

The exhibits are open from the evening of Friday the 20th through the afternoon of Monday the 23rd. If you’re in the area and weren’t planning on attending, we can offer some free passes to the exhibit hall (note, this will ONLY get you into the exhibit hall, not any of the conference sessions). Click here to get a free exhibit pass.

We also have a series of improvements and features we’re adding to Library Anywhere and to the LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements–watch the blog for more, or stop by the booth for a preview!

I’ve often wondered about the coding LC uses in some of their authority records.    There is a or b coding as to whether the authority should be used as a main or added entry, a subject, or a series.   With a meaning YES and b meaning NO.

If you see aaa then the authority can be used for all three.  baa means it cannot be used as a main or added entry,  but can be used as a subject or series.  bab means it can only be used as a subject.  bba means it can only be used as a series, etc. etc.

Why then do the authority records for airplanes, ships etc. have the coding aab?  This denotes that the airplane CAN be a main or added entry.  When is the last time you saw a work written by an airplane?  Is there any instance when the authorities for airplanes, boats, ships, etc. should display in the author authority database?

Example: 001       n 2004029426
003       DLC
005       20040714143836.0
008       040714n| acannaabn |n ana
010 –    |an 2004029426
040 –    |aDLC|beng|cDLC
110 2-    |aBuzzer (Airplane)
670 –    |aYedlin, Benedict. Brother men who fly, 2002:|bp.
1-2 (The Buzzer; B-24 “H” model, serial no. 41-29307;
crashed in Italy Dec. 9, 1944)

 

The Foyle Special Collections Library houses some 170,000 printed works, as well as maps, slides, sound recordings and manuscript material. Its collections, built up over centuries by purchase, gift and bequest, contain incunabula, many unique items and cover all subject areas.

You will be able to view a selection of books from the collections, including some incunabula, some items from the FCO Historical Collection (which was transferred in 2007), and from the historical medical collections. These examples will be used to illustrate some practices of rare book cataloguing.

The visit will also include a tour of the Maughan Library, a listed building with many interesting architectural features and used to house the Public Record Office.

Following the visit there will be refreshments and a chance to view their latest exhibition, "Learning from Lister", timed to coincide with the centenary of the death of the surgeon and 'discoverer' of antiseptic surgery Joseph Lister. The exhibition will include museum artefacts (from the Science Museum, Royal College of Surgeons etc.) as well as three books with important Lister associations from the Foyle Special Collections Library.

This is a free event but places are limited to 20.

For further details and to book a place please contact Katrina Clifford on k.clifford@kingston.ac.uk.

The preliminary report from the CONSER Standard Record RDA Core Elements Task Group is now available on the CONSER website. Issues covered include:

• Authorized access points for translations and language editions
• Additions to distinguish otherwise identical authorized access points for resources
• Recording dates of publication
• Recording statements of responsibility relating to the title proper

Posting to Autocat

On 1/18/2012 4:10 PM, Aaron Kuperman wrote:

<snip>
The classic book "Flatlands" deals with how beings existing in a 2-dimensional universe function, appear to and can interact with beings such as ourselves who exist and perceive in 3-dimensions. [...] I am suggesting that for those of us who have spent their entire professional lives in an AACR/MARC universe, we are unable to comprehend an RDA/FRBR universe, just as 2-dimensional beings can't perceive "normal" human, and humans can't perceive a 5-dimensional universe. To understand an RDA/FRBR universe, whether for training purposes (my concern), or making policy decision (something I only "kibbitz" on), requires adopting an RDA/FRBR mindset, which I suspect will lead to very different perceptions than when a "2-dimensional" AACR/MARC being trys to follow the RDA rules. Learning the new rules is an aspect, but the big part of the change in learning about the new dimensions.
</snip>

Well, I am the eternal skeptic. From my point of view, all of this assumes quite a bit. First, it assumes that the FRBR structure of entities, etc. are necessary to achieve the FRBR user tasks. Second, that the FRBR user tasks provide what the public *really* wants. Third, that in order to enter the linked data/semantic web/whatever-people-call-it-today universe, you need FRBR. And fourth, that the linked data universe itself is something that the public *really* wants. Therefore, to get into this lane, we have to adopt RDA. None of this is logical to me.

I have mentioned several times that the FRBR user tasks provide nothing essentially new, and that catalogs today can achieve those user tasks right now. Perhaps it's kind of a pain at the moment in some catalogs, but in Worldcat and other catalogs, it can be done now. With some programming magic, the public can very easily "find, identify, select, obtain: works, expressions, manifestations, items by their authors, titles, subjects". The undeniable fact is, our catalogs provide FRBR capabilities right now, they just haven't allowed it through keyword until relatively recently, but anyway, catalogs have always aimed to provide this kind of access.

Next, I have personally seen no evidence that for most people, it is vital for them to be able to do the FRBR user tasks, so calling them "user tasks" is a misnomer. Sure, some people want to do all of that occasionally, but this represents only a small percentage of the population, and on top of that, it is a small percentage of the total searches that small percentage makes. In fact, I have seen quite the contrary where people, including myself, have completely different needs other than those in FRBR. It seems only logical to ask: if the public really did want to find, identify, select, obtain: works, expressions, and so on and so on, then why do they overwhelmingly prefer tools such as Google where they can't even begin to do any of that at all? You can't even limit a search to a person's name! And yet, people like it a lot.

Third, FRBR is also not needed to enter the linked data universe. All you need to do is open up your data in a decent format and link it. You don't even have to have RDF which is incredibly complex and there are far simpler ways of doing it. But I admit that you cannot do it with MARC21/ISO2709 records that are shut away in databases.

Finally, there is an unspoken assumption that the public wants the linked data universe, and that when everything is linked, something wonderful will happen, although it is unclear exactly what that something wonderful is. Nevertheless, the Holy Grail for information developers is "Linked Data". And yet, I have never seen any research that shows this is what the public wants at all. Of course, it would be really difficult to do research on "linked data" because it barely exists as yet, but once again, we are left with promises of a radiant future without any evidence that it is what anyone wants. All that we have left is sheer faith that this future state will be a major advance, but I lost my faith quite some time back.

I think that FRBR does not envision anything new and to follow your analogy, merely seeks to impose a 2D universe onto a 3D universe that we still barely understand. Some parts can be salvaged from our 2D universe, but we must find new paths forward or risk being left further and further behind.

Help get the NACO/LC Authority File ready for RDA.

The Acceptable Headings Implementation Task Group has been established by the Program for Cooperative Cataloging to develop an implementation plan for preparing the LC/NACO authority file for RDA. The work of this group is largely based on the report of an earlier PCC Task Group; this group recommended a series of mechanical operations designed to make as many of the records in the LC/NACO authority file as useful as possible under RDA without individual review. The present group is exploring each of the changes suggested by the first group in detail, and fitting each into a proposed schedule.

The group has created a Facebook page as one means for communication between the group and the larger community: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/PCC-Acceptable-Headings-Implementation-Task-Group/232585923488557 We invite comments on our work, but ask that comments follow the guidelines found in the “Info" section of this page. THE INFO SECTION describes the Group's activities, including the broad areas in which the group is interested in receiving comments and those areas not in the Group's charge in which the group is not interested in receiving comments.

The group has already drafted several documents. These documents may be found at the Group's download site (and they are also available from the Facebook page): http://files.library.northwestern.edu/public/pccahitg/

• a document describing a phased implementation of the suggested changes
• a discussion of the issues involved in the handling of subfield $c in personal names
• a discussion of the suppression (or otherwise) of 4XX fields for AACR2 forms of name

The Group is in the midst of drafting a series of documents describing the stages in which this work should be performed, and the details involved in the work. These documents will also be posted to the Group's download site, and notices of the postings placed on the Facebook page. The Group is actively soliciting volunteers interested in assisting the Group in its work. These tasks will include the review of long lists of changed headings for correctness.

While I was at the PASIG conference this last weekend, a number of people talked about the death of the harddrive, at least in the sense of our personal portable devices.  The popularity of ultrabooks and small form notebooks was discussed many times, noting that personal computing will move more and more away from local copies to cloud-based drives because:

• Solid State Drives provide the instant on/performance that people are wanting in their portable devices
• The Expense of Solid State drives and their current relative small size will eventually relegate storage off the local device and into the cloud.

While I certainly agree that this likely will continue to be a trend (look at how tools like Dropbox are changing the way researchers store and share their data), I think think that many of the folks at PASIG may be too quick to overlook some of the very cool developments related to SSD technology that allow for microform factors, allowing ultra portables to support both a traditional SSD drive and the more traditional spinning drive.  Of course, I’m talking about the current work being done with msata drives. 

Currently, there are very few mainstream systems that support msata technology, which is unfortunate because these really are cool devices.  The two best probably are produced by Intel, which produces a 40 GB and 80 GB flavor of their drive (http://ark.intel.com/products/56547/Intel-SSD-310-Series-(80GB-mSATA-3Gbs-34nm-MLC)).  When I was looking for a replacement laptop this last month, I was looking specifically for a device that had both a SSD and traditional drive setup.  However, my requirements that the system be under 4 lbs and compact made this a difficult search.  However, in doing my research, I stumbled upon the Intel msata drive system. 

Now SSD drives are small to begin with, but the msata drives are downright microscopic.  The image below, taken from a review of these devices, shows just how small.  In fact, when I ordered one, I had a hard time believing that they really got an 80 GB drive on a chip a little bit bigger than a quarter.  Yet, they did.

(Image linked from http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-310-Series-80GB-SSD-Review/)

So how well does this work?  From my limited experience with it (about 2 weeks) – great.  Intel provides a set of disk tools that allow you to migrate your current partitions onto the SSD disk – however, I choose to do a fresh install.  Installing Windows and all my programs onto the SSD drive cost me ~35 GB.  Setting up a little symlinking, I moved all the data components to the traditional harddrive (500 GB), leaving the SSD for just the operating system and programs.  Then I tested.

When I first received the laptop, I did some start up and shutdown testing.  On a clean system, the laptop, running a I-7 with 8 GB of RAM would take approximately 35 seconds for Windows 7 to finish it’s startup cycle.  Not bad, but not great.  Additionally, on a full charge, the system would run for ~3.7 hours on the battery (not good).  Running the Windows Experience tests, it gave the 500 GB, 7200 rpm drive a 6.2 (of 7.9) performance score.

After installing the msata drive and making it the primary boot partition, I gave the tests another whirl and the difference was striking.  First, on the Windows Experience testing, there was a significant different in rating.  Using the SSD as the primary system disk, the Experience tests gave the Intel 80 GB msata drive a score of 7.7 (of 7.9) – a pretty high score.  So what does that mean in real life?  Well, let’s start with boot times.  From a cold boot, it now takes Windows 7 approximately 5-7 seconds.  Closing the lid and opening it back up has essentially become instance on (for a while, I was wondering if the system was actually going to sleep when I closed the lid because it was on as soon as I opened it).  And finally, battery life.  On a full charge, under heavy use at the PASIG conference, I got nearly 8 hours on a single charge. 

While the move away from local disks may indeed happen in the near future, my more recent laptop purchasing experience showed me that for those that want to continue to have a very high performance system, with an small form factor – it is possible to have the best of both worlds utilizing these emerging SSD technologies to create very high performance (and relatively low-cost) portal systems.

–TR

This is that time of year when I try to perfect that look on my face that says "If the first sentence out of your mouth doesn't include the words 'at ALA' or "gushing blood' I don't really have time to talk.  It's another busy one as usual, with my time split between OCLC activities, LITA activities, and my first year as an ALA Councilor.  Here are a few highlights for me this year:

Great agenda.  Check it out.

Whether or not you've heard about WorldShare, Webscale, and the power of cooperation in libraries, I would encourage you to jon Cathy De Rosa and her OCLC colleagues at these great events.

Excited about this one, as I will only speak for 5 minutes before turning things over to Lynne Jacobsen (Pepperdine) and Stefanie WIttenbach (Texas A&M San Antonio) from two libraries that have been live with WorldShare Management Services the longest.

I'll be at the podium for this one with lots of audience support from my colleagues.  Isn't it time that we started talking about new solutions for managing our most valuable resources?  Wouldn't it be even cooler if you could do something about it now?  Well, you can...come and find out.

Admit it, you're awake anyway...why not come get a great full breakfast and get a great overview of everything the world's largest library cooperative is up to?

MIT has a new digital service. If you know about the Open Courseware Consortium, then hopefully you’ll like this future service called MITx. Basically, MITx is a new online learning initiative offered by MIT through the MIT Open Courseware site. According to MIT news, MITx will offer several MIT courses in an interactive learning environment. If you don’t know about Open Courseware, typically the online courses that are offered are a series of videotaped lectures with its associated files such as syllabus, assignment list, and the like. According to MIT news, MITx will allow for student to student communication, online laboratories, assessment, self paced learning, etc.

MIT expects that this learning platform will enhance the educational experience of its on-campus students, offering them online tools that supplement and enrich their classroom and laboratory experiences. MIT also expects that MITx will eventually host a virtual community of millions of learners around the world.

MIT news reports that MITx will be free just like MITs courses through Open Courseware. MITx should be released in the spring 2012. So be on the lookout for this new online learning experience…

Filed under: cataloging

Posting to Autocat
 
On 17/01/2012 21:31, SHEPHERD, MATTHEW wrote:

<snip>
Good afternoon! I've been following this list for over a year since I took a technical services course in my MLIS program. I am breaking my silence today because of a 1953 Seymour Lubetzky article included in the readings for my cataloging course. The article, "Development of Cataloging Rules," begins as a historical summary, but Lubetzky concludes with a statement that seems quite relevant to recent discussions about RDA, AACR2, and LCRI:

"There is a school of thought which maintains that economy in cataloging requires a code of rules which could be applied without the exercise of judgment by the cataloger. Judgment, they say, is expensive because it requires highly paid people and takes much time. It is questionable whether this theory was ever valid in large and scholarly libraries. It certainly cannot be so where catalogers are confronted with a vast and mounting variety of publications on the one hand and a growing maze of rules on the other. It also is detrimental to the future of a profession which will require a generation of catalogers able to cope with greater cataloging problems than their predecessors have faced. Such a generation could not be brought up on a cataloging diet rich in rules and poor in principles, and on a preparation in cataloging which involved the use of rules without the exercise of discretion and reason."

It seems that Lubetzky is picturing a future world in which cataloging is done via flowchart (which I've seen in use for cataloging sound recordings), and in which seemingly trifling decisions are elevated to matters of great importance (which reminds me of MARC, ISBD, and AACR2).

I find it interesting that Lubetzky made these observations in a largely print-dominated environment. I think that the development of electronic formats in particular (both to be cataloged and to use for cataloging) has perhaps made the application of basic principles a more difficult prospect. The minutiae of descriptive cataloging must also be considered with respect to machine-readability, as well (such as standardizing terminology in the 300 field for faceting searches). In short, I'm not surprised that there is currently a greater emphasis on detailed rules and procedures than on underlying concepts.

I'm admittedly a greenhorn here, so I don't have much experience to weigh in very strongly on this point. I am interested in what members of this list think about Lubetzky's conclusion. Is cataloging theory and/or practice too heavily focused on low-level issues to consider the larger perspective? Have developments such as those associated with FRBR and RDA been working toward or against the establishment or application of principles?

I realize there's a lot to digest in the above, but I would enjoy reading your thoughts. The full Lubetzky article is available online at the following address: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/5511/librarytrendsv2i2c_opt.pdf
</snip>

Thanks for giving me the impetus to read this famous article once again. I too read it first in library school I believe, and at least one time since, and now, once again. It's interesting how my attitudes have changed since the first time.

Today, I ask myself: what does "cataloger's judgment" really mean? Of course, we can say that, based on the cataloger's experience, he or she makes the best judgment and moves on. The problem is, the term "experience" itself means many things as well, so someone with a great deal of experience with, e.g. audio-visual may not have much experience with maps, or someone with experience in legal topics may have none or practically none with theology or art. The experience of any cataloger, even over many decades, is still narrow compared with the totality of the bibliographic universe (although Mac's incredible knowledge may be a fantastic exception). As a result, any cataloger, when faced with a dilemma and having no rules to resort to, must make a decision on something where they have no experience. What is he or she to do?

I have seen two basic methods, each of which I think, are equally valid.

The first is to conclude that because there is no rule and I have no direct experience in this area, pretty much any decision will be satisfactory. Therefore, I will make a quick judgment and continue on.


The second is to conclude that because there is no rule and I have no direct experience in this area, I must spend time to search the catalogs I have for similar examples. After all, I am sure that someone before me has dealt with this problem or something similar--I need to discover how they handled it. So, this cataloger will spend time to get the needed experience before making the judgment, which only then will become satisfactory.

Lubetzsky, I think, suggests that catalogers take the first option in his article, although I confess that I have always tended toward the second one.

But, we are living in the 21st century, so there are additional aspects when considering Lubetzsky's article that didn't exist in his day. One is that tremendous strides have been made in online documentation. I have a certain experience with putting cataloging documentation online, and have discovered that in many ways the problems are not that there are "too many rules" but rather, the problem is one of computer-human interaction. In this case, the question becomes: What is the best way of recording cataloging decisions? In the example above, what if there were a very quick and easy way for either cataloger to record the decision they actually took, so that another cataloger could find that decision just as quickly and easily? So, if the question to any cataloging question could be found within three or four clicks because the rules are so wonderfully organized, then less "judgment" is needed and the results will be more consistency in the catalog along with greater efficiency for the cataloger. From this viewpoint, the answer is to build such a system that allows for a tremendous growth of rules and procedures but ensures easy navigation. There are all types of documentation in various fields online, and consequently, a lot of experience people can draw upon.

Another point that is just beginning to be used now in some fields but not cataloging, is the possibility of online collaboration. In my opinion, this is one of the most exciting possibilities today. Systems can be built, and exist now in different professions, where you can post a question and get responses from catalogers with expertise in specific areas other than your own. Autocat works slightly this way but there are far more powerful systems available. Wouldn't it be great if you could call an expert on Skype, discuss the problem and share the resource you are dealing with live? The expert may want to discuss it with other experts before giving a verdict. The verdict and all the discussions behind it could be saved for others later. These are some of the possibilities available today. And almost all the technology is open source.

So my own opinion today: I don't believe that the problem is that there are too many rules. Although in a print environment, having thousands and thousands (and thousands!) of pages of rules and procedures would make you faint, those days are over, and they are over forever. The problem today is to make the rules and procedures as useful as they need to be to allow for the greatest efficiency and as easy to navigate as possible, while the possibilities of truly online collaboration are amazing.

Sounds kind of like what the catalog itself could become, doesn't it?

Posting to Autocat

On 14/01/2012 16:33, J. McRee Elrod wrote:

<snip>
James said:

The LCPSs will not be available openly over the web, but only through subscriptions to the RDA Toolkit or the Cataloger's Desktop.

I've had no difficulty accessing them here: http://access.rdatoolkit.org/document.php?id=lcpschp1&target=lcps1-502#lcps1-502 I wondered why you did not have a link to them on your cooperative cataloguing site.
</snip>

Thanks for that. I didn't know they are available to everyone! I'll put in some links, unless someone else would like to do it. It is a wiki, after all.

I posted a few days ago about my worries that publisher unwillingness to allow library ebook lending (made possible by the fact that publishers have more legal right to block such activities than with print) imperils the future of public lending libraries. 

I worry that there isn’t enough patron education on this issue. Patrons need to know that it’s publishers standing in the way, not library traditionalism or incompetence (well, there might be some of that too).

I was heartened to see a popular press article highlighting publisher resistance to library ebook lending, and the barriers publishers put in place. I hope this starts getting more coverage (and wish the ALA’s advocacy and popular education wings would work on it; what’s the ALA for, anyway?)

As demand for e-books soars, libraries struggle to stock their virtual shelves. By Christian Davenport, Published: January 14 . Washington Post.

And in a very related topic, an Amazon press release (blogged and analyzed here) suggests that making a title available through the Kindle lending program increases ebook sales for that title compared to if it were not available for lending, as well as resulting in royalties from Amazon’s library program.  Perhaps the publishers don’t need to be scared of library lending?

Of course, Amazon (as well as perhaps the publishers), would like to see an Amazon-controlled platform take control with no intermediation by pesky non-profit public libraries.  And with a new per-use royalty payment model. (which the US First Sale Doctrine makes unenforceable for print, but not ebooks).  Remember, not-for-profit libraries (public, academic, and sometimes special use)  are pretty much the only institutions in the publishing chain/universe, whose only interest is the benefit of their patrons/customers, rather than squeezing as much profit as possible out of their customers.

Filed under: General

It’s been two months since you’ve heard from the Dewey editorial team on the blog.  There’s a good reason for our silence: we’ve been working tirelessly on Abridged Edition 15.  Yesterday, we transmitted final corrections to the printer.  We’re looking forward to sharing a sneak preview of Abridged Edition 15 with attendees at the Dewey Breakfast/Update at ALA Midwinter this coming Saturday (21 January), 7:00–8:30 a.m., in the Omni Dallas Hotel, Greenville Avenue Room.  The program will also feature presentations on WebDewey 2.0 and DDC translations.  If you haven’t already done so, please register here. 

The ALCTS Public Libraries Technical Services Interest Group will meet in the same room directly following the Dewey Breakfast/Update.  See you in Dallas!

Apparently we are heroes!  There is a wonderful list of “20 heroic librarians who save the world“. I love how we are evolving from the mousy spinsters and shushers to ÜberPeople Who Control Knowledge. Filed under: humor, librarian Tagged: heroic librarians

Many of you will have noticed the inclusion of new icons to identify built numbers and manual notes.

Built numbers are represented by a puzzle piece icon.

Manual notes are represented by a book icon.

Both types of icons are included in search results.  For example, the search results for a search on 005.3 include the manual note 005.3 (identified with the book icon) and the built number 005.3742 (identified with the puzzle piece icon).  The puzzle piece icon also is used to identify built numbers in browse results.  On the individual record display screen, the Manual icon appears next to the number and caption for the Manual note (for example, look at the Manual note for 005.3).   In hierarchical displays for built numbers, the puzzle piece icon can appear anywhere in the hierarchical display for the number.  For example, display the record for 338.47004 Computer industry.  In the hierarchical display, the built number icon appears next to 338.47004, and also next to two built numbers in the downward hierarchy, 338.4700411 and 338.470046.  (If you don’t see the icons associated with the aforementioned examples, it may be because relevant information has been cached in your browser.  If you want to see the icons immediately and do not want to wait until the cache is refreshed, you can press <ctrl> + <F5> inside a WebDewey screen associated with one of the examples, which will cause your browser to reload the cached information.)

This information was copied from The DeweyBlog, a great resource for those who use WebDewey.

Image via WikipediaMake your open data even more open with CORS (Cross Origin Request Security).

Currently, client-side scripts (e.g., JavaScript) are prevented from accessing much of the Web of Linked Data due to "same origin" restrictions implemented in all major Web browsers.

While enabling such access is important for all data, it is especially important for Linked Open Data and related services; without this, our data simply is not open to all clients.

If you have public data which doesn't use require cookie or session based authentication to see, then please consider opening it up for universal JavaScript/browser access.

Google has an ad in today's New York Times. Over a half page (and with lots of white space), it is a cartoon of a guy up to his waist in water calling a plumber. The plumber who answers says: "I'm on my way. See you in 15 hours." The rest of the text goes:

"You live in Peoria. Do you really need a plumber from New York? We didn't think so.... That's why search engines, including Google, give you results based on your city or region. They can do this by using your computer's IP address. It's a number like 209.85.229.147, which acts like a zip code to tell them the rough area your computer is in.

To find out more about how websites get to know you better go to google.com/goodtoknow"

The text vs. subtext in this ad is stunning. Although justifying a Google practice, it speaks of it in the third person: "they" use your IP address, it tells "them" the area your computer is in. The message is: everyone does it. It's not a Google thing, it's an Internet thing. Don't blame us.

The site at "goodtoknow" uses the same cartoon figures and has very little text; most information is given via videos. The site is a fairly good round-up of information topics, from phishing to securing your home wifi network. (The irony of that being that Google was caught picking up open wifi traffic in Germany.) I could imagine it as a "go-to" place for novices needing information on online privacy. Much of it isn't about Google at all: the video on "Stay safe online" gives five rules about passwords and avoiding phishing and never mentions Google. It also doesn't mention that when you log into a site with a secure password, everything you do is observable by the owner of the site. Believe it or not, many people do not understand that. They think that the password makes their activities private, even to the site owner.

The page on "Manage your information" includes a link to Google Dashboard, which was also mentioned in one of the videos, and which, if I'd known about I had forgotten. Google Dashboard is a list of some of the things that Google knows about you, in particular which Google services you have accounts on. It shows your settings on these services. I found some services I had played with and forgotten about, which I can now delete.

Of course, Dashboard is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Google knows about us. I turned off Web history in 2007 so I don't see my searches there. If you are at all concerned about privacy, visit Dashboard and make some adjustments. Google warns you that you will get results that are less customized for your interests. However, if you are reading this you probably are an information professional, and my guess is that you can find the ad for that printer just as well searching privately (if real privacy really exists) without also letting Google know your political, sexual and religious interests.

You often hear that people don't really care about their privacy and they are quite happy to give Web sites their information in exchange for services. I also observe that behavior, but I'm not convinced that the majority of Web users are truly aware of how much information about them is being gathered. I also doubt that most users know how to take advantage of things like the private browsing options in browsers. (I'm not sure I trust that private browsing is truly private. I also don't know how to find out how private it really is.) I do find myself giving out information about myself to Web sites, but it's not because I don't care: it's because I get rushed and don't want to take the extra step, or I forget, or I'm not given a choice and I need to access that site right now. I don't believe in blaming users for the lack of privacy, because the privacy options are always opt-out, not opt-in, and are often hard to find.

And, yes, I know I am writing this on a Google-owned blog site. I've had on my task list for a very, very long time to figure out a way to port this content over to my own web site. It's not so much for privacy purposes (it'll still be a public blog) but because I want the content to be mine even though I'm more likely to lose it than Google is.  The Web has become my workplace and the choice I make is not privacy vs. better ads but privacy vs. getting my work done.  Making it all about advertising trivializes the reality that our personal and professional lives are intertwined with systems we have no control over. This dependency is as frightening as the privacy issue.

Stephen Woldram, of Wolfram|Alpha and Mathematica, has proposed a top level domain .data.

But what would be the point? For me, it’s about highlighting the exposure of data on the internet—and providing added impetus for organizations to expose data in a way that can efficiently be found and accessed.

In building Wolfram|Alpha, we’ve absorbed an immense amount of data, across a huge number of domains. But—perhaps surprisingly—almost none of it has come in any direct way from the visible internet. Instead, it’s mostly from a complicated patchwork of data files and feeds and database dumps.

But wouldn’t it be nice if there was some standard way to get access to whatever structured data any organization wants to expose?

Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services. Washington, DC: Education Advisory Board, 2011. At: http://www.educationadvisoryboard.com/pdf/23634-EAB-Redefining-the-Academic-Library.pdf

Hailed as a seminal report by Current Cites, a monthly annotated bibliography of literature on information technology, this report summarizes the challenges academic libraries face in the digital age, and possible responses they can make. It includes four main sections: 1. Leveraging Digital Collections (The Promise and Perils of Ebooks; Patron-Driven Acquisition; Print-on-Demand); 2. Rethinking the Scholarly Publishing Model (Centralized Licensing Structure; On-Demand Article Access; Open-Access Publishing); 3. Repurposing Library Space (Data-Driven Deselection; Collaborative Collection Management; Building the 21st Century Library); 4. Redeploying Library Staff (Externalizing Low-Impact Activity; Roles in Teaching and Learning; Roles in Research and Scholarship).

I have just received a brand new publication for review:

Essential Library of Congress Subject Headings / by Vanda Broughton. Facet Publishing, c2012 .ix, 278 p. 9781856046183

 

If interested in writing a review of this book for Catalogue & index, or would like further information about the book, please contact me:

n.nicholson@nls.uk

 

Neil Nicholson,

Reviews Editor

Check out these comprehensive wikis created by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. The User Guide provides an in-depth overview of Dublin Core and linked data.

Creating Metadata continues the saga, going into detail about the process of producing resources, properties and values for each DC element. The tables and examples are invaluable.

Finally, Publishing Metadata explains how to properly utilize DCMI metadata as linked data, code and all.

Going beyond the information available on the main Dublin Core website, this series of wikis really gets to the core of Dublin Core.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

This term I am lucky to be research-focused (i.e. not teaching classes). Instead of a reflective post today (my usual Sunday practice), here’s a snippet of the music that’s been motivating my research activities today: Gorecki. Symphony No. 3 / Three Olden Style Pieces. Zofia Kilanowicz, Soprano (as above); Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.Naxos, 1994. [...]

During the holidays, ProQuest uploaded the videos from their Library Bypass event at Online. Viewpoints were presented from the Bodleian (Isabel Holowatay) and from two PhD students, including UCL’s own Essi Viitanen, as well as from ProQuest’s research into how academics use information services. I blogged my own thoughts just after the event, and although [...]