RDA Templates Demo Video - Library of Congress

The cataloging process is evolving. Once upon a time I spent my evenings trying to get a grip on MARC, Dewey and AACR2. To stay in the game you have to be willing to keep up to date with the changes in the field.

Resource Description and Access (RDA) is the next level of library cataloging. This is a video by the Library of Congress by Cataloging educator Deborah Fritz and library software developer Richard Fritz.

This is an opportunity to take a look at a prototype of RDA and to get a sense of where cataloging is going. 



For a transcript of this presentation or to view it in Real Media format, you can visit the Library of Congress RDA Templates web page.

If you would like to get your hands of the software mentioned in the video you can visit the RIMMF wiki and download the software. The software is under a Creative Commons license and is free to use for educational and non-commercial purposes only.

A glimpse of PCC's library Technology program and the work of library technicians:

Locating the Law Handbook for Non-Librarians

I love a freebie that comes from good stock. The Southern California Association of Law Libraries has a new edition of the Locating the Laws Handbook. If you are interesting in working in a law library or need to find a law source quickly this might be the publication you have been seeking in the stacks.

5th Edition of Locating the Law, A Handbook for Non-Law Librarians

There is much goodness to be found here. Chapter 3 has a guide to conducting a legal information search and interview techniques. This is a section of the handbook that talks about the legal information interview:

Regardless of how the question is phrased, the user is ultimately asking what law or laws apply to his or her situation. Your first task, as in any reference interview, is to analyze the information provided in order to identify the relevant facts and to weed out the irrelevant. To determine the relevant facts, you will usually need to ask additional questions. At this point, it is appropriate to briefly address concerns about the unauthorized practice of law.

Librarians conducting a reference interview should not be afraid to ask questions of someone seeking legal information. Asking questions in order to make recommendations about appropriate legal resources to consult does not constitute giving legal advice. 

The handbook is a Adobe PDF document. You can view by chapter or you can download the entire handbook and read it on your computer or with you favorite tablet or e-reader.

You definitely want this on your virtual resource shelf.

The Dewey Blog - All Dewey All The Time

I miss getting a daily or weekly dose of library news, education and all around juice. Here is a goody I should visit more than I do, 025.431 The Dewey Blog.


Yes, life in classification. As a side benefit you can observe how to construct Dewey numbers. How would you classify a salad? Need to know how to classify a book about Star Trek? What about Water Lilies?

Not only can you see Dewey classification in action, you can also check out the various Dewey communities both national and international.

If you are taking a classification class and you need real world examples of constructing Dewey numbers this is the place.

Collecta - Real Time Search of Blogs, Tweets and Videos

Collecta searches in real time for your topic. It includes Blogs and Twitter text into your search.


Collecta will continue to look for your topic until you tell it to stop by deselecting the search box. I didn't understand why it kept updating the search after I finished it or went on to another topic. It was like the little engine that could.


The Preview panel allows you to see the content and you can click to visit the source. Here is the neat part; under search options you see the following:

Searching for comments is interesting because I have found good links and resources that way. I also like the video search aspect but I would like to choose different video distribution sources like Daily Motion, Blip.tv and other similar sites.

This Is A Keeper

Collecta is still in Beta so when I performed a search on "library classification systems" I got results from programing languages, game players terminology and other not obvious classification connections, in addition to library blogs.

Currently there is no way that I could find to restrict the search area; for example I can't tell Collecta to search only Wordpress blogs or only blogs that have "library" in the title.

At this point I think this is a good alternative for Google Blog Search and it can be used as a supplement to other search engines.

English Short Title Catalogue at the British Library

At this section of the British Library website you can locate titles for books published between 1473 and 1800. If the material was published in the UK or its possessions, Colonial America or any place else on the planet, and it was printed in English, it very well might be listed in this database.

Now short title does not refer to the length of the actual name of the book. As you can see from the example below, titles could be quiet descriptive:


My understanding is that it refers to limited or special publications produced quickly. I'm thinking like pamphlets, broadsheets and the early equivalents of instant publishing.

As you can see, you can view the records in a variety of formats such as a three line summary listing, full MARC tags, or which institution has the actual document.

This is a good resource if you are researching ephemeral publications that give a sense of time and place.

It is also valuable if you want to brush up on your MARC skills if it has been long time since you have sweated a MARC code. Check it out.

University of the West Library Chinese Cataloging Internship

The University of the West Library has an internship opportunity for students who are interested on learning Chinese cataloging. Internships for credit require enrollment in LIB 106 Field Practice and 6 additional units at PCC.

If you are interested please contact:

Ling-Ling Kuo, Librarian, University of the West Library
1409 Walnut Grove Ave, Rosemead, CA
(626) 571-8811 x. 135

More 105 Cataloging Help - Kinda, Sorta

Saturday. Friday is before Saturday and Saturday is the day of the Cataloging Final. To those about to take the test we salute you and are glad we are on the other side of it.

I know I was pitiful. I was mumbling AACR2 left and right. That blankety blank punctuation drove me nuts. I still can see my classmates. Binders full of notes and marked up AACR2. We came prepared but most of us had our doubts of seeing daylight ever again. People shaking their heads in despair, others kept the mantra going, "It is ok, it will be alright."

But I have to tell you, that stuff comes in handy in ways you do not expect. I am very glad that I took the class. But I was sweating bullets each and every week.

The Short Version:

• Review Your Notes, Exam Questions and AACR2
• Tell your loved ones to bug off - this is serious business.
• Get some sleep, eat a great dinner and sleep with your (paper) notebook.
  

Other Resources:

In addition to the other cataloging links that you can find by looking for the word cataloging in the sidebar, I have a few more hopefully helpful study tips.

There is a OSU Power Point presentation that is a review of AACR2 Chapter 12. If you can't view or download PPT's you can look at an HTML generated copy of Chapter 12.

I was thinking that there might be a few resources at Google Books that could be helpful. Like for example the meaning of the word "imprint"? The Dictionary of Library and Information Science might be of interest to you, especially page 351.

This is a partial preview. The whole book is not available. But you might find what you need to help you understand what bibliographic control is which may or may not be on page 69.

I did find some library specific glossaries, AACR2 Definition of Terms, An AACR2 record description list and Abbreviations for Place of Publication

Good luck and deep breaths.

Cataloging SOS - Cataloging Reference Books

AACR2 is many things but easy reading it is not. It is not too late to find more humane help in understanding cataloging and classification.

Libraries Unlimited has a number of books and workbooks on cataloging/classification.

I think this was the one that we flipped through at the California Library Convention in Long Beach.

Closer to home, Cataloging & Classification for Library Technicians is on the third floor of the library - 025.3 K 4, 2001 or if somebody beats you to it you can order at Amazon.com

Descriptive Cataloging, this one will be good for both 105A and 105B You can find it at Amazon.com or Powell's Books

Remember, if you are short on cash don't hesitate to do the WorldCat thing, somebody, somewhere has got these books.

Cataloging SOS - Tag of the Month Club

Yes indeed, it is that time of year when Library 105 students go into a cold sweat. Ten or more weeks of cataloging goodness will do that to you. It is not just learning how to write and understand the concepts of MARC, it is that pesky punctuation that just kills the majority of the class.

I know, one doggone period in the wrong place and boom, there goes your grade. No worries. There is help. Check out Follett Software Company's Tag of the Month.

It goes into a description of what the tag is, the reason for the tag and most important how to punctuate the sucker.

Now if there is a discrepancy between what the Tag of the Month suggests and what Dawn says the punctuation of the tag is don't be a dope, go with Dawn! But at least this will help you to understand the syntax of the tag in question. Don't forget about spacing, that counts too but this will help you remember what goes where and why.

Background Information for Non-Library Folks

For those visiting from other parts of the blogosphere we ask for your sympathy and good wishes for every library cataloging student in the world. There is a whole bunch of technical stuff that happens long before you get your hot little hands on a book or library material.

One of the skills those of us who are interested in library work have to know (or should know) is Machine-Readable Cataloging or MARC. It is a process where the material, let say a book is described by a number of data points such as the name of the author, the type of material, its physical dimensions (if any) the publisher and a bunch of other stuff.

All of this happens in the background so when you step up to the terminal or log on from home you put in what you know about a book and bada-bing, you get results based on your search request.

There is no artificial intelligence at work - this is organic human brain power generated data. Why? Because every book, DVD, CD, Sheet Music, photograph, mp3 file, video or other materials is unique. Way too many variables for a (current) software program to account for automatic entry. The picture above is showing an example of a MARC 300 tag which defines a material by its physical description depending on what kind of object it is. .

Music Cataloging Resources

You walk into a room. There are hundreds of boxes of vinyl recordings before you. You open the first box and see this 45 record:

Penguin Feet & The Teardrop Kid - Larry, Move Your Hand (HDM)

Originally uploaded by me1vinsparks

How do you catalog this record? You've taken the cataloging class but that was primarily for books. The concepts are the same but you want to review the resources for cataloging music.

AACR2 Resources

Training Materials for Music Cataloging. In 1995 Ian Fairclough put together this list of cataloging study tips that can be reviewed. It gives you the sections of AACR2 to review and study for music cataloging. Please understand that this is an old list and does not address music formats such as MP3, FLAC or DRM issues.

From the University of Buffalo another option is to take a look at the Sound Recording Workshop Handouts created by Jay Weitz. It seems to be a Power Point presentation that was converted to images but it is really helpful in focusing on the areas you will need to extract information from and how to do it.

MARC Resources

Penn State University Sound Recording MARC Fixed Field Cheat Sheet - This will give you an idea of how to find or prep music MARC codes. This cheat sheet is for the Unicom system, you would have to adapt it to Voyager or other software programs.

Yale University Library has a Voyager based Physical Description Codes for Sound Recordings
that you can use to make sure that you are on the correct path in Voyager. You should also view the Fixed Fields for Sound Recording Chart.

Other Resources:

Music Catalogers ListServ (MOUG) - if you really want to know more about music cataloging, OCLC issues and the day to day realities of quantifying that grove.

Authority Tools for Audiovisual and Music Catalogers: An Annotated List of Useful Resources

Music Cataloging At Yale - Long list of websites and resources for a wide variety of music cataloging needs.

Just for Fun (Kinda)

Jason Poole created a video about his informal survey with librarians on how they classified music. It is music and text, no vocals. There is also a brief introduction to the ANSCR music classification system.