Today was the second RDA training session I'm sitting in on. One more left after this; technically it's after the summer term is over, but I'll be spending about another week at the Knight Library afterward and will be able to sit in on the final session.
Today we got a quick tour of the RDA toolkit, which I'll have to take a look at on my own time. It looked like a good way to browse the RDA instructions and also see some actual workflows to see the instructions in an order that might be more instructive of how to actually use them to catalog an item.
Other than that, there were some descriptive elements that were looked at. The extent descriptions (300 field) were discussed. It seemed odd to me that the RDA committee chose to make the official terms very general - such as "audio disc" rather than "audio CD" and "phonograph". The latter seem much more useful to a patron using the catalog. While I can understand that it's nice to have a standard that won't need to be changed as new technology becomes available (for example, an earlier standard would have needed to be updated to incorporate Blu-Ray discs), it seems like it will need to be clear to the patron whether the audio disc is a CD or vinyl record - and why not make it more obvious in the record rather than needing to interpret additional information such as physical size or some other note.
We also looked at series numbering. Despite the greater adherence to the principle of transcription (mentioned in a previous post), RDA does tell catalogers to change spelled out words to arabic numbers - both cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers depending on how it's spelled on the item.
As I see all the places that RDA is trying to work with MARC, and especially when I see where RDA records will still include specific punctuation (a . at the end of a line, a : or ; separating specific elements in a MARC field) I vaguely disappointed in the way the standard has come out. While it would be a lot of work to deal with a larger split, doing things like including punctuation in the fields just seems to be pointless in an age where the records are handled nearly solely by computer. The computer can insert (or remove) whatever punctuation is necessary for display and printing; far better in my mind to leave out all non-transcribed punctuation.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Special Collections Visit
On August 4th, I visited the Special Collections & University Archives department. I got an extensive tour, seeing all the different types of material in the collection. The chance to look at these things was interesting on it's own. So many of them have interesting stories and are just looking at them is often fascinating.
I also talked to the librarian their about the different roles people have in the department, so that I now have a better idea of what sort of positions are in a special collections department. We also talked about how people discover what's available in special collections. Much of this work seems to be done by the special collections website and people finding the material via Google. Some items are listed in the catalog, but it's not as complete as one would hope, even in the books.
On the subject of cataloging, since that's the theme of my DFW, on interesting note was that sometimes items in special collections have unusual subject terms attached to them. For example, a codex with good examples of Russian iconography may have "Russian iconography" listed as a subject term - even though it's not about iconography. Indeed, the actual subject of the codex may be seen as of less importance if it's believed that someone would primarily be interested in it for the iconography.
I also talked to the librarian their about the different roles people have in the department, so that I now have a better idea of what sort of positions are in a special collections department. We also talked about how people discover what's available in special collections. Much of this work seems to be done by the special collections website and people finding the material via Google. Some items are listed in the catalog, but it's not as complete as one would hope, even in the books.
On the subject of cataloging, since that's the theme of my DFW, on interesting note was that sometimes items in special collections have unusual subject terms attached to them. For example, a codex with good examples of Russian iconography may have "Russian iconography" listed as a subject term - even though it's not about iconography. Indeed, the actual subject of the codex may be seen as of less importance if it's believed that someone would primarily be interested in it for the iconography.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
RDA Training - Session 1
The library has also been kind enough to allow me to attend their RDA training sessions for catalogers while I'm interning for the summer. We had one last week and will have another two during August. It was nice to get a preview of what changes will be coming with increasing adoption of RDA.
My take away thoughts from the first session (summarized since I've posted plenty enough today):
RDA is more faithful to the principle of transcription. More often information will be transcribed completely and without abbreviations. More authors will be listed in the statement of responsibility and text in edition or publication statements will be entered as is rather than abbreviated or omitted for brevity.
It's nice to see some shift to taking advantage of the fact that the computer isn't limited in text length to nearly the degree that a printed card is. Though from the RDA examples, it looks like extra punctuation will still be there for no good reason (a : between the title and subtitle fields, a / before the statement of responsibility, etc).
RDA also allows greater flexibility in the sources that information can be drawn from. If the title page doesn't have the authors, but those are on a technical documentation page, then you can use the latter from my understanding.
RDA is also trying to accommodate non-print resources more easily, replacing the $h [GMD] subfield of the 245 field with a few fields that should offer greater specificity. The implementation looks overly complicated to me, but it makes sense to detach the material designation from the title field and allow more clarity/specificity in it.
I'm looking forward to the two remaining RDA training sessions to see what else is changing.
My take away thoughts from the first session (summarized since I've posted plenty enough today):
RDA is more faithful to the principle of transcription. More often information will be transcribed completely and without abbreviations. More authors will be listed in the statement of responsibility and text in edition or publication statements will be entered as is rather than abbreviated or omitted for brevity.
It's nice to see some shift to taking advantage of the fact that the computer isn't limited in text length to nearly the degree that a printed card is. Though from the RDA examples, it looks like extra punctuation will still be there for no good reason (a : between the title and subtitle fields, a / before the statement of responsibility, etc).
RDA also allows greater flexibility in the sources that information can be drawn from. If the title page doesn't have the authors, but those are on a technical documentation page, then you can use the latter from my understanding.
RDA is also trying to accommodate non-print resources more easily, replacing the $h [GMD] subfield of the 245 field with a few fields that should offer greater specificity. The implementation looks overly complicated to me, but it makes sense to detach the material designation from the title field and allow more clarity/specificity in it.
I'm looking forward to the two remaining RDA training sessions to see what else is changing.
Two weeks visits 1 - Reference
I also visited the reference desk this past week. The librarian working the desk discussed what changes are happening in the rates of questions (increasing) and how technology is impacting them (more chat, especially as the service is more visible to the users on the library web pages).
We also discussed what a "reference librarian" does at this university library. They spend approximately 8 hours a week at the reference desk - answering questions in person, on the phone, and from instant messenger. Email questions are handled by other reference librarians on a rotating schedule. When not working the desk or answering email, the reference librarians assist in collection development and serve as liaisons with academic departments and colleges. They also provide orientations for students/classes and teach them how to make use of the library's services.
While I was shadowing the librarian I got to see a fairly extended session helping a student find business information from serials, as well as helping a different student start searching for information about Zanzibar. The latter case clearly was a case of helping get the student oriented and familiar with the catalog and the academic databases available to them.
I also saw an interaction where a student needed a particular article that the library did not have in print or access to in electronic form. So the librarian walked the student through setting up an inter-library loan request. It was nice to see how all the different parts of the library fit together; I'd seen the ILL department and now I saw an example of how such requests originate.
We also discussed what a "reference librarian" does at this university library. They spend approximately 8 hours a week at the reference desk - answering questions in person, on the phone, and from instant messenger. Email questions are handled by other reference librarians on a rotating schedule. When not working the desk or answering email, the reference librarians assist in collection development and serve as liaisons with academic departments and colleges. They also provide orientations for students/classes and teach them how to make use of the library's services.
While I was shadowing the librarian I got to see a fairly extended session helping a student find business information from serials, as well as helping a different student start searching for information about Zanzibar. The latter case clearly was a case of helping get the student oriented and familiar with the catalog and the academic databases available to them.
I also saw an interaction where a student needed a particular article that the library did not have in print or access to in electronic form. So the librarian walked the student through setting up an inter-library loan request. It was nice to see how all the different parts of the library fit together; I'd seen the ILL department and now I saw an example of how such requests originate.
Two weeks visits 1 - Digital collections
Over the past two weeks I also visited a few other people in the library to continue to further my understanding of what different career paths are open to me.
One person I met manages the digital collections at the library. Her position clearly involved a wide variety of tasks - administrative (managing staff, maintaining the budget, applying for grants), technical (metadata for the collections, systems administration for the repositories)
We discussed the way that she structures the metadata for the collections. Each collection has it's own custom metadata fields that are then mappable onto Dublin Core for interoperability with other systems.
We also discussed the how people discover items in the digital collection. She told me that a vast majority of users are finding the digital collections via Google. I think the digital collections need greater visibility to end users in the library (including other librarians such as the reference librarians). We discussed whether this should be done by adding electronic resource records to the existing catalog or having a higher level meta-catalog that can search the "print catalog" and the "digital collections" catalog as well as any other "catalogs" that ought to exist to capture the unique elements of other formats and types of items.
I also met with the inter-library loan librarian. She walked me through the request and fulfillment process. We discussed her role in the process and how how the process can go awry since much of it is automated at this point. One interesting problem that came up was that more people are now able to find that a wide variety of material exists globally thanks to services such as WorldCat. But it isn't always clear to the (unsophisticated) end-user where that material is held. As a result the ILL load is increasing, and more requests are for items that are held in distant or unreachable places. Which raises the question, how useful is it for the patron to be able to discover an item that exists only in two archives in Russia that won't be lending their items to a library in Oregon?
One person I met manages the digital collections at the library. Her position clearly involved a wide variety of tasks - administrative (managing staff, maintaining the budget, applying for grants), technical (metadata for the collections, systems administration for the repositories)
We discussed the way that she structures the metadata for the collections. Each collection has it's own custom metadata fields that are then mappable onto Dublin Core for interoperability with other systems.
We also discussed the how people discover items in the digital collection. She told me that a vast majority of users are finding the digital collections via Google. I think the digital collections need greater visibility to end users in the library (including other librarians such as the reference librarians). We discussed whether this should be done by adding electronic resource records to the existing catalog or having a higher level meta-catalog that can search the "print catalog" and the "digital collections" catalog as well as any other "catalogs" that ought to exist to capture the unique elements of other formats and types of items.
I also met with the inter-library loan librarian. She walked me through the request and fulfillment process. We discussed her role in the process and how how the process can go awry since much of it is automated at this point. One interesting problem that came up was that more people are now able to find that a wide variety of material exists globally thanks to services such as WorldCat. But it isn't always clear to the (unsophisticated) end-user where that material is held. As a result the ILL load is increasing, and more requests are for items that are held in distant or unreachable places. Which raises the question, how useful is it for the patron to be able to discover an item that exists only in two archives in Russia that won't be lending their items to a library in Oregon?
Two weeks of copy & original cataloging
I put off blogging a bit longer than I ought to have perhaps. As a result, I'll be posting a few different posts today in an attempt to keep my thoughts organized.
I processed a lot of copy cataloging over the past two weeks, including some series and items that are part of a multiple item set. I feel like I've got a reasonably good grasp on descriptive elements after all this. I haven't needed to discuss those elements with my supervisor nearly as much; subject terms and class numbers are much more the focus of our conversations. Even in the copy cataloging, I've found a few incorrect class numbers (either non-existent or inappropriate numbers).
Class numbers have proved to be tricky for some items. Sometimes it's been a matter of choosing what's the primary focus of the work, since we can only place it in one place in the classification scheme. Other times, it's been a matter of deciding if any class term is actually appropriate.
I've now finished one pass through the truck of items I was given to catalog and had to set aside around a dozen items for upgrade cataloging and maybe half-a-dozen for original cataloging work.
The theses I'm doing original cataloging on have been going well. I have complete catalog records for 3 of the 6 that are just waiting for feedback from my supervisor. For the most part they've been straightforward, with the exception of subject headings. I've had to spend a fair amount of time exploring Classification Web - searching for terms, following relations, and browsing nearby terms. I've also looked for related works in the local catalog and LC catalog to find other possible terms that I hadn't stumbled across, or to see how the terms I've picked out as possibilities are being used.
I also ended up having a fairly extensive discussion with my supervisor about how chronological subdivisions are handled in the LCSH system. Mostly this focused on how to discover pre-enumerated periods and where such periods could be applied. There are centuries that are free-floating and could be applied under any other term, but century divisions are somewhat arbitrary compared to historical periods and aren't very specific. In the end, for my one history focused thesis I ended up with some subject headings that brought out the topic and others that brought out the location (Japan) and specific periods involved - such as Japan $x History $y Kamakura period.
I processed a lot of copy cataloging over the past two weeks, including some series and items that are part of a multiple item set. I feel like I've got a reasonably good grasp on descriptive elements after all this. I haven't needed to discuss those elements with my supervisor nearly as much; subject terms and class numbers are much more the focus of our conversations. Even in the copy cataloging, I've found a few incorrect class numbers (either non-existent or inappropriate numbers).
Class numbers have proved to be tricky for some items. Sometimes it's been a matter of choosing what's the primary focus of the work, since we can only place it in one place in the classification scheme. Other times, it's been a matter of deciding if any class term is actually appropriate.
I've now finished one pass through the truck of items I was given to catalog and had to set aside around a dozen items for upgrade cataloging and maybe half-a-dozen for original cataloging work.
The theses I'm doing original cataloging on have been going well. I have complete catalog records for 3 of the 6 that are just waiting for feedback from my supervisor. For the most part they've been straightforward, with the exception of subject headings. I've had to spend a fair amount of time exploring Classification Web - searching for terms, following relations, and browsing nearby terms. I've also looked for related works in the local catalog and LC catalog to find other possible terms that I hadn't stumbled across, or to see how the terms I've picked out as possibilities are being used.
I also ended up having a fairly extensive discussion with my supervisor about how chronological subdivisions are handled in the LCSH system. Mostly this focused on how to discover pre-enumerated periods and where such periods could be applied. There are centuries that are free-floating and could be applied under any other term, but century divisions are somewhat arbitrary compared to historical periods and aren't very specific. In the end, for my one history focused thesis I ended up with some subject headings that brought out the topic and others that brought out the location (Japan) and specific periods involved - such as Japan $x History $y Kamakura period.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Summarizing last week + today
Last week was educational, though no single day stood out enough to make me write up a blog post. I got through a fair number of copy cataloging items. More excitingly I created my first original catalog record and added it to OCLC! So if you see a record for Portland's Blue Bike Lanes: Improved Safety Through Enhanced Visibility out there it could be because of me. I also started my second original record and after reviewing it with my supervisor today, added it to OCLC as well. So, if you use the record for Report to Governor Parris N. Glendening from the Transit-Oriented-Development Task Force, well, I added that one to. Creating the second record also entailed creating an authority record for for the task force as well, so I got to do a little bit of authority work too.
Another bit from last week consisted of dealing with multi-volume sets of materials. The relationship between items and bibliographic entities in the cataloging system is more clear to me now.
I've also started working on original records for some theses. These aren't that much different that monographs, but require some extra note fields and are treated a bit more like manuscripts since they aren't officially "published". Mostly this seems to mean that the 260 field only has a copyright date.
Another bit from last week consisted of dealing with multi-volume sets of materials. The relationship between items and bibliographic entities in the cataloging system is more clear to me now.
I've also started working on original records for some theses. These aren't that much different that monographs, but require some extra note fields and are treated a bit more like manuscripts since they aren't officially "published". Mostly this seems to mean that the 260 field only has a copyright date.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Starting original cataloging
As stated in a previous post, I've started doing original cataloging, for Portland's Blue Bike Lanes. After checking to b sure that there was no previously catalog record to copy or upgrade, I started building one from scratch with the OCLC Connexion software. So far it's brought out many details that I'd previously been able to gloss over when doing copy cataloging. This has included some intellectual elements such as the choice of the publisher name and the statement of responsibility. While discussing the statement of responsibility with my supervisor, she pointed out that the statement should be for those who are responsible for the intellectual content of the work (which I'm sure is in AACR2, but I can't find the rule from this computer).
Other elements I had to focus on for original cataloging were more based on minor fields or purely policy issues. While the date fixed fields can be useful, choosing the date isn't much of an intellectual exercise. Similarly setting the encoding level is pretty straightforward. And the choice of filling in the call number in field 050 or field 090 is largely policy based for the library I'm at.
After finishing the descriptive elements, I worked on the access points. Without an obvious responsible person, it was clear this book should be under title main entry. When looking at the entry for the corporate body, I looked at AACR2 rule 21.1B2 to determine whether corporate main entry applied in this case. In the end it didn't. So an added access point was created for the issuing office and each of the three listed members of the project team from the cover.
I've started on the subject cataloging. I found some reasonable headings from other strongly related works which ought to be useful. It's a pretty tricky to discern which of the lengthy list of subject headings in the LCSH are most applicable.
Overall, the process has shown me that while there are a number of rules to be followed, there's still a strong subjective element to the cataloging.
Other elements I had to focus on for original cataloging were more based on minor fields or purely policy issues. While the date fixed fields can be useful, choosing the date isn't much of an intellectual exercise. Similarly setting the encoding level is pretty straightforward. And the choice of filling in the call number in field 050 or field 090 is largely policy based for the library I'm at.
After finishing the descriptive elements, I worked on the access points. Without an obvious responsible person, it was clear this book should be under title main entry. When looking at the entry for the corporate body, I looked at AACR2 rule 21.1B2 to determine whether corporate main entry applied in this case. In the end it didn't. So an added access point was created for the issuing office and each of the three listed members of the project team from the cover.
I've started on the subject cataloging. I found some reasonable headings from other strongly related works which ought to be useful. It's a pretty tricky to discern which of the lengthy list of subject headings in the LCSH are most applicable.
Overall, the process has shown me that while there are a number of rules to be followed, there's still a strong subjective element to the cataloging.
Another week gone by
Another week has passed, and it's time for another blog entry to keep up on what I'm doing. Toward the start of the week, my supervisor and I sat down and cleared up the last issues in the backlog of cataloging problems that came up while she was at the ALA conference. One significant element that came up was the assignment of call numbers. Because call numbering is a classification system it can be tricky to specify a single number to represent the subject of a book. Is this book more about bicycles or traffic safety? It becomes a judgment call on the part of the cataloger, and not all catalogers will make the same judgments.
I also pulled a few more theses for cataloging in the future. I tried to keep to subjects that were interesting and that I also had some knowledge of. "Alpine Samurai", about samurai in the mountains of Japan, ought to be interesting and two others are computer science related which was my field before getting into library science and cataloging.
On Thursday I started with original cataloging for one book. But I think it makes sense to discuss that in a separate post.
I also pulled a few more theses for cataloging in the future. I tried to keep to subjects that were interesting and that I also had some knowledge of. "Alpine Samurai", about samurai in the mountains of Japan, ought to be interesting and two others are computer science related which was my field before getting into library science and cataloging.
On Thursday I started with original cataloging for one book. But I think it makes sense to discuss that in a separate post.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
One additional thought
One more thought when reflecting on my visitations. There are a number of small details in the cataloging process that are not spelled out in any standard or are otherwise more subject to the library's policies and judgment. For this reason, it's helpful for libraries to have their own internal policy documents and flowcharts or guidelines on how to catalog items.
It seems that this is further complicated by the subjective nature of cataloging. While there are some hard and fast rules, there is a lot of room for interpretation in almost any field. Is this section of the title page intended to be part of the title? How should it be recorded, if at all? And then there are matters of subject headings and call numbers which are inherently still more subjective. This was reinforced yesterday when talking to my supervisor who explained that she preferred the term "accurate" rather than "correct" for cataloging records, since correct implies that there is one true record out there to try to approach, when really there are multiple records which could legitimately be argued to be accurate.
It seems that this is further complicated by the subjective nature of cataloging. While there are some hard and fast rules, there is a lot of room for interpretation in almost any field. Is this section of the title page intended to be part of the title? How should it be recorded, if at all? And then there are matters of subject headings and call numbers which are inherently still more subjective. This was reinforced yesterday when talking to my supervisor who explained that she preferred the term "accurate" rather than "correct" for cataloging records, since correct implies that there is one true record out there to try to approach, when really there are multiple records which could legitimately be argued to be accurate.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Midweek cataloging thoughts
A couple of thoughts on the copy cataloging I've been doing so far, and generated by specific items I've cataloged.
Remarkably few of the items I've found have had a record suitable for straight copying. They often have some small issue - a missing edition statement, two call numbers or none at all, some confusion over the publisher statement, we'll have part of a larger set, or the library already owns a copy.
One thing that was explained was the use of "The Administration" in the publisher field. It confused me when I first saw it, as this wasn't the exact phrase used in the publication statement. As explained to me, it was a shorthand dating back to the days of printed cards, used when the publisher's name was already mentioned in the title, statement of responsibility, or other earlier area.
Going through the records that I put aside while my supervisor was out, we dealt with the following today.
* Correcting the call number and URL listed in one record. Both done by noting that the one in the record was just wrong.
* Having only the first volume of a 3 volume set, which was cataloged with the set record to allow patrons to discover that the other two volumes existed and also because we may acquire the other parts of the set.
* Pulling a series authority record from the OCLC authority file for a work that was part of a series. I'd already done this before, but it's good to check it with my supervisor first at this point.
* For one item we already had a record for the electronic version. In this case we added the physical record (with a link to the URL of the electronic version), so there will be 2 records in the catalog.
Remarkably few of the items I've found have had a record suitable for straight copying. They often have some small issue - a missing edition statement, two call numbers or none at all, some confusion over the publisher statement, we'll have part of a larger set, or the library already owns a copy.
One thing that was explained was the use of "The Administration" in the publisher field. It confused me when I first saw it, as this wasn't the exact phrase used in the publication statement. As explained to me, it was a shorthand dating back to the days of printed cards, used when the publisher's name was already mentioned in the title, statement of responsibility, or other earlier area.
Going through the records that I put aside while my supervisor was out, we dealt with the following today.
* Correcting the call number and URL listed in one record. Both done by noting that the one in the record was just wrong.
* Having only the first volume of a 3 volume set, which was cataloged with the set record to allow patrons to discover that the other two volumes existed and also because we may acquire the other parts of the set.
* Pulling a series authority record from the OCLC authority file for a work that was part of a series. I'd already done this before, but it's good to check it with my supervisor first at this point.
* For one item we already had a record for the electronic version. In this case we added the physical record (with a link to the URL of the electronic version), so there will be 2 records in the catalog.
Two more visits
My supervisor was out for the first two days of the week, and I had two more visits with other staff in the cataloging department.
One was with someone who, amongst other duties, handles the automated reports the cataloging system generates when authors are added to the catalog for the first time. These reports are designed to allow the maintenance of the catalog to make sure that authorized names are used and no duplicate names are accidentally created. It was a nice insight into the processes used to prevent accidental corruption of the catalog during the cataloging process without requiring a lot of careful, and often needless, upfront work during cataloging. It also allows for mass loads of data without upfront manual verification of every record.
The other visit was with a serials cataloger. This was particularly interesting as I'd had little exposure to serials cataloging before. The major differences between serials and monographs that I observed were:
* the use of the CONSER guidelines rather than straight AACR2. CONSER's manual provided needed elaboration on the AACR2 guidelines to make them more useful and specific to serials.
* the focus on relationships to other records. This is required to track title changes, publisher changes, corporate author changes, and the like. These relationship and changes were expressed in the Notes fields (5xx) and in specific fields for relationships (7xx).
* Subject headings tend to be pretty broad as a serial will tend to cover a broad subject area over the course of their lifetime. While specific entry would mean many monographs would have a more specific subject than "biology", for some serials that broad a subject heading is entirely appropriate as anything more specific would exclude some articles.
We also discussed the differences between serials and integrating resources and the issues faced in cataloging print serials in conjunction with online serials. Online serials often use different numbering, or lack numbering all together, which can render cataloging them difficult in conjunction with their print versions.
Those were my last two visits for now. I may visit other people later in the summer, but for now I should focus on cataloging again now that my supervisor is back.
One was with someone who, amongst other duties, handles the automated reports the cataloging system generates when authors are added to the catalog for the first time. These reports are designed to allow the maintenance of the catalog to make sure that authorized names are used and no duplicate names are accidentally created. It was a nice insight into the processes used to prevent accidental corruption of the catalog during the cataloging process without requiring a lot of careful, and often needless, upfront work during cataloging. It also allows for mass loads of data without upfront manual verification of every record.
The other visit was with a serials cataloger. This was particularly interesting as I'd had little exposure to serials cataloging before. The major differences between serials and monographs that I observed were:
* the use of the CONSER guidelines rather than straight AACR2. CONSER's manual provided needed elaboration on the AACR2 guidelines to make them more useful and specific to serials.
* the focus on relationships to other records. This is required to track title changes, publisher changes, corporate author changes, and the like. These relationship and changes were expressed in the Notes fields (5xx) and in specific fields for relationships (7xx).
* Subject headings tend to be pretty broad as a serial will tend to cover a broad subject area over the course of their lifetime. While specific entry would mean many monographs would have a more specific subject than "biology", for some serials that broad a subject heading is entirely appropriate as anything more specific would exclude some articles.
We also discussed the differences between serials and integrating resources and the issues faced in cataloging print serials in conjunction with online serials. Online serials often use different numbering, or lack numbering all together, which can render cataloging them difficult in conjunction with their print versions.
Those were my last two visits for now. I may visit other people later in the summer, but for now I should focus on cataloging again now that my supervisor is back.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A week of visitations
I've continued copy cataloging for the Wilkinson gift items, pulling aside some items that have issues. Some need upgrade cataloging as no suitable record exists. Others have issues with the URL identified as an electronic version of the resource. I've ended up updating a few OCLC records with better URLs for electronic versions, which has been nice. It's great to think that I'm doing something that is improving the record that libraries around the country will use so many people will have better access to resources for their work and research.
Because my supervisor was going to be busy or out of town every day last week, she arranged some time with various other departments. Rather than a post a day about the visits, I'll just sum them up in this post at the end of the week.
On Tuesday I visited the conservation lab where I got a look at the tools, materials, and processes for mending books as well as constructing boxes or other protective casing/covers. We discussed the materials used and how newer books were treated differently than older rarer materials. One major difference was the use of PVA (polyvinyl acetate) glue for modern books, but repairs to older books were usually done with paste is it is fully reversible by soaking it off in water later, if necessary. Another major material used was Japanese tissue. Repairs made to covers with the tissue were remarkably invisible when complete. I was fortunate enough to be visiting when a 10 volume set of 18th century Italian books were having boxes constructed for them, which were interesting to examine.
On Wednesday, I visited the documents department. On that visit, I found out that the department actually combines 4 different groups of material: government documents, business data, maps, and microform. The idea is to work with the synergies between the material types - for example, maps are often produced by the government and also are a great way to represent a lot of the data from government or business documents. Microform materials are often government documents (or newspaper archives). In the maps section, I found the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps a real treat; the level of detail available in them and the look at the history of the areas was fascinating.
The university also has a large amount of aerial photos over most of the 20th century. These are popular with local construction and environmental groups to do environmental impact studies. We talked briefly about the university's charges for these services. While I hadn't thought of the need to charge the public for the service, and it struck me as odd at first, it makes to me now given the demands placed on the staff who are there primarily to serve the university. If the choice is to charge fees (and thus allow for more staff time to service the requests) or not offer the service at all due to cost, I can see the argument for requiring fees.
This is getting longer than I expected, so I'll try to be brief. One other documents group project that was interesting was the compilation of resources related to Salem, OR for use in 25 different classes this year. The documents group apparently uses a more consultative model rather than a reference model. Instead of having a reference desk for the department they tend to have appointments with patrons and expect to spend up to an hour (or more) with the patron understanding their need, seeking out resources, and getting the patron comfortable with those resources.
On Thursday, I went through the physical processing process with a staff member. This consists mostly of applying the security tagging, barcodes, and call number labels to the items before they are shelved for the first time. As we went through the process it became evident that there a lot of variations depending on the exact nature of the material being processed - format, media, rarity. It was nice to get a sense of what exactly happens to the items after I catalog them and place them on the processing truck. It gave me a more comprehensive understanding of the whole work acquisition process through the point it ends up on a shelf somewhere.
On Friday, I sat in with a cataloger who works with a lot of different formats. We discussed the differences and similarities in cataloging purely electronic resources (available over the internet), DVDs, CDs, monographs with supplemental CDs, and the like. From his perspective it seemed they were mostly the same with variations for the physical description of the media and some limited description of the contents. This was interesting in light of the discussion in a a cataloging course of what ought to done for access points for popular movies - who is "responsible" for the work, who should have added entries, etc.
Because my supervisor was going to be busy or out of town every day last week, she arranged some time with various other departments. Rather than a post a day about the visits, I'll just sum them up in this post at the end of the week.
On Tuesday I visited the conservation lab where I got a look at the tools, materials, and processes for mending books as well as constructing boxes or other protective casing/covers. We discussed the materials used and how newer books were treated differently than older rarer materials. One major difference was the use of PVA (polyvinyl acetate) glue for modern books, but repairs to older books were usually done with paste is it is fully reversible by soaking it off in water later, if necessary. Another major material used was Japanese tissue. Repairs made to covers with the tissue were remarkably invisible when complete. I was fortunate enough to be visiting when a 10 volume set of 18th century Italian books were having boxes constructed for them, which were interesting to examine.
On Wednesday, I visited the documents department. On that visit, I found out that the department actually combines 4 different groups of material: government documents, business data, maps, and microform. The idea is to work with the synergies between the material types - for example, maps are often produced by the government and also are a great way to represent a lot of the data from government or business documents. Microform materials are often government documents (or newspaper archives). In the maps section, I found the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps a real treat; the level of detail available in them and the look at the history of the areas was fascinating.
The university also has a large amount of aerial photos over most of the 20th century. These are popular with local construction and environmental groups to do environmental impact studies. We talked briefly about the university's charges for these services. While I hadn't thought of the need to charge the public for the service, and it struck me as odd at first, it makes to me now given the demands placed on the staff who are there primarily to serve the university. If the choice is to charge fees (and thus allow for more staff time to service the requests) or not offer the service at all due to cost, I can see the argument for requiring fees.
This is getting longer than I expected, so I'll try to be brief. One other documents group project that was interesting was the compilation of resources related to Salem, OR for use in 25 different classes this year. The documents group apparently uses a more consultative model rather than a reference model. Instead of having a reference desk for the department they tend to have appointments with patrons and expect to spend up to an hour (or more) with the patron understanding their need, seeking out resources, and getting the patron comfortable with those resources.
On Thursday, I went through the physical processing process with a staff member. This consists mostly of applying the security tagging, barcodes, and call number labels to the items before they are shelved for the first time. As we went through the process it became evident that there a lot of variations depending on the exact nature of the material being processed - format, media, rarity. It was nice to get a sense of what exactly happens to the items after I catalog them and place them on the processing truck. It gave me a more comprehensive understanding of the whole work acquisition process through the point it ends up on a shelf somewhere.
On Friday, I sat in with a cataloger who works with a lot of different formats. We discussed the differences and similarities in cataloging purely electronic resources (available over the internet), DVDs, CDs, monographs with supplemental CDs, and the like. From his perspective it seemed they were mostly the same with variations for the physical description of the media and some limited description of the contents. This was interesting in light of the discussion in a a cataloging course of what ought to done for access points for popular movies - who is "responsible" for the work, who should have added entries, etc.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Looking forward to week 2 and beyond
So, as we head into the second week, I thought I'd type up a bit of what will be coming and what I'm looking forward to, to organize my thoughts.
But first, something from the first week I forgot about in my last post. The changes I'm making to the catalog are going live as I'm making them. Which is really been an interesting part of the experience, to see the work that I'm doing being presented to the public. This stuff I'm doing is having areal impact on how people will find these resources.
Anyway, looking forward. Next week my supervisor is out, so she's set up some time with various other departments/sections of the department next week. So I'll be seeing the documents department, the conservation lab, and the physical processing group. She's also gone the first couple days of the week after so I'll be sitting in with someone from the serials cataloging group. All this while continuing my work on the Wilkinson bicycle collection - monographs, especially trade publications and those with electronic versions.
Looking even farther forward, I'm starting to formulate my learning goals and those are reflected in what I'm doing this summer. The foremost is getting practical experience in cataloging. This has so far been mostly copy cataloging, but over time will include some upgrading of records and probably some original cataloging. This will also give me greater exposure to subject cataloging and the LC classification system. I'll also be doing some authority work. So, all those will be very valuable and as I have time I'll be getting exposure to a variety of other types of cataloging and library work. Many of these were covered in the last paragraph, but I've also talked to my supervisor briefly about getting some exposure to the more patron-interactive portions of library work such as the reference desk.
Lots going on in this short summer internship, which is great and I've already found it very informative and it has been reinforcing a lot of what I learned in 531. And it's been helping me understand some other aspects of how the library works. For example, I always had some trouble remembering how LC call numbers were ordered. But now that I've worked with them a bit from the assignment side the ordering system makes more sense and is easier for me to remember.
But first, something from the first week I forgot about in my last post. The changes I'm making to the catalog are going live as I'm making them. Which is really been an interesting part of the experience, to see the work that I'm doing being presented to the public. This stuff I'm doing is having areal impact on how people will find these resources.
Anyway, looking forward. Next week my supervisor is out, so she's set up some time with various other departments/sections of the department next week. So I'll be seeing the documents department, the conservation lab, and the physical processing group. She's also gone the first couple days of the week after so I'll be sitting in with someone from the serials cataloging group. All this while continuing my work on the Wilkinson bicycle collection - monographs, especially trade publications and those with electronic versions.
Looking even farther forward, I'm starting to formulate my learning goals and those are reflected in what I'm doing this summer. The foremost is getting practical experience in cataloging. This has so far been mostly copy cataloging, but over time will include some upgrading of records and probably some original cataloging. This will also give me greater exposure to subject cataloging and the LC classification system. I'll also be doing some authority work. So, all those will be very valuable and as I have time I'll be getting exposure to a variety of other types of cataloging and library work. Many of these were covered in the last paragraph, but I've also talked to my supervisor briefly about getting some exposure to the more patron-interactive portions of library work such as the reference desk.
Lots going on in this short summer internship, which is great and I've already found it very informative and it has been reinforcing a lot of what I learned in 531. And it's been helping me understand some other aspects of how the library works. For example, I always had some trouble remembering how LC call numbers were ordered. But now that I've worked with them a bit from the assignment side the ordering system makes more sense and is easier for me to remember.
End of week 1
Only one week has gone by, but it feels like more. Every day something new, every day the complexity steps up a little. But it's been a good learning experience so far and as the cataloging becomes more complicated I expect it'll be even more so.
On Wednesday, I started on monographs that are part of a larger series (not to be confused with serials). This was pretty new to me; in my cataloging class (LIS 531) we'd sort of skipped over the 4XX series fields as beyond the scope of the class. But it all seems reasonably straightforward, mainly concerning the addition of an authority file to keep series titles and numbering consistent, in addition to concerns of whether volumes of a series will be cataloged separately or just under a single series entry.
On Thursday, this was given a twist in dealing with work from a foreign language series. I talked to my supervisor about access points as they relate to foreign language works with English translations, as well as about corporate or title main entry for some works.
And on Friday, I started working with some monographs that have an electronic version available. At first this seemed like a simple matter of adding a 856 field to the record, but it soon became obvious there were additional concerns about whether the online version was the same as the print version, whether it was part of it, or a different edition/printing, even if it didn't indicate it was a different printing. I'm still working through the guidelines here - but in general the usual questions of what will be useful to the user, but not confusing/surprising seem like they point me in the right direction.
On Wednesday, I started on monographs that are part of a larger series (not to be confused with serials). This was pretty new to me; in my cataloging class (LIS 531) we'd sort of skipped over the 4XX series fields as beyond the scope of the class. But it all seems reasonably straightforward, mainly concerning the addition of an authority file to keep series titles and numbering consistent, in addition to concerns of whether volumes of a series will be cataloged separately or just under a single series entry.
On Thursday, this was given a twist in dealing with work from a foreign language series. I talked to my supervisor about access points as they relate to foreign language works with English translations, as well as about corporate or title main entry for some works.
And on Friday, I started working with some monographs that have an electronic version available. At first this seemed like a simple matter of adding a 856 field to the record, but it soon became obvious there were additional concerns about whether the online version was the same as the print version, whether it was part of it, or a different edition/printing, even if it didn't indicate it was a different printing. I'm still working through the guidelines here - but in general the usual questions of what will be useful to the user, but not confusing/surprising seem like they point me in the right direction.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Start of my Fieldwork
I started my directed fieldwork today. My supervisor introduced me to others working in the technical services department and gave me a grand tour of the department. The primary focus of my internship will be in cataloging materials from the Wilkinson bicycle donation. This should involve a mixture of copy cataloging and eventually some original cataloging. I'll be getting some experience with both descriptive cataloging and subject cataloging.
As the summer goes on, I will likely get some exposure to other work in the department. Serials cataloging, video cataloging, physical preparation of the materials for the shelf, and a look at the conservation lab in action.
But for now we've started with copy cataloging. Today was a familiarization with the OCLC Connexion client, as opposed to the web interface used in LIS 531, and the catalog management software used in the library. We also reviewed the process I'll be using in copy catalog - the department policies I'll be following to make sure that my work meshes with the current catalog and is professional quality.
As the summer goes on, I will likely get some exposure to other work in the department. Serials cataloging, video cataloging, physical preparation of the materials for the shelf, and a look at the conservation lab in action.
But for now we've started with copy cataloging. Today was a familiarization with the OCLC Connexion client, as opposed to the web interface used in LIS 531, and the catalog management software used in the library. We also reviewed the process I'll be using in copy catalog - the department policies I'll be following to make sure that my work meshes with the current catalog and is professional quality.
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Annoyed Librarian's Take
And just in time for the end of this course, the Annoyed Librarian weighs in on questions of intellectual freedom.
While overly strident in his opinion piece, I think he raises some good points. The blog post was a little long so I'll respond to the high points.
I think he's right to point out that challenges are not the same as government censorship. This was even discussed in the lectures in this class. But seems to be trying to use this to say that challenges thus shouldn't be a concern, which is something I disagree with.
He talk about how most challenges are made to school and public libraries for "language, sexuality, or age appropriateness" - and I suspect he's right that teh vast majority of these are for children's books, or young adult books which is an age group he didn't address and could be even more likely to be challenged. And here he seems willing to just let any challenge go through. Even when we've seen even completely inoffensive books are challenged - Harry Potter, for example.
In the end he seems to just exclude the middle - either we must ensure that any sort of material is accessible to anyone, even 6 year olds with Penthouse; or the ALA should just give it up and not oppose any challenge. Which is a bit silly. No one is shelving Penthouse in the children's section because it doesn't belong there.
While he makes us think about how we decide what material goes into section of the library and what material the library ought to buy, he does so by essentially declaring that anyone opposing any sort of censorship or challenges in the library are ideological loons. Yes, the OIF may come of as overly concerned about certain relatively minor matters at times, but that's the nature of groups focusing on a single issue.
In all, I think the AL's blog post is thought provoking and he makes a few interesting points, but he goes too far in caricaturing the ALA OIF's position and the position of anyone that agrees with them.
While overly strident in his opinion piece, I think he raises some good points. The blog post was a little long so I'll respond to the high points.
I think he's right to point out that challenges are not the same as government censorship. This was even discussed in the lectures in this class. But seems to be trying to use this to say that challenges thus shouldn't be a concern, which is something I disagree with.
He talk about how most challenges are made to school and public libraries for "language, sexuality, or age appropriateness" - and I suspect he's right that teh vast majority of these are for children's books, or young adult books which is an age group he didn't address and could be even more likely to be challenged. And here he seems willing to just let any challenge go through. Even when we've seen even completely inoffensive books are challenged - Harry Potter, for example.
In the end he seems to just exclude the middle - either we must ensure that any sort of material is accessible to anyone, even 6 year olds with Penthouse; or the ALA should just give it up and not oppose any challenge. Which is a bit silly. No one is shelving Penthouse in the children's section because it doesn't belong there.
While he makes us think about how we decide what material goes into section of the library and what material the library ought to buy, he does so by essentially declaring that anyone opposing any sort of censorship or challenges in the library are ideological loons. Yes, the OIF may come of as overly concerned about certain relatively minor matters at times, but that's the nature of groups focusing on a single issue.
In all, I think the AL's blog post is thought provoking and he makes a few interesting points, but he goes too far in caricaturing the ALA OIF's position and the position of anyone that agrees with them.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Differing perspectives
One of our most recent lectures touched on something that's been a recurring theme in the class. Well, technically it was an interview with a lobbyist, not a lecture, but close enough. The interview subject said that to persuade legislators, he needs to approach them and the issue from their perspective. What is it they find important? What is it that they care about?
Throughout the course we've been touching on this overall idea that everyone surrounding this issue has their own priorities and goals. And it's important to understand those and engage with them in order to hopefully come to some reasonable resolution.
Librarians tend to place a high priority on intellectual freedom; the freedom to speak, read, see, and think whatever you like.
Some parents and others place a high priority on protecting children from immoral or negative influences. (Whether the materials they oppose are actually immoral or a negative influence on children is beside the point of this post.)
Some people, often represented by law enforcement agencies, place a high priority on keeping honest citizens safe from harm.
But these priorities will come into conflict. We'd all like to live in a place where we have absolute intellectual freedom, and law enforcement is able to keep us perfectly safe without intruding on our freedoms, and no child (or adult) is exposed to material that may traumatize them or lead them to immoral actions. Unfortunately such a society is impossible.
So we're left in this imperfect world where we each struggle for our priorities. But each of these groups have a reasonable goal, we just disagree on how far the goals of the others should be compromised for our goal. And by attempting to see issues from the perspective of the other side, we can hopefully find some common ground and language to resolve issues as they arise.
<sarcasm>Unless they're trying to ban the dictionary; that's just crazy.</sarcasm>
Throughout the course we've been touching on this overall idea that everyone surrounding this issue has their own priorities and goals. And it's important to understand those and engage with them in order to hopefully come to some reasonable resolution.
Librarians tend to place a high priority on intellectual freedom; the freedom to speak, read, see, and think whatever you like.
Some parents and others place a high priority on protecting children from immoral or negative influences. (Whether the materials they oppose are actually immoral or a negative influence on children is beside the point of this post.)
Some people, often represented by law enforcement agencies, place a high priority on keeping honest citizens safe from harm.
But these priorities will come into conflict. We'd all like to live in a place where we have absolute intellectual freedom, and law enforcement is able to keep us perfectly safe without intruding on our freedoms, and no child (or adult) is exposed to material that may traumatize them or lead them to immoral actions. Unfortunately such a society is impossible.
So we're left in this imperfect world where we each struggle for our priorities. But each of these groups have a reasonable goal, we just disagree on how far the goals of the others should be compromised for our goal. And by attempting to see issues from the perspective of the other side, we can hopefully find some common ground and language to resolve issues as they arise.
<sarcasm>Unless they're trying to ban the dictionary; that's just crazy.</sarcasm>
Friday, February 26, 2010
Patriot Act renewed
For our presentation for the class my partner and I will be talking about the Patriot Act, focusing on its relation to libraries. The presentation is more timely than I thought it would be as certain portions of the Patriot Act that were due to sunset have just been renewed for another year.
Doing this presentation has been a good reminder of what all is in the Patriot Act and how it changed the legal landscape for law enforcement to pursue and acquire information. One book I've been reading, Refuge of a Scoundrel, places the Patriot Act nicely in the larger context of a shift to greater government power and also greater government secrecy.
These two movements both affect libraries. Government power comes into play in new powers to request library records including circulation information and computer access logs. Simultaneously government secrecy has impacted the ability of people to do research by restricting the information available to the people from the government. In many cases this was apparently innocuous information that was unclassified or had been declassified for a long time.
It appears that these forces are on the wane a bit. At least this time the sunsetting Patriot Act provisions were renewed for only a year, and that after some debate and an emergency two month extension. Here's hoping for a better result next February! Don't forget you can write your representative and senators to make your opinion known!
Doing this presentation has been a good reminder of what all is in the Patriot Act and how it changed the legal landscape for law enforcement to pursue and acquire information. One book I've been reading, Refuge of a Scoundrel, places the Patriot Act nicely in the larger context of a shift to greater government power and also greater government secrecy.
These two movements both affect libraries. Government power comes into play in new powers to request library records including circulation information and computer access logs. Simultaneously government secrecy has impacted the ability of people to do research by restricting the information available to the people from the government. In many cases this was apparently innocuous information that was unclassified or had been declassified for a long time.
It appears that these forces are on the wane a bit. At least this time the sunsetting Patriot Act provisions were renewed for only a year, and that after some debate and an emergency two month extension. Here's hoping for a better result next February! Don't forget you can write your representative and senators to make your opinion known!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Neil Gaiman on Intellectual Freedom
Author Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Coraline, many others) had a recent post on his blog that talked about a recent conviction of someone for owning "obscene comics". While this has some relation to our class, I thought a link from that post to a older post was even more appropriate (and I highly recommend reading the whole post). Entitled "Why defend freedom of icky speech?", it is a long response to a fan questioning why it was worth defending the defendant in this case.
And this question reminded me of a similar question that seems to have come often over this term about what materials should be in a library's collection and if there are any materials that are just "out of line." And the answer varies between libraries, given their different focuses and collection policies. And obviously libraries concern only a subset of our First Amendment rights - there may likely be things that ought to be free to publish but that don't belong in your library due to its collection policy and the interests of patrons.
But Gaiman's older blog post had some gems of wisdom in it that are appropriate for us to consider. Why should the library have potentially offensive materials? And what about a book that offends the librarian personally? As Gaiman puts it,
In this case, we're talking about library collections rather than law, but I think the basic point remains the same. We allow things that we find offensive in our collections because the alternative is that we have rules to prevent "offensive" material - and those same rules would be used to remove things we do think are worth defending. "One person's obscenity is another person's art."
And this question reminded me of a similar question that seems to have come often over this term about what materials should be in a library's collection and if there are any materials that are just "out of line." And the answer varies between libraries, given their different focuses and collection policies. And obviously libraries concern only a subset of our First Amendment rights - there may likely be things that ought to be free to publish but that don't belong in your library due to its collection policy and the interests of patrons.
But Gaiman's older blog post had some gems of wisdom in it that are appropriate for us to consider. Why should the library have potentially offensive materials? And what about a book that offends the librarian personally? As Gaiman puts it,
You ask, What makes it worth defending? and the only answer I can give is this: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art.
In this case, we're talking about library collections rather than law, but I think the basic point remains the same. We allow things that we find offensive in our collections because the alternative is that we have rules to prevent "offensive" material - and those same rules would be used to remove things we do think are worth defending. "One person's obscenity is another person's art."
Saturday, February 13, 2010
News coverage of challenges
For our assignment this week, we have to write a paper on an "intellectual freedom challenge" in a library. So, I went looking for challenges to write about. I've ended up writing about the semi-famous "Bunny Suicides" challenge, but that's tangential to the point of this post.
In looking for challenges, I came across a nice, convenient list put together by the ACLU of Oregon (see the right sidebar on this page). In looking through the list a few different challenges caught my eye, but when I went to find information about them it was often hard, if not impossible, to find even a single news article. It seems that often challenges, whether in public libraries or school libraries, just don't make the news.
It's not clear from the ACLU site whether it's challenges list includes only formal written challenge, or whether complaints that are resolved purely verbally are counted too. But in either case, I wouldn't have expected that 18 challenges were made in Oregon public libraries last year - largely because I saw no news about any challenges.
Another oddity in news reporting of challenges that I encountered was that news organizations don't always follow the whole story through to the end. In the case of the Bunny Suicides there were a fairly large number of stories about the initial case, but not as many organizations actually reported about the final decision three months later. (For the record, the book was retained in the library.)
In looking for challenges, I came across a nice, convenient list put together by the ACLU of Oregon (see the right sidebar on this page). In looking through the list a few different challenges caught my eye, but when I went to find information about them it was often hard, if not impossible, to find even a single news article. It seems that often challenges, whether in public libraries or school libraries, just don't make the news.
It's not clear from the ACLU site whether it's challenges list includes only formal written challenge, or whether complaints that are resolved purely verbally are counted too. But in either case, I wouldn't have expected that 18 challenges were made in Oregon public libraries last year - largely because I saw no news about any challenges.
Another oddity in news reporting of challenges that I encountered was that news organizations don't always follow the whole story through to the end. In the case of the Bunny Suicides there were a fairly large number of stories about the initial case, but not as many organizations actually reported about the final decision three months later. (For the record, the book was retained in the library.)
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Ideal vs Actual Meeting Room Policies
I thought this week I'd compare an actual meeting room policy to the idealized version from the ALA. Specifically, I'll be looking at the meeting room policy of the Eugene Public Library (PDF warning), my local library.
The EPL has three meeting rooms open for public rental. It may look like four at first, but the Tykeson and Bascom rooms are adjacent and can be combined into a single room. A fee is charged for the use of the rooms, and it's a bit more if the rooms are to be used outside the library's normal hours.
The ALA Interpretation suggests that the meetings ought to be restricted only by time, place, and manner, not by content. The EPL doesn't stress content in it's handout, but it does say that the rooms are open "to all persons or groups" which implicitly includes indicates they don't discriminate between renters based on the content.
There is a restriction on the frequency of reservations - no more than once per month. There is also a restriction that all meetings must be free and open to the public. But these restrictions are explicitly allowed for in the ALA Interpretation: "Written policies may include limitations on frequency of use, and whether or not meetings held in library meeting rooms must be open to the public."
The ALA Interpretation suggests that libraries include a section on admission fees and the EPL policy does, stating that meetings must be free and open to the public.
The only place I can see some conflict between the two statements is that the Eugene Library charges a fee to the group for use of hte room. The Interpretation encourages libraries to avoid this in order to preserve equitable access to all aspects of the library; this applies to indirectly restricting access based on the ability to pay. However, the fees are pretty low and I think it's clear that the EPL had intellectual freedom in mind when it drafted the policy.
The EPL has three meeting rooms open for public rental. It may look like four at first, but the Tykeson and Bascom rooms are adjacent and can be combined into a single room. A fee is charged for the use of the rooms, and it's a bit more if the rooms are to be used outside the library's normal hours.
The ALA Interpretation suggests that the meetings ought to be restricted only by time, place, and manner, not by content. The EPL doesn't stress content in it's handout, but it does say that the rooms are open "to all persons or groups" which implicitly includes indicates they don't discriminate between renters based on the content.
There is a restriction on the frequency of reservations - no more than once per month. There is also a restriction that all meetings must be free and open to the public. But these restrictions are explicitly allowed for in the ALA Interpretation: "Written policies may include limitations on frequency of use, and whether or not meetings held in library meeting rooms must be open to the public."
The ALA Interpretation suggests that libraries include a section on admission fees and the EPL policy does, stating that meetings must be free and open to the public.
The only place I can see some conflict between the two statements is that the Eugene Library charges a fee to the group for use of hte room. The Interpretation encourages libraries to avoid this in order to preserve equitable access to all aspects of the library; this applies to indirectly restricting access based on the ability to pay. However, the fees are pretty low and I think it's clear that the EPL had intellectual freedom in mind when it drafted the policy.
Friday, January 29, 2010
A week for banned books
I knew books were challenged sometimes, but this week really had some interesting cases.
First, dictionaries removed from classrooms in one California school district. Apparently a parent complained because one can find definitions of words they consider "inappropriate." Personally, this just seems crazy but apparently is being discussed seriously by a panel there.
Second, a Virginia district switching to a different edition of the Diary of Anne Frank. I didn't realize there were different editions. I understand that the traditional edition is a version expurgated of certain content by Anne's father Otto. My quick thought is that if it was in Anne's original diary, then clearly it's representative of thoughts that naturally occur to kids in the 13-15 year old range. So I'm not sure I can see why someone would believe it'd be particularly traumatizing for them to read.
But I suppose the take away for me on these is that people will challenge books for reasons I just can't fathom. These are the cases that it's easy for me to oppose, but it's equally important to oppose the other cases as well. As librarians we are responsible for making information available to people and letting the accept or reject it as they will.
First, dictionaries removed from classrooms in one California school district. Apparently a parent complained because one can find definitions of words they consider "inappropriate." Personally, this just seems crazy but apparently is being discussed seriously by a panel there.
Second, a Virginia district switching to a different edition of the Diary of Anne Frank. I didn't realize there were different editions. I understand that the traditional edition is a version expurgated of certain content by Anne's father Otto. My quick thought is that if it was in Anne's original diary, then clearly it's representative of thoughts that naturally occur to kids in the 13-15 year old range. So I'm not sure I can see why someone would believe it'd be particularly traumatizing for them to read.
But I suppose the take away for me on these is that people will challenge books for reasons I just can't fathom. These are the cases that it's easy for me to oppose, but it's equally important to oppose the other cases as well. As librarians we are responsible for making information available to people and letting the accept or reject it as they will.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
FBI Access to Records
Not to keep harping on the same subject, but I found this article about the FBI obtaining phone records based on little more than a post-it note relevant to our thinking about Intellectual Freedom issues in libraries.
Unlike libraries, phone companies don't seem to have much of a culture of protecting customer/patron information. As a result they were sometimes all too eager to go along with any request from an FBI agent, assuming that the information requested must be urgent and important to an investigation. Perhaps they weren't even aware of the system of warrants/subpeonas that are meant to offer some independent oversight that the requests really are relevant to an ongoing investigation.
While I'm sure there are librarians out there who aren't entirely on board the intellectual freedom train, and may be willing to provide information to a police officer or FBI agent, especially when pressured, I would hope that no one would give up that information based solely on a polite question and a scribbled post-it note. But maybe I'm being overly optimistic here.
Unlike libraries, phone companies don't seem to have much of a culture of protecting customer/patron information. As a result they were sometimes all too eager to go along with any request from an FBI agent, assuming that the information requested must be urgent and important to an investigation. Perhaps they weren't even aware of the system of warrants/subpeonas that are meant to offer some independent oversight that the requests really are relevant to an ongoing investigation.
While I'm sure there are librarians out there who aren't entirely on board the intellectual freedom train, and may be willing to provide information to a police officer or FBI agent, especially when pressured, I would hope that no one would give up that information based solely on a polite question and a scribbled post-it note. But maybe I'm being overly optimistic here.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Records privacy vs professors and others
In the past I've considered the privacy of library records primarily in relation to government requests for that information. This is perhaps because the most dramatic examples come from that direction. However, I've recently read/heard about a couple other cases that I think are pretty interesting.
The first: I've recently started volunteering at my local library. One of the items that came up during the volunteer orientation involved the privacy of library information. How we should given the impression that we neither know nor care about what the patron is reading.
An aside - this was also interesting in that it was reinforced that we shouldn't make positive comments on the patron's selection because it draws attention to the fact we have this knowledge. And perhaps the patron will be led to thinking, "Well, sure they like that I'm reading this, but do I really want them to see that I also want to read that? Better not to check it out."
As part of the privacy training, one example of records privacy was mentioned - that even family members shouldn't get a pass to see what their wife/son/whatever has checked out. We don't know their personal situation and it's just better for everyone if we don't give out that information as policy, even if the requester says it's for some innocuous purpose like making sure to collect all the books coming due soon from the house.
The other example that struck me was in reading the ALA's Guidelines for Developing a Library Privacy Policy which included a mention of a professor seeking evidence for plagiarism in Section III.
The unifying theme of these two separate examples it the way it's driven home that we need to be wary of going along with someone because their motives seem reasonable to us. Privacy protections mean more than just privacy from the request of government representatives, but also from the requests of others no matter how innocuous they may seem.
The first: I've recently started volunteering at my local library. One of the items that came up during the volunteer orientation involved the privacy of library information. How we should given the impression that we neither know nor care about what the patron is reading.
An aside - this was also interesting in that it was reinforced that we shouldn't make positive comments on the patron's selection because it draws attention to the fact we have this knowledge. And perhaps the patron will be led to thinking, "Well, sure they like that I'm reading this, but do I really want them to see that I also want to read that? Better not to check it out."
As part of the privacy training, one example of records privacy was mentioned - that even family members shouldn't get a pass to see what their wife/son/whatever has checked out. We don't know their personal situation and it's just better for everyone if we don't give out that information as policy, even if the requester says it's for some innocuous purpose like making sure to collect all the books coming due soon from the house.
The other example that struck me was in reading the ALA's Guidelines for Developing a Library Privacy Policy which included a mention of a professor seeking evidence for plagiarism in Section III.
The mere fact that students are enrolled in courses should not jeopardize their privacy rights. Thus, student circulation records for course-required and reserve reading should be protected from inquiry with the same rigor as their circulation records for personal reading. Librarians assisting in investigations of plagiarism should take care to protect the usage records of individual students.It occurred to me that I would naturally be sympathetic to the professor's plight, whereas I've been somewhat culturally conditioned to be wary of the motives of government agents asking for similar records.
The unifying theme of these two separate examples it the way it's driven home that we need to be wary of going along with someone because their motives seem reasonable to us. Privacy protections mean more than just privacy from the request of government representatives, but also from the requests of others no matter how innocuous they may seem.
Friday, January 15, 2010
How absolute should Intellectual Freedom be?
First post of the blog. And I think I'll start by looking at how absolute should we take Intellectual Freedom to be. I'll be looking at it particularly from the perspective of what sort of materials should we have on our shelves at the library.
The second point of the ALA's Library Bill of Rights says, "Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view." This sounds pretty absolute to me, and at a first read is something I'd readily agree with. But then I start thinking of how far this reaches. After all, the first sort of material I thought of was points of view I had agreed with that had been subject to challenges. But that's the easy stuff - the hard questions are how you handle material you don't agree with.
And so I started to think about material I would find objectionable. I doubt I'll shock anyone if I go on record as being against racial prejudice. The Library Bill of Rights would say that a library collection should not avoid material due to it advocating segregation or racial superiority/inferiority. This is backed up by the Diversity in Collection Development interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights. Our text calls this out by discussing books such as Little Black Sambo. And so I had to give this principle some real thought. Do I agree that libraries ought to carry all sorts of material, even material that advocates racial prejudice or other views I find abhorent?
In the end I agree with the ALA's Bill of Rights that the library ought not shy away from such works. As the ALA's policy statements argue, democracy implicitly relies on the idea that "the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad." In the end we must trust our neighbors to choose for themselves what they believe and trust that the truth will shine through. To exclude books in the library for their point of view, even in the service of ideals we believe strongly in, is to prevent society from being able to fully consider, and hopefully reject those viewpoints.
The second point of the ALA's Library Bill of Rights says, "Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view." This sounds pretty absolute to me, and at a first read is something I'd readily agree with. But then I start thinking of how far this reaches. After all, the first sort of material I thought of was points of view I had agreed with that had been subject to challenges. But that's the easy stuff - the hard questions are how you handle material you don't agree with.
And so I started to think about material I would find objectionable. I doubt I'll shock anyone if I go on record as being against racial prejudice. The Library Bill of Rights would say that a library collection should not avoid material due to it advocating segregation or racial superiority/inferiority. This is backed up by the Diversity in Collection Development interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights. Our text calls this out by discussing books such as Little Black Sambo. And so I had to give this principle some real thought. Do I agree that libraries ought to carry all sorts of material, even material that advocates racial prejudice or other views I find abhorent?
In the end I agree with the ALA's Bill of Rights that the library ought not shy away from such works. As the ALA's policy statements argue, democracy implicitly relies on the idea that "the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad." In the end we must trust our neighbors to choose for themselves what they believe and trust that the truth will shine through. To exclude books in the library for their point of view, even in the service of ideals we believe strongly in, is to prevent society from being able to fully consider, and hopefully reject those viewpoints.
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