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.
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