tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11391933884267865432024-03-13T06:26:34.207-05:00Melissa in StephenvilleMelissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-9351706422087762612014-04-08T09:10:00.000-05:002014-04-08T09:16:41.391-05:00Downloading and opening EBSCO e-books on a Google Nexus tabletWow, it's been ages since I last posted here. My minute or two of fame (it didn't even count as 15 minutes) scared me off for a while, but I decided to briefly resurrect this blog to post some instructions I just wrote up. They may turn out to be helpful to other people, or they may be helpful to my own library if we ever decide to start pushing the downloadability aspect of our e-books.<br />
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So, last night I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep for a few hours. Since my brain wouldn't shut up, I decided to put it to use on a problem I had been wondering about for a while: how to get my library's EBSCO e-books to work on my tablet.<br />
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I already knew that some of them, at least, were downloadable. I had previously managed to check one out, download it onto my work computer, and open it using Adobe Digital Editions. So I knew downloading one and opening it on my tablet should be doable.<br />
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Well, it took an hour, but I figured out how to do it. These are very brief instructions: no screenshots and, in most cases, no descriptions of exactly where you need to click. The tablet I used was a <b>Google Nexus 10</b>. I have no idea how these instructions would need to be modified for anything else, but I'm fairly certain iPads would need to use different software than what I'll be listing.<br />
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<b>What you need:</b><br />
<ul>
<li><b>Adobe Digital Editions username and password</b></li>
<li><b>EBSCO username and password</b></li>
<li><b>Opera (a browser)</b></li>
<li><b>Bluefire Reader (a Secure Adobe PDF reader)</b></li>
</ul>
Get your Adobe Digital Editions and EBSCO usernames and passwords before you do anything else. <br />
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Opera and Bluefire Reader are both free and can be downloaded via the Google Play store. After installing Bluefire Reader, start it up and authorize it with your Adobe Digital Editions username and password.<br />
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Open Opera and select an EBSCO e-book. Check it out – you'll need to log in with your EBSCO username and password in order to do this. Download it. It will seem as though nothing has happened. In the top left corner of the tablet, it should say that a new download has completed – I think the file extension is .ACSM. Click on that notification. It will ask how you want to open it. Select Bluefire Reader. Bluefire should instantly authorize the file via Adobe Digital Editions and then allow you to open the book.<br />
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<u>Some notes:</u><br />
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In theory, you should be able to use any browser you want and any e-book reading app capable of reading Secure Adobe PDFs. In practice, that doesn't seem to work. I originally tried downloading a couple books using Chrome and opening them in my preferred Secure Adobe reader, Mantano, and I kept running into walls. <br />
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I still can't get Mantano to properly open those e-books, even after having opened them in Bluefire Reader and knowing it should be possible. Since I've used Mantano to open Overdrive Secure Adobe files, I have to assume that this is some quirk of EBSCO's. Bluefire Reader was the app EBSCO specifically recommended after I checked out an e-book.<br />
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As far as Opera goes, I tried that after coming across <a href="http://libguides.phcc.edu/content.php?pid=485940&sid=3985473" target="_blank">this website</a> (thank you Pasco-Hernando State College Library!), which mentions that Chrome and Android don't seem to play well together where EBSCO e-books are concerned and recommends that Opera be used instead.<br />
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ETA: When I tried to use Chrome to download the e-books, Bluefire Reader kept telling me that I had "no tokens" and couldn't open the book. Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-65150139010918147202011-03-09T17:26:00.000-06:002011-03-09T17:26:19.495-06:00What do you mean, you don't have metadata experience?<em>(This has been in my drafts for a while. I finally decided to publish it. Maybe one of these days I'll publish all the other drafts I have sitting around.)</em><br />
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A few weeks ago, a cataloger who thought she might soon be unemployed emailed one of the listservs I subscribe to. One of the things she wrote really caught my attention: “The few cataloging jobs that I saw required metadata experience, which I don’t have…” <br />
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I could say who wrote this and when it was written, and the post can be found in this particular listserv’s archives, but since I don’t know if this person would be ok with her name also being in a blog post, I’m not including it here. The important thing is simply that she wrote this, and that this is not the first time this has come up.<br />
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Offlist, I emailed her about this statement, saying that, actually, she does have metadata experience. MARC is a metadata standard. In fact, it’s a very complicated and unintuitive metadata standard – lots of fields and subfields. The average person, looking at a list of MARC fields, would probably not be able to immediately equate, say, “245” with “Title statement,” and yet for many catalogers who regularly use MARC it actually becomes more comfortable to see fields and subfields rather than plain English labels.<br />
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If you know MARC, you have metadata experience. You may not have experience with Dublin Core or EAD or ONIX or XML or whatever else, but you <em>do</em> have metadata experience, and you can apply what you have learned from MARC to learning another metadata standard. (This, of course, takes an employer who is willing to train you or give you the time to get trained - which <em>is</em> a valid worry, what with all the employers who seem to want new employees who can be put to work with little or no training.)<br />
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Not everyone writes or talks about MARC and metadata as if they are two completely separate things, but it has still somehow been embedded in some people’s brains that they <i>are </i>separate things. On listservs and in blogs, I have read complaints from people that catalogers aren’t very good at recognizing transferable skills. The mental separation of “metadata” and “MARC” is, I feel, one of the main reasons why this is so, and it cripples catalogers and makes them afraid. Skilled catalogers don’t think they are qualified to be metadata librarians (or whatever else they are called). They think that what they do is becoming obsolete.<br />
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I do believe that, one day, catalogers will probably be using something other than MARC. However, I don’t live in fear of my future and my career(*)…because I believe there will always be a place for someone who can create and edit metadata. I can learn a new metadata scheme if I need to. After all, I learned MARC. <br />
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If you'd like to know more about MARC's place in the metadata world, check out <a href="http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/metadatamap/">"A Visualization of the Metadata Universe."</a> Actually, this shows you the place of 105 metadata standards - it's awesome and kind of pretty.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* - I do worry that, one day, there won't be any jobs for people like me in libraries. I could work for a corporation if necessary, and almost ended up at one during the course of my post-grad school job search, but I'd prefer to work for a library. With all the outsourcing that's going on, however, that may not always be possible.</span>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-29960217188613688932011-02-23T22:55:00.000-06:002011-02-23T22:55:16.270-06:00The blog hasn't died, really it hasn'tI know, I haven't updated this blog in ages. I figured I'd make my first update in such a long while an update about some of the projects I've been working on, either on my own or with Tracy:<br />
<ul><li>Fixing up the diacritics problem in the Classical Music Library and Contemporary World Music MARC records. There are still no diacritics (I'm not sure if would be possible for our OPAC to display those diacritics, anyway), but at least the stuff that looked like gibberish and was unsearchable and unreadable by human beings has been dealt with. Tracy and I worked for an hour and a half on this problem ("Diacritics Hell"). Neither one of us had any idea it would take quite so long.</li>
<li>I'm still working on adding 505 fields (contents notes) to records. Right now, I'm concentrating on PS647-PS648 (in our General Stacks area). We've got records for anthologies in this area that don't say what titles or authors they include, meaning that the only way someone would know that, say, <i>History Revisited</i> has a story by Harry Turtledove is through some source that is not our catalog (the record for this book now has a contents note, by the way).</li>
<li>The records to which I'm adding 505s get other special treatments, which is why I only do a few per day, or there wouldn't be any time to do anything else. To list a few things I do: add our holdings to OCLC if they're not already there, fix up the title control numbers, and add genre/form headings (which are actually just LC subject headings used in 655 fields - for now, until there are more genre authority records and I'm actually able to load those authority records, this seems to be the best way to go).</li>
<li>I'm cleaning up 505 notes that already exist in our catalog. Some of them are enhanced when they shouldn't be, which creates false hits in our title searches. Some of them are unenhanced even though they should be enhanced, which means things that should come up in a title or author search don't. I can fix it globally, but the fix is imperfect, so I have to at least glance at the records before I reload them, slowing the process down a bit.</li>
<li>I'm fixing 245 fields (Title) that have subfields in an incorrect order. The incorrect order creates display weirdness that sometimes makes it incredibly difficult to figure out what the actual title is, or see that it's the audiobook version instead of the print version. So far, I've done our vinyl records and VHS tapes, which probably took care of the worst offenders.</li>
<li>I'm still loading authority records in order to authorize our headings and make it easier to keep them up-to-date. It's a slow process that I will never finish. </li>
</ul>I think that's it, not including all the projects that have ended up on the back burner.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-54223461583274787962011-01-21T12:44:00.003-06:002011-01-21T12:51:49.129-06:00Something cool - Amazon to MARC and IMDb to MARCThe <a href="http://chopac.org/cgi-bin/tools/az2marc.pl">Amazon to MARC converter</a> takes information from Amazon.com book records and turns it into MARC. I don't see myself using the MARC records this produces, because the records would take so much cleanup that it might actually be easier to start from scratch, but I still think it's pretty cool. Plus, some aspects could be useful for my work: I could copy and paste summary information from here and avoid (I'm pretty sure) having to hunt down quotation marks and apostrophes that Connexion doesn't like, and I could potentially use this as a starting place for call numbers and subject headings.<br />
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The <a href="http://amazon.libcat.org/cgi-bin/imdb2marc.pl">IMDb to MARC converter (prototype)</a> takes information from IMDb and turns it into MARC records. I think this converter's output is actually even more helpful than the Amazon to MARC converter's - video recording MARC records take a lot of work, because of all the name access points and various notes. This would take care of some of that work, although there'd still be a lot of fixing and fiddling to do. I love the "verify names" feature (also present in the Amazon to MARC converter). I could see this tool being especially popular with libraries that, in order to save time, have a policy of basing video recording cataloging on container information - this would probably help them save even more time. Again, as with the Amazon to MARC converter, I probably wouldn't use the MARC records produced by the IMDb to MARC converter, but there are still certain things I could copy and paste into the records I end up using in Connexion.<br />
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<strong>UPDATE:</strong> The Amazon to MARC converter doesn't just do book records - I just had it generate a record for a DVD, VHS, and CD. The "classify" information seems to be drawn from OCLC - too bad, I was hoping it could help Tracy and Trudy in those cases where they have trouble finding OCLC records that match the Contemporary World Music records they're assigning call numbers to.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-44484980117601671382011-01-05T16:31:00.000-06:002011-01-05T16:31:04.049-06:00Electronic theses and dissertationsI added 115 URLs and their corresponding e-resource item records to bibliographic records for theses and dissertations today. In theory, every thesis and dissertation for which we have a bibliographic record and that is available via Proquest should now be searchable as Type: Thesis/Dissertation, Location: Online Access. Yay!<br />
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While I was at it, I also cleaned up some stray issues in the records, and added abstracts to records I was editing that did not already have them.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-21422179027026470252010-12-10T13:16:00.000-06:002010-12-10T13:16:10.655-06:00Newest project, with an observationNow that I've finished the project that flipped subfield d's and q's into their correct order and got rid of all or most of our obsolete subfield w's, I've got yet another project on the table. I realized that, even though I can't export records based on publication year, I <i>can </i>export them based on record creation date, which should usually be within a year or two of the publication date. With this is mind, I'm hoping to add and (where necessary) enhance contents notes in bibliographic records added to our catalog in the past five years. All of the below is being done using MARCEdit, by the way.<br />
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So far, the first step is going well. I exported the records, extracted all the ones that have 505 fields (contents notes) with " / " in them, extracted all the ones in <i>that</i> file that don't have 520 fields (summary, etc. notes), and globally enhanced all the 505s. However, not all of these 505s really need enhancing, and there's some potential for error in how enhancing occurred, so I'm going through the records one-by-one before reloading. This is still going a lot faster than enhancing them all individually would have gone.<br />
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I haven't had much of a chance to work on this project, because of all the end-of-semester stuff that's been happening, and because cataloging new things needs more attention right now. Still, I've looked through enough records to discover something I hadn't realized: our NetLibrary records, which I had always assumed were the highest quality ones, sometimes have contents notes that end prematurely. The contents notes might only cover half the actual contents of the book, with no indication (via the first indicator) that these fields are in any way incomplete. I'm fixing them up as I come across them, but it makes me wonder what other kinds of problems there might be that I don't know about.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-26741567639208104442010-12-06T12:32:00.003-06:002010-12-07T12:06:58.460-06:00"You say you want a revolution"This is a bit of a rambling post, but the general topic is RDA. That seems to be all anyone ever talks about in the cataloging world anymore. Not surprising, really.<br />
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There are a lot of complaints about RDA being voiced on the OCLC-CAT listserv, of all places. Why OCLC-CAT? I'm pretty sure it started because of the way OCLC has been allowing RDA data (authority and bibliographic) to be added to the WorldCat database.<br />
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When I originally heard that RDA would be tested before the Library of Congress made any decisions about it, I assumed that that test would take place outside of the live cataloging environment. This has not been the case. The word "test" in OCLC Land sounds an awful lot like "the rules have officially changed, deal with it." OCLC has instructed catalogers to treat RDA bibliographic records vs. AACR2 bibliographic records the same as they treat AACR2 vs. AACR bibliographic records: if an RDA record already exists, an AACR2 record would be considered a duplicate and is therefore not supposed to be entered. Catalogers not using RDA may edit the record back to AACR2 locally.<br />
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How exactly does this make sense? I would understand if RDA were the official new rules, but they're not, at least not in the U.S. I know that there are countries that have decided to implement RDA already, and WorldCat is an international database. However, couldn't OCLC just instruct catalogers to treat RDA vs. AACR2 records as parallel records? For instance, if an RDA record already exists, catalogers still using AACR2 (which is most of the U.S.) could enter an AACR2 record, thereby giving other AACR2 users the ability to share the work rather than having every AACR2 user edit the RDA record locally. When/If RDA is implemented by the Library of Congress, OCLC could set their deduplication software to consider RDA and AACR2 records for the same title as duplicates, but it makes no sense to do so before the end of the supposed test.<br />
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The bigger uproar on OCLC-CAT right now seems to be focused on authority records. I will admit to not understanding everything everyone is saying - the complaints seem mainly focused on the way RDA information is being added to authority records (RDA name headings live in 700 fields right now, with the AACR2 name headings still in 100 fields - no information has been given on what will be done to these records if RDA is implemented). Having RDA name headings in 700 fields doesn't hurt DSL, but, from what I've heard, there are libraries whose authority control systems choke on this. What does worry me about all of this is that, like the bibliographic records, these changes are all happening to live records: this is not a separate authority file just for the use of those testing RDA, but rather the authority file used by everyone, regardless of whether or not they are test libraries. In effect, non-test libraries are being forced to take part in the test. How can this still be considered a test if everything is happening in a live environment?<br />
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The uproar about the way OCLC has been handling the RDA test resulted in <a href="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/norda/">Memorandum Against RDA Test</a>, a petition that has so far been signed by 312 people. Although I agree with the petition, I don't always agree with the strong wording that Wojciech Siemaszkiewicz, the person who I believe started the petition, has been using on the OCLC-CAT listserv when talking about RDA. Siemaszkiewicz has an unfortunate tendency (unfortunate because it immediately gets RDA supporters backs up and occasionally even alienates those who oppose RDA) to phrase complaints about RDA in ways that bring war protests and the rhetoric of revolution to mind. <br />
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Siemaszkiewicz isn't the only one stirring things up - Deborah Tomaras, on the OCLC-CAT listserv and others, has encouraged those who are against RDA to send their concerns to the personal emails of the members of the RDA Coordinating Committee. She even provided all the email addresses in case the website with those email addresses is taken down. While I can understand the frustration that resulted in this particular call to action, since it feels as though complaints and concerns about RDA and the RDA test have fallen on deaf ears, I'm also not comfortable with what Tomaras is asking catalogers to do. I don't really know what catalogers who are against RDA <i>should</i> be doing, since going through the proper channels has so far seemed ineffective, but spamming/harassing the individuals on the RDA Coordinating Committee isn't, to my mind, the way to go. Can we all just please remember that we're supposed to be professionals?<br />
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I may not be sure how I should be communicating my concerns about RDA, but I do have concerns, and one of them is whether or not a drastic reorganization of cataloging rules is even necessary. I recognize that there are problems with AACR2 - I rarely catalog any of the formats (such as databases and websites) that are difficult to catalog with AACR2, but, when I do, it's painfully clear that something needs to be done. At least, something needs to be done to the rules for electronic resources and other things with similar cataloging problems. As far as I'm concerned, the cataloging rules are fine for most physical materials.<br />
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Let's be clear about this: the cataloging rules are different from the encoding standards, which are different from ILSs. One of the things that consistently frustrates me about the RDA arguments is that there seems to be an assumption on the part of those who are most in favor of RDA that most of our cataloging problems reside in our cataloging rules. I would argue that this is not the case. <br />
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Maybe I need to keep a list of every catalog wish list item I am asked to implement that I can't, in addition to the reason why I can't. I'm pretty sure that, most of the time, when I can't implement something it's because of the way MARC is set up or the way our ILS works, <i>not</i> because of AACR2. If AACR2 is the reason why something can't be done with MARC or something in our ILS is not doing what our users (whether they're students, faculty, or librarians) want, and if that were plainly stated to the cataloging community, I would happily accept a change to the rules. However, I don't agree with change for change's sake, and that's what RDA feels like. On the one hand, RDA is supposed to make everything better. On the other hand, it's supposed to not change things so much that AACR2 records can't live side by side with RDA records. I don't see how both of those statements can be true.<br />
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So, that's it from me for now. I don't know if those who are most against RDA will ever be able to reconcile with those who are most for it - neither side really seems to understand the other, or maybe they're just not willing to listen to each other. Or even talk to each other (it seems like pro-RDA talk may be happening on Twitter a lot - I wouldn't know, since I don't use Twitter, but I may have to start just to see what's going on - while anti-RDA talk is concentrated on listservs). Another problem seems to be that not all ILSs are created equal and that not everyone understands this. But then, I may just think that because I'm in the camp that believes our largest problems lie in our ILSs and MARC 21.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-42892390270823002522010-12-01T18:00:00.001-06:002010-12-02T08:43:46.871-06:00Radio Ballet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/TPbd9xe_pXI/AAAAAAAAAHM/uA4qR34WEUY/s1600/acoustic_61369.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/TPbd9xe_pXI/AAAAAAAAAHM/uA4qR34WEUY/s320/acoustic_61369.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>← This book led me to these:<br />
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<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qI3pfa5QNZI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qI3pfa5QNZI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rpT-wb3TPXk?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rpT-wb3TPXk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-90768528132078188902010-11-29T18:05:00.000-06:002010-11-29T18:05:44.973-06:00Cross-references: what good are they?Authority work has been one of my long-time pet projects. Authority records, properly linked to headings in bibliographic records, make it much, much easier to globally update headings as changes occur. Authority records can help keep headings in bibliographic records consistent, and consistent headings allow users to search those headings in the catalog and get what they're looking for. Even if users don't know a thing about name and subject headings and just use keyword searches, hyperlinked <em>consistent</em> headings allow users to click on the headings and retrieve everything else that has that same heading (depending on system settings - and, actually, I'm not quite sure what our setting are like). It's very important that the headings are consistent, because, if they aren't, clicking on the link isn't necessarily going to bring everything up. The OPAC doesn't know that the hyperlink "Tiger" and the previous authorized form "Tigers" should be considered the same thing.<br />
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There's one thing about authorities that bothers me, though. When I was in library school, one of the touted benefits of using authority records was their cross-references. If a user doesn't know that the authorized form used by their library happens to be "Airships" and not "Blimps," the cross-references are supposed to help them find the records they're looking for anyway. The problem is that this assumes that users are doing browse searches. Anecdotal evidence (and quite possibly actual studies, which I haven't tried looking up) says that this isn't true. Instead, users, including a lot of librarians, are probably using keyword searches. True, they may be subject keyword or author keyword searches, but they're still keyword searches and, as far as I know, there is no ILS out there that searches cross-references in authority records in addition to text within bibliographic records. I had heard that SirsiDynix Symphony does somewhat, but, from what I can tell, "somewhat" means that, if the keyword search retrieves nothing, users are redirected to a browse search for that word. That can work well enough in some cases. If users don't automatically assume that the redirection is a completely failed search and actually click on the cross-reference hyperlink. And only if the keyword search retrieves absolutely nothing.<br />
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It would be nice if the cross-references of any authority record to which headings in a bibliographic record are linked were searched in subject/author/genre keyword searches (maybe even general keyword searches). If an ILS exists that can do this, I'd love to hear about it. And I'd like to know why more don't.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-63527079432451588432010-11-12T12:18:00.015-06:002010-11-12T12:18:00.263-06:00Current big global editing projectI'm halfway through my current large global editing project that is cleaning up the name headings (flipping subfield q and d so that they're in the correct order), deleting obsolete subfield w's in access points, and fixing obsolete indicators in several fields (100, 700, 110, 710, 260) in our oldest records. I looked at the numbers, and I think it'll take 10 more days of work to finish the whole project up. Not bad.<br />
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After this project is done, I think I'll go back to concentrating more on straightening up our authority records and name and subject headings - a never-ending job.<br />
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While I was doing some subfield q and d flipping, it occurred to me that the technique I was using could be used to fix other problems we have. Since the technique took a bit of work and a lot of testing for me to figure out in the first place, and since every step must be done in a particular order, I decided to save myself future pain by posting instructions, complete with screenshots, in our staff wiki. That'll keep me from having the reinvent the wheel when I finally get around to doing those other fixes.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-90966211319844653532010-11-08T10:48:00.002-06:002010-11-08T10:51:14.916-06:00Fun with GIMPI figured it was time for a non-cataloging related post.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/TNgkA7jAxPI/AAAAAAAAAHE/Dr1jFwxNR2E/s1600/me-reworked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/TNgkA7jAxPI/AAAAAAAAAHE/Dr1jFwxNR2E/s320/me-reworked.jpg" border="0" width="320" height="320" /></a></div>On the left is an image I recently edited nearly to death in GIMP.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/TNgkNsBmlQI/AAAAAAAAAHI/FmdYuXDxRzM/s1600/Image16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/TNgkNsBmlQI/AAAAAAAAAHI/FmdYuXDxRzM/s320/Image16.jpg" border="0" width="320" height="240" /></a></div>And here's the image as it was before I GIMPified it.<br /><br />The edited image is made up of 5 layers (actually 6, but only 5 of them make up the visible parts of the image - I kept the original image as a background layer that I could copy in order to create additional layers).<br /><br />Originally, I tried using the "cartoon" filter to create the black lines I wanted, but I didn't entirely like the results and the filter, however nice, didn't give me enough control. Since I'm still limited almost entirely to using a touchpad, I don't have much fine editing ability, either.<br /><br />I created an effect similar to the cartoon filter by copying the original image and applying the photocopy filter. Then I selected according to color and selected all the true black areas of the layer with the photocopy filter applied. I inverted the selection, cut everything that was selected, and then made the selected area transparent. I repeated those steps with another layer with the photocopy filter applied, only this time I selected gray areas. I repeated the steps again for another gray. For all those layers, I made the remaining ares of color (the lines leftover from the photocopy filter) completely black, either with levels or with the colorify tool.<br /><br />Then I decided to mess with color. I may not wear them, but I love bright colors, so I created a new layer and used the Color Balance tool until I got something I liked. However, I only really liked it on my shirt, so I deleted and made transparent every part of that layer but the shirt.<br /><br />I still wanted to punch up the rest of the colors in the picture, though, so I created another layer and used, I think, the Hue-Saturation tool until I got something I liked. I thought I'd end up doing the walls separately from my face, but I ended up liking that particular color effect on both areas. However, my face had gotten a bit patchy-looking, and I wanted to smooth that out. I tried out a few tools but ended up liking the Oilify filter the best.<br /><br />I didn't entirely like the hard lines (the result of the stuff I did with the photocopy layers) along my jawline, some areas near my mouth, and on my neck, so I used the eraser tool to get rid of those. I can do that much, even with a touchpad.<br /><br />And that's basically how I did that image. It's nice to know that I can still use GIMP a little, even with a touchpad - there are just a few limits to what I can do. Drawing in GIMP, no, but editing a photograph? That I can do.<br /><br />Also: yes, my NaNoWriMo novel is not going well. As has happened every time I've taken part, my writing speed has tanked. I'm hoping I can get it back up again - there are still several weeks left in the month.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-86281891489042329642010-10-26T20:30:00.000-05:002010-10-26T20:30:03.838-05:00More deduping, plus an explanation of why it is necessaryI did 6 or 7 more deduplication tests using MARCEdit, with no true success, but a little minor success. On the plus side, I can produce an overzealous list of duplicate records that includes true duplicates and a few that only look like duplicates (for example, same title, but one is a newer edition than the other). That at least gives us a list to work from, I suppose, although matching on ISBN would give a more accurate and probably more complete list.<br />
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In case you're wondering (I know this and my last post are somewhat technical), duplicate records are records that are basically for the exact same title - it was published by the same publisher, published on the same year, etc. When we get e-book record files from vendors, we sometimes get records for the same title from multiple vendors. Some of the vendors have records with OCLC numbers in them, some don't, and sometimes they might have OCLC numbers in them but not the same ones that another vendor used (yes, OCLC has duplicate records, lots and lots of them). When we load them, we end up with multiple records for basically the same thing. Ideally, we'd like to have an e-book that is available from multiple vendors accessible on one record. <br />
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That's where record deduplication comes in. Right now, we could do our deduping by searching each and every e-book title in the catalog and clearing up duplicates as we come across them. This is not a good idea - we have tens of thousands of e-books, and the number will only grow. The tests I've been doing are part of an attempt to automate deduplication, or at least come up with a list of potential duplicates so that we could avoid having to search every single title in our e-book collection.<br />
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I think I'm going to start reading articles on record deduplication. I probably should have done this earlier - if I find something right away that could help us, I'm going to kick myself.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-21938246268288614062010-10-26T11:11:00.000-05:002010-10-26T11:11:20.910-05:00Trying to dedupe records...and failingWhile provider neutral e-book records are a nice idea, it's a little hard to do in practice when you're dealing with vendor e-book record packages. Today will be Round 3 of me trying to figure out how to dedupe our records without having to go through each title one by one.<br />
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In theory, deduplication could be done at the record loading stage, using, for instance, ISBNs as a second match point. In practice, this probably wouldn't go well, unless we decided to have print and electronic formats on one record - by matching on ISBN, we would end up matching our e-book records with our print records. There are probably other issues with this method that I haven't even thought of. I could do some testing, but I haven't really focused much on this method of record deduplication yet.<br />
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Instead, I've mostly been looking at methods of deduplication using MARCEdit. The obvious method, using MARCEdit's deduplication tool and trying to dedupe on ISBNs, has so far failed. I'm either using the tool wrong, or it's not working the way it should. The first day I started experimenting, I remember having some success by matching on main title information. I think I might try that again today. Unfortunately, that would result in multiple editions of one title being considered dupes. If it also lists actual dupes, it would still be better than nothing. Instead of having to search hundreds of titles, maybe we'd only have to search a few dozen. Or so I hope...Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-11988006742029442782010-10-08T18:16:00.000-05:002010-10-08T18:16:11.998-05:00Vacation, catalog maintenanceWow, it's been almost a month and a half since my last post. My vacation had a little to do with that, but the rest was just...pre-vacation near burn-out, maybe?<br />
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My vacation went great. It took me a while to get comfortable with my niece, since I've never really been around babies before, but now I find I feel sad that I won't get to see her very often. At the very least, everyone in her family but her mom and dad is going to miss out on her first birthday - so sad!<br />
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Being back at work feels a little weird, but that'll wear off. With SCUUG only a week away, I've been reminding myself how to use MARCEdit for catalog maintenance by working on a project I started looking into right before my vacation. An unknown number of name headings in our catalog are messed up, with subfield d coming before subfield q, rather than after. I had been ignoring this problem, but now it's starting to interfere pretty significantly with my batch authority searching and loading process.<br />
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An example of the problem:<br />
Babcock, C. J. $d 1894- $q (Clarence Joseph),<br />
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Should be:<br />
Bacock, C. J. $q (Clarence Joseph), $d 1894-<br />
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In the past, I occasionally fixed these by hand as I came across them. However, this is annoying, and also bad for my wrist. Global editing is a good thing, and this looked like something that should be fixable globally. I just wasn't sure how.<br />
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It turns out it's possible with MARCEdit, and I figured out how to do it all on my own. Woohoo! I'm planning on running the fix for all the oldest records in our catalog (nearly 200,000 I think) over the course of a few weeks. That should take care of most, if not all, of the problem, and then I can get back to batch searching and loading authority records.<br />
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While playing with all of that, I also learned the first few steps for a new tool in MARCEdit that allows you to extract certain records from a larger file, edit the smaller file of records, and (in theory) re-insert the edited records back into the larger file. This will be great for all kinds of projects, once I figure out how to get the reinsertion part to work.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-53446733071669769162010-08-31T22:19:00.000-05:002010-08-31T22:19:18.986-05:00Cataloger humor on TwitterTurns out I even like<a href="http://twitter.com/fakeaacr2"> Fake AACR2</a> better than <a href="http://twitter.com/FakeRDA">Fake RDA</a>.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-74101782879264259952010-08-31T09:22:00.000-05:002010-08-31T09:22:53.427-05:00RDA and the RDA ToolkitIt's the final day of the RDA Toolkit free trial (I will not call it the "open access period," as this implies things that aren't true), so I decided to write a post about it.<br />
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When I originally began hearing about the RDA Toolkit, there were some things about it that I thought sounded kind of exciting. I liked the idea of being able to keyword search RDA. I liked the idea of a mapping between AACR2 and RDA and between MARC and RDA. I also thought the workflows feature sounded like it would be really useful.<br />
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Then I got to experience the reality of the RDA Toolkit, and not just what all the webinars had been telling me. My original plan was to try to catalog a few things using the Toolkit, to get a feel for what it would be like to actually use it. I also planned to try out any available Library of Congress RDA Toolkit workflows. It turns out my original plan was a bit ambitious.<br />
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I haven't been able to catalog a single thing with the RDA Toolkit. Granted, I haven't been able to use it as much as I would have liked, but the bigger problem is that it is so hard to figure out where to begin. If I take a look at the RDA table of contents, do I see something that helps me easily navigate cataloging a book, versus a DVD, versus a website? No. I see "Recording Attributes of..." (there is no way to get the full chapter title to show, not even by expanding the pane, so it's not until you click into a section of the chapter that you can guess it's actually "Recording Attributes of Manifestations and Items"), "Recording Primary Relationships..." (same problem as the previous chapter), "Recording Relationships to..." (again, same problem), and "Recording Relationships between..." (and again, same problem). Where am I supposed to begin? Even when I can find a logical starting place, if I don't consult other chapters, I won't be able to completely catalog the item.<br />
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"But wait!" you with knowledge of cataloging with AACR2 say. "Isn't it the same with AACR2?" Well, in some ways, yes. Chapter 1 is the primary chapter one works with, but that information needs to be combined with other appropriate chapters, as well as chapters for choosing and building access points. However, with my nice print copy of AACR2, it's fairly easy to see the overall structure and pick out the chapters I need to use. I read many of these chapters from beginning to end when I was first learning to catalog, and now I rarely have to consult any of it. However, when I do need to consult it, it's fairly easy for me to figure out where to go. Each bibliographic description chapter has the same overall structure. There's even an index, for easier access when I can't remember exactly which chapter I need to consult to, say, deal with honorifics.<br />
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The RDA Toolkit is supposed to be the best way to use RDA: <strong>"...most users agree the preferred way to interact with RDA is online via the RDA..." (Troy Linker, AUTOCAT listserv post, "RDA Toolkit Solo-User Pricing, Double-User Offer, and RDA Print," 4/28/10)</strong>. I'm not sure I agree with this, and I wonder if those users that supposedly said this qualified their statements with "but even the Toolkit is hard to use." At least with AACR2, navigating the multiple chapters needed to catalog something is made easier with an index and an overall organization that accepts the physical reality of the items being cataloged (which, yes, has drawbacks when you're dealing with items that are electronic, rather than physical, but wouldn't it have been easier to just overhaul the e-resources portions of AACR2?). With the Toolkit, there is no index. When I asked whether there would be an index for RDA, I believe the answer was something along the lines of "probably not" or maybe "we'll consider it." While I love the idea of being able to keyword search my cataloging rules, that's only a good option once I know those rules. I could probably do successful keyword searches in AACR2. Unfortunately, one of the big things about RDA is that it overhauls cataloging vocabulary with FRBR terminology. An index with decent cross references could help clear things up, but, instead, I'm left with keyword searching. I know there are those who figure out which AACR2 rule corresponds to which RDA rule (connections which, as far as I can tell, have not yet been implemented as easy-to-use links in the Toolkit), but isn't RDA supposed to replace AACR2? It's not a good replacement if you find yourself having to consult the "replaced" rules just to use the new ones.<br />
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So, part of me wonders if it wouldn't be easier to use a print version of RDA, which would also have the advantage of not requiring a yearly subscription fee. I'd save myself a bit of eyestrain by not having to read through it on a screen (yes, you can print RDA from the RDA Toolkit, but then why not buy it in print in the first place?). However, then I remember the monstrous bulk of the RDA draft. Without an index, I'm not sure even a print version of RDA would be easier to use.<br />
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When I was first learning to use AACR2, I wrote in it, and I marked pages with post-it notes. In the RDA Toolkit, you can create bookmarks, which is nice, but wouldn't it be even better if it were easier to add bookmarked information into a workflow? Maybe I've missed something, but the Workflows portion of the Toolkit, the part that I was most excited about, seems awfully clunky. The Workflows editor has many of the features of something like MS Word, and, as far as I can tell, no features that integrate it really well with RDA. When I bookmark parts of RDA, where is the feature in the RDA workflow creator that allows me to easily add bookmarked information to a workflow? Yes, I can copy and paste, but I can do that in MS Word. There should be more benefits to using the Workflow creator/editor than just the ability to easily share workflows with others.<br />
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<strong>"The RDA Toolkit is designed to reach several audiences. The largest audience is of course catalogers, but some of the functions while marginally useful for catalogers were designed with educators, system developers, researchers, and the wider metadata community in mind." -- Troy Linker again, RDA Listserv, "Re: [RDA-L] RDA Toolkit - Schemas," 8/26/10</strong><br />
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This is a point that has been made several times, that RDA and the RDA Toolkit are intended to be used by a wider audience than just catalogers. I'm wondering, does ALA Publishing really expect RDA to be adopted outside the library community? If even we have difficulty understanding it and how to apply it, I seriously doubt other communities would want to make the effort to wade through it. By trying to be all things to everyone, RDA has, in my opinion, managed to not really serve anyone. If anyone does use it (which library catalogers may have to, if the Library of Congress adopts it), they will probably not be using the RDA Toolkit. Instead, I imagine most people would rely heavily on a "Concise RDA" of some sort, or RDA cheatsheets. Another possibility is that those who do use the Toolkit will rely primarily on borrowed workflows, either used as is or with local edits. The Library of Congress' RDA workflows, while still a bit daunting, are <em>much</em> easier to use for the actual act of cataloging than the full RDA.<br />
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Last I heard, our library will not be subscribing to the RDA Toolkit yet. There's really no point. It's too cumbersome for me to begin using right now, and, anyway, there's not point in using it if it hasn't been officially adopted by the Library of Congress yet. Plus, if I were to switch to using it, I would first need to spend a few hours with Tracy, changing our ILS display settings and adding new MARC fields. For now, I guess I'll wait and see. It's just too bad that ALA Publishing set up such a limited trial period - why not extend the trial until the Library of Congress has actually made its decision? I doubt ours is the only library that will not be subscribing because it's not yet clear whether it would be a waste of money.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-26926829831214089312010-08-28T21:59:00.003-05:002010-08-28T22:31:12.763-05:00A week or so of Second LifeFor a large chunk of time, I sort of forgot about Second Life. To get back in the swing of things in preparation for a meeting, I spent the past week or so exploring. Which is pretty much all I do in Second Life, because I haven't really felt inclined to try to build things. Well, except for that one time I accidentally created a cone, which, to my horror, stayed in the world after I brought it into being. As far as I know, the cone is still there, because I wasn't really sure how to get rid of it. Thankfully, it's tiny and underwater, so maybe no one will ever notice.<br /><br />Anyway, I took pictures. Here they are.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnFLL1B4JI/AAAAAAAAAGc/xKFBd9RaXpE/s1600/Chouchou_V-2_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnFLL1B4JI/AAAAAAAAAGc/xKFBd9RaXpE/s400/Chouchou_V-2_001.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="210" /></a></div><br />This place is Chouchou_V. I think it's some band's island. It was empty when I went there, but the notecard I was given when I went to the island indicated that the band sometimes does Second Life concerts here. In this picture, you can see me at the top of some very high stairs, perilously close to falling. It's a pretty, creepy place. It makes me think of a cathedral of bone in a dream world.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnGDxQX9fI/AAAAAAAAAGg/O2p6OqC8Pzc/s1600/Alirium_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnGDxQX9fI/AAAAAAAAAGg/O2p6OqC8Pzc/s400/Alirium_001.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br />This is my avatar in a place called Alirium. It has giant bunnies. It's a little hard to tell, but there's also another avatar with wings a little to my left. She never moved or spoke. Then again, I was a little too intimidated to try to strike up a conversation. I didn't stay here long, because the bunnies kind of freaked me out.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnGtTEvqiI/AAAAAAAAAGk/CWx3Bx14flg/s1600/Nemo-me+as+a+cloud_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnGtTEvqiI/AAAAAAAAAGk/CWx3Bx14flg/s400/Nemo-me+as+a+cloud_001.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br />The next time I logged on to Second Life, I was a particle cloud. At work, with a less wonderful video card, I became an egg (I'll see about posting that one sometime - it really is pretty funny). Particle Cloud Me could move around, and apparently other people saw my avatar, and not the particle cloud. Even though I could still do things, I wanted my avatar back. I opened a case with Second Life tech support, waited a few days, heard nothing from them, and eventually figured out how to fix things myself. By the way, I was in a place called Nemo when I took this picture. It's a gorgeous steampunk-style island. Like so many other islands I've been to, it was completely devoid of other avatars.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnI6FW44bI/AAAAAAAAAGw/W7r5crnSHj4/s1600/Cheese_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnI6FW44bI/AAAAAAAAAGw/W7r5crnSHj4/s400/Cheese_001.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnHrR73-WI/AAAAAAAAAGo/PuNP-BGnwMQ/s1600/cheese2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnHrR73-WI/AAAAAAAAAGo/PuNP-BGnwMQ/s400/cheese2.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnHwiRfCrI/AAAAAAAAAGs/cj1EWJptxHw/s1600/Cheese2_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnHwiRfCrI/AAAAAAAAAGs/cj1EWJptxHw/s400/Cheese2_002.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br />These three pictures were taken on a strange island called Cheese. Cheese is like an onion of crazy - as you move around, you think you've seen it all until new stuff rezzes into being. I found it fascinating, creepy, and a little horrific. From what I could tell, what powers all this craziness is lots of capitalism. Any building you could go inside was filled to the brim with products you could buy. For example, in the third picture, I am within view of a building called "Ultra Mega Mass Homicide," which sells, if I remember correctly, scary clown skins, and a building called "That Handsome Devil," which also sold stuff (can't remember what). I'm standing on a platform in front of another store, which, among other things, sold dancing Michael Jacksons and dancing Christopher Walkens. It's too bad I only know how to take snapshots and not video - this picture just does not communicate the creepiness of turning around to see a frantically slithering Christopher Walken.<br /><br />Also, you may have noticed, but my avatar is now black-and-white with wings. After finally figuring out how to not be an egg or a particle cloud, I decided to give my avatar a drastic makeover. This was the result.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnKfUWsz7I/AAAAAAAAAG0/_xYUWu4XgZ8/s1600/Little+Kasiopaya_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnKfUWsz7I/AAAAAAAAAG0/_xYUWu4XgZ8/s400/Little+Kasiopaya_001.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnKlhd84iI/AAAAAAAAAG4/i1qW-oJjqRE/s1600/Little+Kasiopaya_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnKlhd84iI/AAAAAAAAAG4/i1qW-oJjqRE/s400/Little+Kasiopaya_002.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br />I'm pretty sure this place was called Little Kasiopaya. These are not really representative pictures. Basically, from what I could tell, everything worth seeing on this island was enclosed in a giant glowing sphere - I'm standing right outside that sphere in the first picture. In the second picture, I turned around to see what was outside the sphere. As you can see, there was lots of space. Literally. Inside the sphere are various scenes which I think are supposed to depict areas of the galaxy. Or maybe giant jewels. In addition to providing some interesting views, I think this island was also intended as a good make-out spot. I came across one couple doing just that, as well as some "hug" and "cuddle"...things (jewels, spheres, whatever). I know, this probably makes no sense. I just don't have the Second Life vocabulary to describe this kind of stuff, and I didn't take the right pictures.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnL9RMmEYI/AAAAAAAAAG8/O_6VAcMEgbA/s1600/VKC+Dog+Park_002_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/THnL9RMmEYI/AAAAAAAAAG8/O_6VAcMEgbA/s400/VKC+Dog+Park_002_001.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="211" /></a></div><br />I am 100% broke in Second Life. I can't even do the dirt cheap fishing that one island offered as its fun activity. Luckily, sight-seeing is free. Petting the dogs at the VKC Dog island was also free. Here's my avatar, petting a doberman. All or most of the dogs here cost at least a few thousand Linden dollars to adopt. I think I'll wait and see if I can find my avatar a free pet.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-67187957760596774152010-08-24T11:45:00.002-05:002010-08-24T11:55:02.193-05:00Semantics vs. the Library Catalog"Not" is a very important word - leave the "not" out of any sentence, and you end up with a very different meaning. However, library catalogs don't necessarily care about that kind of thing, which can create a bit of a disconnect between them and their users.<br /><br />Take this book I just cataloged: <em>I can't believe it's not fattening! : 0ver 150 ridiculously easy recipes for the super busy</em> by Devin Alexander. You won't ever find this book by searching for <em>I can't believe it's not fattening</em>. You'll either have to search for it with everything in quotes, or (the more amusing option) you'll have to search for <em>I can't believe it's fattening</em>, leaving out the "not."<br /><br />I've heard that there's maybe one ILS out there that doesn't ask its users to rely on special tricks for getting around the "special Boolean words" issue. Ours is not that ILS.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-42120706960137128142010-07-20T07:54:00.004-05:002010-07-20T08:03:10.670-05:00Unauthorized subject headingsI've managed to reduce our unauthorized 650 fields (subject headings that don't have matching authority records in our system - this doesn't necessarily mean they aren't valid subject headings) to below 16,000. Or maybe that's the number of bibliographic records that contain unauthorized subject headings, I'm not sure. The number does not include Killeen-only records (which will one day be disappearing) or Cross Timbers stuff (which use subject headings in ways I don't quite understand and am not sure I should be messing with). <br /><br />It's a small victory, and it's a long way from 0, but I'm still happy about it.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-14836960503279397182010-07-09T20:10:00.004-05:002010-07-09T20:30:50.170-05:00Manga Guides, the complete package<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://nostarch.com/manga_set.htm"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 236px; height: 205px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9ufi7LEIZQ/TDfJLmdqxUI/AAAAAAAAAGM/db2ojhsc1qI/s320/mangaguides.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492079471742338370" border="0" /></a>What you see on the left is a whole lot of awesome, all 6 of the Manga Guides currently available from <a href="http://nostarch.com/">No Starch Press</a>. If you can't read the titles, they are The Manga Guide to<br />- Molecular Biology<br />- Calculus<br />- Physics<br />- Electricity<br /> - Databases<br />- Statistics<br /><br />I've read the one on molecular biology. I thought it was ok, but not great. Still, I love the idea of learning a bit more about a subject via a format that I enjoy, manga. From what I understand, all six guides wrap their educational content in a simple story. In the molecular biology one, a professor has two students in his introductory molecular biology class who are failing, so he tells them they have to do special make-up work. On his private island. Yes, he has a private island, complete with virtual reality teaching tools and holographic image projection capability, which he uses to give his students minor heart attacks and hands on experience with the concepts he teaches. By the end of the book, the girls have learned a lot about molecular biology, and they also learn a secret the professor has been keeping from them. I knew that the story was going to be pretty simple and likely silly, so I didn't have a lot of expectations in that area. My biggest problem with the book had to do with its information, which didn't always seem very balanced and which I'm pretty sure left out a few important bits (if I remember my high school biology classes correctly). Also, chunks of the book were just text, with heads in the margins to show who was speaking - pretty boring.<br /><br />But just because I didn't think the molecular biology book was all that great doesn't mean I don't want to try out the other books. The ones on statistics and databases are next on my list - I'll have to see about requesting them via ILL sometime.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-88502970091668329962010-07-02T16:58:00.000-05:002010-07-02T16:58:00.254-05:00Cookery, againI think I managed to change all our "cookery" authority records to their new "cooking" form. That means that, tonight, all subject headings linked to those records should change to "cooking" instead of "cookery."<br /><br />This does not necessarily mean that all instances of "cookery" in our subject headings will be gone. Our Children's subject headings will probably continue to use "cookery" - since I only do authority work on Library of Congress subject headings and not Children's, MeSH, or anything else, the only subject headings that ever get updated are Library of Congress subject headings. Also, we have some Library of Congress subject headings in our catalog that don't have their corresponding subject authority records loaded yet - these won't change to "cooking" until I change them by hand and/or load their authority records and force the headings to flip.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-39969911900748892212010-07-01T18:12:00.001-05:002010-07-01T18:12:01.065-05:00Subjects headings and DVDs continuedThe "Gay parents" vs. "Same-sex parents" argument on AUTOCAT is still ongoing.<br /><br />In "cataloged DVDs" news, today I cataloged an interesting consumer education one called <em>Shopping behind the seams : judging quality in clothes</em>. It shows how to judge the quality of clothes before you buy them, so that you don't end up spending more for clothes than what they're worth. I didn't see enough to know if it's all just commonsense advice or if it includes tips you might not normally think of, but it at least has the potential to be really good, so I might check it out sometime.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-60253154880594413042010-06-30T17:18:00.000-05:002010-06-30T17:19:01.274-05:00Subject heading arguments: "Gay parents" vs. "Same-sex parents"The big argument on AUTOCAT today was over the subject heading "Gay parents" vs. "Same-sex parents." There was some confusion over whether or not one authority record should have been cancelled in favor of the other (basically, "don't these mean the same thing?") or whether "Same-sex parents" should at least have a "broader topic" reference in the authority record for "Gay parents." I think it all came down to, "they are not necessarily redundant," with lots of references to films and sitcoms in which children have parent figures who are not gay but who are the same sex as one of their "actual" parents (a biological parent, or a guardian). <br /><br />It kind of began to feel like a Friday thing (odd tangents, jokes, and other things that aren't really work-related are generally restricted to Fridays on AUTOCAT, although sometimes Friday starts a few days early), but similar discussions have happened in the past over other subject headings. Most often the subject headings causing confusion are religious or legal ones, where it is sometimes difficult for those without a lot of knowledge about the topics to understand how they should be applied.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-48654039778532099112010-06-30T06:53:00.004-05:002010-06-30T06:59:19.243-05:00Hulu on the new monitorI started using Hulu again for the first time in a long time. I like watching stuff full screen if I can, and I was worried that any subtitled stuff I might want to watch would be too blurry full screen on my new monitor, but it turns out that it's not much worse than when I viewed stuff full screen on my laptop. Yay!<br /><br />So, my current show is <span style="font-style: italic;">Naruto Shippuden</span>. My dad keeps calling me up to give me unasked for spoilers, so I figure it's finally time to start watching the show - hopefully I can eventually get to the point where I'm watching it too quickly for him to spoil things for me. That may be a while, though - right now on Hulu, the show has reached 165 episodes.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1139193388426786543.post-26002833031256242752010-06-29T17:02:00.003-05:002010-06-29T17:16:26.985-05:00It's DVD timeI changed my procedures for cataloging DVDs a little today. Although I now catalog almost everything in OCLC Connexion and then import it into WorkFlows, AV materials are some of the few things I still catalog directly in WorkFlows. Since my wrist still hurts a bit when I use a mouse, though, (it's getting better, but slowly) I wasn't looking forward to cataloging anything in WorkFlows - there are a lot of things that I need to do while cataloging (like adding a new field) that, as far as I know, have no shortcut keys in WorkFlows. With OCLC Connexion, I can use the keyboard or mouse as much as I want, just by mapping some things to certain keystrokes or setting up macros.<br /><br />So, to save my wrist, I cataloged DVDs in Connexion today instead of in WorkFlows. The only thing I had to remember to do was change the title control numbers of the brief records in our system before I imported the records. It worked out very nicely, and I think I'll continue to do it this way in the future - not only did it reduce the amount of time I had to spend using a mouse, it also reduced the number of times I had go back and forth between different programs, because I could do both cataloging and authority work in one place.<br /><br />Basically, good news for me, and maybe I'll get through all of these DVDs a little more quickly. Or not. I would've thought the <em>Gone with the Wind</em> record would have been wonderful, but that one ended up needing the most work out of all the ones I did today. After all, how can something be a "2-disc edition" and yet supposedly have 3-discs? Sloppy editing on someone's part, and everyone who's used the record (including me) is afraid to edit the master record. Or it really is a 3-disc "2-disc edition"...Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555934413909175361noreply@blogger.com0