Subjects headings and DVDs continued

The "Gay parents" vs. "Same-sex parents" argument on AUTOCAT is still ongoing.

In "cataloged DVDs" news, today I cataloged an interesting consumer education one called Shopping behind the seams : judging quality in clothes. 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.

Subject 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).

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.

It's DVD time

I 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.

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.

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 Gone with the Wind 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"...