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"...

OCLC article in Radical Cataloging

I'm reading a book called Radical Cataloging: Essays at the Front edited by K.R. Roberto. It's readable enough that I think even non-catalogers could get something out of it without necessarily having to consult dusty old notes from their Intro to Cataloging class.

I just finished reading Jeffrey Beall's contribution, "OCLC: A Review." It's a very critical look at OCLC, its products, its practices, etc. There are some things in the article that I agree with, and there are some criticisms of OCLC that have been made on AUTOCAT that I agree with that aren't mentioned in this article (OCLC's attempted and much-protested Record Use Policy came up, and died, after this book was published - it would have been perfect fodder for this article).

So, here's my brief critical paragraph. Criticisms of WorldCat's attempts at FRBRization are ignored or dismissed as being the complaints of too few for OCLC to take serious notice (see Lorcan Dempsey's blog post - I'm surprised there aren't more comments, particularly from people who have noticed serious problems in the way music materials are FRBRized). Like Beall, I, too, hate it when Connexion (OCLC cataloging software) goes down, although I'm not as crippled by that at DSL as I was at my previous library - at my previous library, pretty much all I could do during the downtime was clean my desk and twiddle my thumbs. I think OCLC pricing it outrageous, particularly when products like WorldCat depend upon catalogers at member libraries to edit and add records. True, OCLC has catalogers, too, (I interviewed for a job with them, and have even met some of those catalogers in person) but I doubt WorldCat would be worth anything if most of OCLC's customers decided they could no longer afford its services and left. I hate that OCLC has a monopoly as a bibliographic utility for cataloging (SkyRiver may change that, but I imagine it faces an uphill battle).

Beall's article bashes OCLC, and it's true that OCLC isn't all sunshine and flowers. However, it's not completely evil either.

1. They at least communicate with their customers more than some companies do (Janie would know which company I'm thinking of...).
   
2. Beall is extremely critical of Connexion, and one statement I found particularly interesting was "Libraries choose instead to download the records directly into their online catalog and fix up the records there, where the editing process is easier and generally quicker" (p. 88). This statement wasn't made in the Connexion section (it was in a section commenting about the horrible quality records with which WorldCat is riddled, aka the dreaded Level 3 records), but, lacking an explanation for what is meant by "easier and generally quicker," I can only assume that it's a criticism of Connexion. I'm unfamiliar with the bibliographic record editing capabilities of most ILSs, but the capabilities of our ILS are dismal. Say what you like about Connexion, I can edit a record far more quickly with it than with our ILS, and the results are generally less likely to have errors. Connexion gives me the ability to use macros (I don't have the skills to create a macro more complicated than the one that adds my 949 field at the end of my records, but several talented people have made their wonderful macros available to the OCLC cataloging community, for which I am very grateful), it has spell check, it has record validation, and I can use my keyboard to do most of my record editing. Our ILS has no macro capabilities, no spell check, no record validation (not entirely true, but what it does have is almost worthless for my purposes), and I'm forced to use my mouse to even add a new field to the record.
3. Connexion has batch processing options which save me lots of time. In the past few days, I've done work using Connexion's batch searching and processing that would have taken me years to do one at a time.

I could probably come up with more (and I'm only looking at this from a cataloger's perspective), but it's late and I'm tired. Basically, yes, there are lots of things one can criticize OCLC for, but I'd still be sad if we could no longer afford their services. If I had better alternative options for single-record editing (as opposed to batch record editing, which MarcEdit accomplishes nicely) and record-finding (the Library of Congress would probably be a great alternative source for most of our book records, but cataloging music, audiobooks, and DVDs would get a lot harder if I couldn't access OCLC's pool of records), I'd be a lot less sad.

OCLC Connexion metadata extractor and DSL's databases

OCLC Connexion's metadata extractor tool has some exciting possibilities - even though I'd need to heavily edit any MARC records it spits out, what it spits out is usually better than starting from scratch. I decided to try it out on a few things today. I still haven't really done much with it, but I've at least got a bit of a feel for how it works.

I've only tried it on one website so far (http://www.sluggy.com), with so-so results. I decided to try it out on a few of DSL's databases. In most cases, the extractor spits out similar results whether I use our redirect URLs or copy and paste the URL from the Address bar. I tried this out with JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, Project Muse, and a few others and got pretty much the same results with either URL. One exception was Global Road Warrior. The record created when I used the redirect URL was just awful - no title in the 245 field, and the 546 field (Language Note) says this is in Ukranian. If I copy and paste from my browser's Address bar, on the other hand, the record is much nicer. The 245 and 546 fields are much more accurate, and the rest of the record is better. That's not to say the record wouldn't need to be edited - it would still need lots of editing to truly be useful - but it's better than before.

Of course, if I were going to catalog the databases DSL subscribes to, I would first do a search for them in OCLC. While OCLC would probably not include records for websites, it does include records for databases. For instance, there's a record for JSTOR (OCLC #36027621) that, at a glance, looks good enough to consider using. This record definitely looks better and less likely to require major editing than the record the metadata extractor spits out.

OCLC Connexion Client Interface

Today was the last day of the 3-day Amigos class I've been taking on the OCLC Connexion client interface. Some of the things I learned were very nifty (for me, anyway). For instance, I had no idea that the Connexion client has a tool that can extract metadata from a website or file and use it to create a basic MARC record (one in serious need of editing, but still). I think I might experiment with that tomorrow. Another nifty thing I learned about is constant data. I've been using constant data for a while now (dissertations would be even more time-consuming to catalog without the constant data template I've created), so it's not really something that's new to me, but the class did teach me some very important things about it.

For the next couple weeks or so, I'd like to do some experimentation and see how the OCLC Connexion client might fit in with my work. While I'd love to do all my cataloging directly in Connexion (spellcheck! record validation! constant data! smarter headings checker!), there are certain issues I'd have to resolve first, and some of those issues might not be resolvable at this time. However, I already do all of my original cataloging directly in Connexion, so the things I learned over the past three days would be useful for that.