Recently in Cataloging Category

Registration is open for the last two webinars on institutional repositories to be held this fall.

• November 10 on Datasets presented by MacKenzie Smith
• December 16 on Partnerships presented by Marilyn Billings

Forthcoming in 2010

• February 10 - Bob Gerrity on Selecting the Platform
• March 24 - Marisa Ramirez and Nancy Fallgren on Metadata
• April 28 - Sharon Farb, Bonnie Tijerino, and Catherine Mitchell on Consortial Implementation
• May 19 - Leah Vanderjagt on What we Thought Then and What we Know Now

Check out the ALCTS Conferences & Events page for more information and other webinars that we are offering in the spring.

"You want me to select for WHAT?" A Webinar on Selection
Join presenter Virginia Kay Williams, Acquisitions Librarian at Wichita State University on December 2 from 1 to 2pm Central for "You want me to select for WHAT? Getting started in a new area." Registration opens December 5.

Upcoming e-Forums

"The Art of Conversation: Improving Communication between Technical Services and Public Services" to be held November 18-20, 2009.
Moderated by Sarah Simpson, Technical Services Manager at the Tulsa City-County Library, and Keri Cascio, Branch Manager at the St. Louis City-County Library District.

To access the e-Forums, register for the list at ALCTS Discussion List Web site; click on Association for Library Collections and Technical Services under the ALA Division heading; click on the list name, alcts-eforum@ala.org; enter the email address where you'd like to receive the messages; username and password are required to register. Instructions for obtaining a login and password may be found on the list homepage. Participation is free and open to anyone.
Web Course

Fundamentals of Collection Development begins again on November 30 and runs through January 1, 2010. Learn more or sign up now.

Cataloger's Desktop is moving to a new platform on November 2nd . LC is offering a series of webinars to make the transition easier for Desktop subscribers. Have a look at the following and register today for any that interest you. They will be recording each to make them available at other times.

Cataloger's Desktop 3.0: What's new -- Presenter: Bruce Johnson
Tuesday, October 27th, 1 PM EDT Duration: 45 minutes
Click here to register

Cataloger's Desktop 3.0: Que es nuevo -- Presentora: Patricia Hayward
jueves, 29 de octubre, 10 am EDT Duración: 45 minutos
Hage "clic" aquí para registrar

Account management & Logging in the first time -- Presenters: Bob Berberich & Byron Copley
Thursday, October 29th, 1 PM EDT Duration: 15 minutes
Click here to register

Setting up your Preferences -- Presenter: Colleen Cahill
Wednesday, October 28th, 1 PM EDT (Duration: 30 minutes
Click here to register

Getting the most out of Search -- Presenter: Joan Weeks
Tuesday, November 3rd, 1 PM EDT Duration: 30 minutes
Click here to register

Saving Bookmarks and Searches -- Presenter: Joan Weeks
Friday, November 6th, 1 PM EDT
Duration: 30 minutes
Click here to register

System Requirements
PC-based attendees - Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees - Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Additional Cataloger's Desktop training resources are available online

The Cataloger's Desktop Development Team
Bruce Chr. Johnson
Policy & Standards Division
The Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540-4263 USA

For those of you who remember the old days of dedicated OCLC terminals, complicated cable arrangements, blinking modems... We found this poem in some old files. It was written by Becky Bell sometime in the late 70s.

(note: Fred Kilgour was the founder of OCLC and "Paul" was a technician there.)

Dirge for OCLC
OCLC, built by Fred
Now our terminal is dead!
Worked for months without a hitch,
Should we throw it in a ditch?
Computer systems built for us
Now they've left us in disgust!

Circuits blew, the screen went blank
Paul asked us if we heard a clank.
No more cursor flashing green
We no longer have a screen.
OCLC, built by Fred
Oh, my Lord, it just turned red!

Does the poem take you back? Share some of your funny OCLC memories with us!

Registration is open for NISO's October webinar on Bibliographic Control Alphabet Soup: AACR to RDA and Evolution of MARC, to be held on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 from 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. (Eastern Time).

Librarians, ILS vendors, and commercial cataloging service providers--as well as a wide variety of related service providers--all know that the proverbial, heavily acronym-spiced "bibliographic control alphabet soup" involves the intelligent and well informed use of many ingredients. Chief in these are constantly evolving standards, combined with more than a sprinkling of creativity and insight. Three expert metadata chefs will analyze and discuss specific alphabetic ingredients already in use or soon to be implemented in the bib control kitchen.

Diane Hillmann (Director of Metadata Initiatives, Information Institute of Syracuse) will provide an overview of RDA Elements and Vocabularies: a Step Forward from MARC. RDA elements and vocabularies represent the distillation of library descriptive knowledge, optimized for use within an environment that speaks XML, RDF, and linked data, and expressed in an FRBR-aware manner.

Barbara Tillett (Chief, Policy and Standards Division, Library of Congress) will review There to Here to There -- AACR2 and RDA. Learn how what started as AACR3 evolved into an entirely new approach with a new name.

William Moen (Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Sciences, University of North Texas) will discuss results from the IMLS-sponsored research project: Data-driven Evidence for Core MARC Records. The project team examined 56 million WorldCat bibliographic records and analyzed patterns of use by catalogers of available fields/subfields.

For more information and to register, visit the event webpage. Registration is per site (access for one computer) and includes access to the online recorded archive of the webinar. NISO and NASIG members receive a discounted member rate. A student discount is also available. Can't make it on the 14th? Register and gain access to the recorded archive for one year.

The ACLTS CCS Copy Cataloging Interest Group will meet during the ALA Meeting in Chicago on Saturday, July 11, from 10:30 AM to 12 noon. We’re interested in all things copy cataloging, but for our next meeting we’re particularly interested in the following topics:

• Copy cataloging for Special Collections.
• How to train copy catalogers in FRBR and RDA, FRBR being here already and RDA on its way.
• Copy cataloging for special formats, such as electronic resources.
• Copy cataloging and vendor records.

Are you doing something in any of these areas that you’d like to share with an eager audience? Would you like to help us explore any of these topics? If so, the Copy Cataloging Interest Group is the place for you! We’re looking for people to speak to the group about any of these topics. If you would like to speak to the group, please contact Gene Dickerson, Chair, or Tatiana Barr, Vice-Chair/Chair Elect with your interest. We’re looking for people to speak for about 15-20 minutes on any of the topics listed above. If you’d like to propose another topic you’re interested in, let us know that, too. Tell us who you are and what topic you’d like to speak about. Don’t be shy! Give us a try! If you want to nominate someone else to speak, let us know who he or she is, along with contact information, and we’ll take it from there.

Gene Dickerson
DickersonEH@state.gov

Tatiana Barr
Tatiana.barr@yale.edu

Eugene Dickerson
Lead Librarian for Cataloging

Ralph J. Bunche Library
U.S. Dept. of State
dickersoneh@state.gov

Catalogers! Now is your chance to easily make more corrections to WorldCat records. Those of you with full cataloging authorizations who wish to do so may now join OCLC’s Expert Community Experiment and begin improving and upgrading more WorldCat master records than was previously possible. This experiment began this week and is expected to last six months.

But, of course, you can’t go completely hog wild. There are principles and guidelines associated with this experiment. They aren’t too complicated; nothing that expert catalogers can’t grasp. For more information, check out the Website. This links you to the Guidelines and an FAQ. Also, OCLC has scheduled several web information sessions. They are free but require registration (so that you will receive instructions for participating). The link to registration is found at the same Website. If you can’t attend one of the Webinars, don’t worry. OCLC will make available a recording of one of the sessions.

If, after absorbing the Guidelines, the FAQ, and the Webinar, you still have questions or need further information, you can contact OCLC via the special email address they have set up: ASKQC@oclc.org.

Many of you have already heard that MARC field 440 has been made obsolete. What this means is that you must now use a combination of the 490 field and an 8XX field for a traced series.
*The 490 field with a first indicator of 0 continues to mean that the series was taken from the item in hand, and the series is not traced
*The 490 field with a first indicator of 1 now means that the series is traced in an appropriate 8XX field (800-830). The series statement in the 490 field is taken from the item in hand, but it is traced as given in the 8XX field.

The PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging) has already recommended implementation of the change, and it is already reflected in MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data. However, OCLC has not yet implemented it. Also, OCLC is still deliberating whether or not it will do an automatic conversion of the existing 440 fields in the WorldCat database.

You may implement the change at any time at your library. And, if you would like to convert all the existing 440 fields in your catalog to a 490/830 combination, there is a handy macro that was created just for you. Walter Nickeson (University of Rochester) has posted his “Make 830 macro” on his macro site.

For a bit more information on this change, see the article entitled “Recent Changes in MARC Fields for Series” in the January 2009 issue of the MINITEX/OCLC Mailing. You can also find the PCC guidelines for Field 440 on their Website.

WEDNESDAY

Preconference: Cataloging Cartographic Resources
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 8:00 -11:30 a.m.
This preconference will give a brief introduction to cataloging cartographic (map) resources, focusing on sheet maps and atlases. The session will cover the key elements of description and subject access for cartographic materials and will attempt to demystify the use of MARC fields specific to maps. It is intended for the cataloger who is comfortable cataloging book and/or other formats, but would like to learn more about cataloging maps.
Presenter: Stacie Traill, Cartographic, Electronic Resources, and Project Cataloger, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Introduction to RDA/FRBR
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2:00 - 3:15 p.m.
If RDA is the answer, what was the question? This session will present an update on Resource Description & Access, the new set of cataloging rules being prepared, and an introduction to FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records), a model used in these new rules. It will consider the road ahead for RDA and its users, including such questions as these: How do RDA and FRBR relate to the current environment for libraries? What benefits can we expect from them? What will we need to implement them successfully?
Chew Chiat Naun, Principal Cataloger Technical Services, University of Minnesota Libraries

New Directions for OCLC and MINITEX
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 4:00 - 5:15 p.m.
Come and hear about new OCLC products and services (such as WorldCat Local), changes in OCLC governance structure, and new training opportunities for OCLC and MINITEX member libraries. Bring your OCLC questions to this session.
Sara Ring, Coordinator of Bibliographic and Technical Services, MINITEX

THURSDAY

Rethinking Tech Services
Thursday, Nov. 20, 8:00 - 9:15 a.m.
Are you thinking that it may be time to revisit how your technical services area functions at your library? This session will feature a panel of staff from libraries that have recently undergone a technical services workflow analysis. They will discuss the process, point out the pros and cons of the process, the end result, explain how it impacted their current work, and answer questions from the audience.
Thursday, Nov. 20, 8:00 – 9:15 a.m.
Presenters: Angi Faiks, Associate Director, Macalester College Libraries; Bobby Bothmann, Electronic Access Catalog Librarian and Leslie McPhail Peterson, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Virginia Dudley, MINITEX (speaking on behalf of Ardell Bengston, Dakota County Library System)

Technical Services Section (TSS) Business Meeting
Thursday, Nov. 20, 11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Another announcement with details about the TSS Business Meeting will be sent out very soon.

For a list of other TSS sponsored sessions, see page 34 of the MLA Annual Conference Program.

• The workshop materials from the Serials Cataloging Cooperative Training Program (SCCTP): Basic Serials Cataloging; Advanced Serials Cataloging, Integrating Resources Cataloging, Electronic Serials Cataloging, and Serials Holdings

• The workshop materials from Cooperative Cataloging Training (CCT): Basic Subject Cataloging using LCSH, Basic Creation of Name and Title Authorities, Fundamentals of Series Authorities, and Fundamentals of Library of Congress Classification

• The workshop materials from Cataloging for the 21st Century (Cat21): Rules and Tools for Cataloging Internet Resources, Metadata Standards and Applications, Metadata and Digital Library Development, Digital Project Planning and Management Basics, Principles of Controlled Vocabulary and Thesaurus Design

As I was reading the excellent Q&A column written by JayWeitz, of OCLC, in the Music OCLC Users Group Newsletter, I was reminded of a tremendous source of cataloging tools of which we probably aren't adequately aware. It's funded by our tax dollars, so we should be sure to get our money's worth!

The source is LC's Cataloging and Acquisitions homepage which contains a myriad of cataloging resources.

One great resource that was just posted last week is an FAQ about Form/Genre Headings. Who hasn't struggled occasionally to keep the distinction between subject headings and form/genre headings clear, or to figure out whether an authority record represents a form/genre heading or not? (OK, maybe I should narrow that down a bit - what cataloger hasn't struggled...? This probably doesn't trouble the minds of your average person on the street.)

Another helpful document I found on this site covers LC's practice for describing the new sound recording formats. I'm not sure how recent this is, but it has great tips. If you've wondered how to do descriptive cataloging for an MP3 file, or a CD/DVD combo, or other tricky audio formats, this is the tool for you!

The main homepage doesn't have room to list very many titles, so be sure to click the "View All" under the various sections to see full lists of what's there. For example, to find the Sound Recording document I described above, I had to click "View All" in the General, Descriptive Cataloging section, and then scroll down a long list of subcategories to the Sound Recordings listing. There were lots of other interesting resources listed in the other categories, so have fun looking around while you're there!