Archive for July, 2008

Experimental Spanish version of LCSH

July 25, 2008

An alert just brought me news that there is a new version of lcsh-es.org LC Subject Headings in Spanish can be searched here and is described as:

This an experimental Spanish-English/English-Spanish list of subject headings. Please use it with caution! The data is not completely current a much of it has not been checked thoroughly. For more [...]

Fiscal Year 2008 Recap of OCLC Quality Control and CIP Upgrading Activities

July 24, 2008

Over the next few days, I want  to go back and post on some things that occurred just as I was contemplating or launching this blog.  On July 9, Glenn Patton, Director, WorldCat Quality Management, reported to OCLC-CAT [permission to quote]
For the fiscal year just concluded (July 2007 through June 2008), OCLC staff have:
- corrected [...]

LCSH 2008, weeks 26-28

July 22, 2008

On lower east side librarian Jenna has pulled information from Library of Congress Subject Headings Weekly Lists and added her own commentary.  For example
150 Balloon sculpture [May Subd Geog] [sp 85011322]
* 450 UF Balloon modelling
* 450 UF Balloon twisting
* 450 UF Sculpture, Balloon
* 550 BT Sculpture CANCEL
If I were a balloon artist, I might be up [...]

AALL: The Future of Subject Access in the 21st Century

July 21, 2008

Beverly Burmeister reports on a meeting that took place at AALL.  The speakers were Barbara Tillett and Lois Mai Chan.  From the middle of the report:
For the future, Dr. Tillett predicted that the global use of LCSH will expand and that the process will be improved to reduce costs and at the same time maintain [...]

Literature on authority control

July 21, 2008

The issue of Library Resources & Technical Services (vol. 52, no. 3, July 2008) that I recently received contains a review of the literature of cataloging and classification from 2005-06.  While I haven’t worked my way through everything listed, I wanted to point out a piece that is especially relevant to readers of this blog.  [...]

Identity and attributes

July 19, 2008

I’ve been pondering what information is presented with a name and what information must be sought elsewhere since my announcement of this blog was signed with only my name and no other identifying information.  On AUTOCAT, where it is customary but not required to use a signature file, the announcement caused a flurry of posts [...]

Controlling series headings

July 17, 2008

MARC Proposal No. 2008-07 which will make field 440 obsolete in MARC 21 was apparently passed at ALA, based on discussion I have seen.  The discussion included in the proposal centered on impact on local systems and OCLC.
Some comments on 2008-DP02 expressed concern about repetition of data in the 490 and 8XX fields. The benefits of [...]

Geocoding LCSH in the Biodiversity Heritage Library

July 16, 2008

The Code4Lib Journal published Geocoding LCSH in the Biodiversity Heritage Library in issue number 2 back in March, but for some reason my alert for LCSH just brought it up today, apparently based on a changed comment which I don’t see.  The abstract states
Reusing metadata generated through years of cataloging practice is a natural and pragmatic way [...]

Lorcan Dempsey’s post on name authorities

July 15, 2008

Yesterday Lorcan Dempsey had an excellent post on name authorities. 
Libraries have invested significantly in name authority work over the years, and have created extensive infrastructure to help manage names of people and organizations. The relationship between this work and broader interest in this topic is something that will need to be addressed in coming years [...]

Moving Image Genre/Form Project Report

July 15, 2008

As announced on several discussion lists and posted on the CPSO site
On July 9th, 2008, the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) presented a report on the moving image genre/form project to the Library of Congress Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (ABA) management team. The report includes recommendations for expanding the genre/form project beyond the moving [...]