Normally when we add new resources to Cataloger’s Desktop between issues we hold off announcing them until the new issue is rel[e]ased.  In this instance we have just added several resources that we would like to bring to your attention.  New to Desktop are:

* The 2009 release of the “Statement of International Cataloguing Principles” from IFLA, in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Swedish.
* The Preliminary Consolidated Edition of ISBD from IFLA in English, Spanish, and French.
* The list archives of the SACO discussion list, SACOList.  (A description is available at <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/saco/sacolist.html>.)
* “Authorities & Vocabularies” from the Library of Congress
* VIAF, the Virtual International Authority File

I’m happy to see access to the VIAF spreading.

There was a good bit of discussion about the Experiment on OCLC-CAT recently.  From the comments, it appears that people are in favor of the experiment for the reason that I joined the Enhance program over 20 years ago – that it is easier to make the correction with the book in hand and the record in front of you than to photocopy and submit the proof and wait for someone else to make the correction.

If this type of permission passes from an experiment to a permanent authorization, it will be interesting to see if the credits are just a token of appreciation, as the database enrichment, or somewhat closer to reasonable compensation, as the Enhance credit.

Scott M. Dutkiewicz has compiled a list of LCSH Moving Image Genre-Form Headings that is available here or here.

The merge function isn’t available yet.  What we will probably do is bring it up on the parallel Identities site we run out of research.  No schedule yet, but probably early 2009.  We are also working on a ‘split’ function, but that has more challenges for the user interface.
 
To merge you will have to be logged in (we will be using the WebJunction login, which is shared with WorldCat.org).  Anyone can obtain an account, but this will help us track changes.

I definitely plan on using this function when it is available!

When neither my parents or my siblings understood the title of this blog, I used a family story to illustrate disambiguate.  I’d like to share that story now.

When I was growing up, only 8 Rosensteins were listed in the local phone book.  Ironically, two of the families, both with first initial M, lived on the same street, which was only a few blocks long.  One day a new car was delivered to our house.  I wanted to keep it, but it was quite apparent to us that the car was for the other M. Rosenstein on our street.  In order to disambiguate the Rosensteins, the driver would have needed the full first name or the correct house number.

Before I started this blog, I read Blogging for dummies.  One of the recommended decisions was how personal the blog should be.  I had decided that for the most part I would not get personal, but I had to mention the passing of my father.

1. Our weekly e-newsletter, American Libraries Direct, is now available to anyone who wants to sign up for it, not just ALA members. The sign-up form, as well as the FAQ, is at http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/aldirect/aldirect.cfm .

 

2. American Libraries has launched its own blog, AL Inside Scoop, http://www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/ . Editor-in-chief Leonard Kniffel offers an insider’s view of goings-on at ALA headquarters and what hot topics ALA staffers are talking about in the hallways. Associate Editor Greg Landgraf offers his perspective from “the lower floors” of what many see as the ALA ivory tower.

 

3. Login is no longer required to view the current issue of the American Libraries print magazine online (in PDF format), or to view the archives, which date back to the January 2003 issue. Go directly to http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/alonlineebrary/alonlineebrary.cfm . First-time viewers will need to install the ebrary reader to view issues. To download, go to http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ala/Download . Firefox 3 users installing the reader for the first time will need a workaround, http://www.ebrary.com/kb/users/ff3install.jsp , to make the ebrary reader work with their browser.

 I feel honored to be included in the blast.

This is an experimental service that makes the Library of Congress Subject Headings available as linked-data using the SKOS vocabulary. The goal of lcsh.info is to encourage experimentation and use of LCSH on the web with the hopes of informing a similar effort at the Library of Congress to make a continually updated version available.

as well as acess to the dataset, go here.

For a more detailed explanation about the project, see the paper Ed Summers presented at DC 2008 entitled LCSH, SKOS and Linked Data.

Bernhard Eversberg has used the dataset created by lcsh.info to help users of the database at Universitätsbibliothek Braunschweig search by authorized heading when they only know the keyword, by starting their search here.

One of the key concepts with the access control record is removing both the label and the notion of “authority.” The access control record is evolved from the current authority record by the fact that it links the variant forms of a name without declaring any one as the “authorized” form. A central concept is that a library or user should be allowed to choose their preferred form of name, or to have displayed a default heading.

There are also numerous examples of current authority records and hypothetical access control records, with an emphasis on cataloging music.

This also gets to a point I’ve been pushing for a long time – that of “access control” instead of “authority control.” I still haven’t found another term to use for this concept, but the idea is to control collocation, so the library or the user can select the form of the controlled heading they want to see – the system could switch the display to the chosen form or a default form set by the library. Authority control pulls together all the various forms and relates entities in a way that leads the user to the desired materials and provides a big picture of what is available. With “access control” the same underlying authority records provide control, but the display form is user-selected.

Strides have been made in some areas since this presentation, particularly in the prototype of VIAF and the conceptual model for FRAD, but the library world still has a way to go in implementing her vision.

The current LC/NACO contributor model has severe limitations, both in who is enabled to add and edit authority records and the rules that constrain what information can be entered (even if the cataloger knows more information).The intellectual work that librarians who are not NACO contributors do in the course of creating bibliographic records is untapped.

There has been discussion of the need for such a project here among other places.  I am glad to see the prototype moving forward.