Subject heading for cellular telephones

Cellular telephones

is now Cell phones

LC Control Number:	sh 98003865
HEADING:	Cell phones
000	01269cz a2200409n 450
001	4894522
005	20100113002710.0
008	980625i| anannbabn |a ana
035	__ |a (DLC)sh 98003865
035	__ |a (DLC)5622415
035	__ |a (DLC)sp 98003865
035	__ |a (DLC)282794
035	__ |a (DLC)7178567
035	__ |a (DLC)358692
035	__ |a (DLC)8110269
035	__ |a (DLC)447415
906	__ |t 0951 |u tc03 |v 0
010	__ |a sh 98003865
040	__ |a DLC |c DLC |d DLC |d UkOxU |d NNU
150	__ |a Cell phones
450	__ |a Cell telephones
450	__ |a Cellphones
450	__ |a Cellular phones
450	__ |w nne |a Cellular radio
450	__ |w nne |a Cellular telephones
450	__ |a Mobile phones
450	__ |a Mobiles (Telephones)
450	__ |a Phones, Cell
450	__ |a Telephones, Cell
450	__ |a Wireless phones
550	__ |w g |a Telephone
670	__ |a Wikipedia, Dec. 4, 2009 |b (mobile phone; mobile; cellphone)
670	__ |a Encarta World English dict. |b (cell phone)
670	__ |a OED |b (cellphone)
670	__ |a Webster’s Online Dictionary, Dec. 4, 2009 (wireless phone, cellular mobile; cell phone (in the United States), also called a mobile phone)
670	__ |a LC database, Dec. 4, 2009 |b (cell phones; cellphones)

Similar authorities and inconsistencies (again…)

Our cataloguing department came across these authorities recently and I thought perhaps I’d give everyone a ‘head’s up’.

The Library of Congress have created two distinct authorities for Clone Wars.

See the   following:

010 – |ano2008137241
035 – |a(OCoLC)oca07883098
040 – |aIAhCCS|beng|cIAhCCS|dIAhCCS
130 -0 |aStar Wars, the clone wars (Television program)
430 -0 |aClone wars (Television program)
667 – |aDo not confuse with: Star wars: Clone wars (Television program)
670 – |aStar Wars, The clone wars : the visual guide, 2008:|bjkt.
(companion to the Clone wars movie and TV series)
670 – |aepguides.com, Feb. 20, 2009|b(Star Wars: The Clone Wars; first episode Oct. 3, 2008)

NOTE:  the word ‘the’ and the upper case W in Wars

versus

010 – |an 2005077359
035 – |a(OCoLC)oca06761713
040 – |aDLC|beng|cDLC|dIAhCCS
130 -0 |aStar wars: Clone wars (Television program)
430 -0 |aClone wars (Television program)
667 – |aDo not confuse with: Star Wars, the clone wars (Television program)
670 – |aStar wars : clone wars, <2005>.
670 – |aInternet movie database, Oct. 18, 2005:|b(Star wars: Clone wars; television series beginning in 2003)
670 – |aepguides.com, Feb. 20, 2009|b(Star Wars: Clone wars; 25 episodes, 2003-2005)

NOTE: no word ‘the’ and the lower case w in wars

We have ascertained that most of the books in our database which would use the 730 for the television show will be attached to the first heading listed: Star Wars, the clone wars (Television program)

The inconsistencies with the usage of upper case and lower case when naming the same entity has long been a thorn in my side and seems to be quite common with LC’s practices.

Example # 1:

Star trek, Deep Space Nine (Television program) versus Star Trek fiction

lower case t in the former and upper case T in the latter

Example #2:

Berenstain Bear Scouts and the ice monster  versus  Berenstain bear scouts in giant bat cave

upper case B in bear in the former and lower case b in the latter

I apologize for the rant…

The British are coming, the British are coming!

Today I noticed some inconsistencies in our catalogue.

Anyone who follows this blog will know that inconsistencies drive me crazy.  After a little investigation I realized that this is a widespread problem.

The inconsistencies arise when people from England are in other countries.  For instance if you had a book about a man from England who spent his life in Italy the subject heading would read:

$a British $z Italy $vBiography.

There are many instances of the incorrect subject heading entry of:

$a English $z Italy $vBiography.

English is a language and not a people.  British is the term used for the people.

I reported this problem to the Library of Congress today.  They have 7 things attached to English–Italy–Fiction  AND 186 things attached to British–Italy–Fiction.   (LC Control Number: sh2007101930)

Of course, you can add any country after the word English and you will likely find it used incorrectly.  This is a ‘heads up’ to watch for this problem in your own catalogues.  It is very easy to import a record with the incorrect usage.  There are a LOT of them out there…

See this LC heading:

001       sh 85043412
005       19860731142640.0
008       860211|| anannbab| |a ana |||
010 –    |ash 85043412
040 –    |aDLC|cDLC|dDLC
150 -0    |aBritish|zIreland
450 -0    |aEnglish in Ireland

I fixed up our catalogue… now it’s your turn

Quality vs. Quantity

Our office is preparing for a move to new premises that are about 20 kilometers from where we are now.  Never has the quality vs. quantity debate been more prevalent in our minds.

We must try to get all of the backlog addressed (catalogued and out of the building) before our move which is scheduled for mid-February.  But our mandate has always been to catalogue with care, maintain authorities, and to produce quality bibliographic records.

Melodie Frances recently posted this question on the Radical Cataloging listserv: There is a tension in cataloging between getting things cataloged fast, and cataloging things well (which takes more time). Cataloging things fast means that they will be in the catalog speedily, cataloging things well (checking to make sure names and subjects etc. are accurate) takes longer.

Depending on the type of material and the type of library the speed can vary. Cataloguing as thoroughly and correctly as possible for a public library is paramount.  More and more of our patrons use the catalogue remotely.  That means that with no inter-personal contact with library staff they must rely solely on the accuracy and thoroughness of the catalogue’s  information.  Patrons can’t have both FAST and THOROUGH.  If asked, patrons would probably just say they want the material fast.  However, over time they would come to realize that there is a price to be paid for getting things quickly.  Access is reduced (due to poor authority control, spelling errors/typos, misclassification,  multiple records for the same item etc.) and access has always been one of the main priorities of any good cataloguing department.  If library material has the wrong spine label due to an incorrect classification it is essentially LOST.

A few years ago we had someone on staff who was more concerned with FAST over thorough.  We are still paying the price for that person’s decision.  We continue to address issues that come up because of the degree of quality of those records and that takes time away from our daily cataloguing practice.

Quality cataloguing is efficient for the searcher and takes a bit more time (thus is more expensive).  Fast cataloguing is inefficient and  cheaper.  When efficiency decreases the users will notice! There will be more complaints. Complaints eventually trickle down to fewer users over time.  Is this what we want?

For further thoughts on this topic see the blog entry of  The Cataloguing Librarian.

Genre headings for videos changing

The Policy and Standards Division (PSD) of the Library of Congress  has determined that topical headings denoting a genre or form of video recording should be cancelled in favor of the existing correlated film headings.

See link:   http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/videorecheadings2.pdf

For example:

Instructional videos          would be changed to Instructional films

Educational videos             would be changed to Educational films

etc., etc.

CSB for Fall 2009 now online!

CSB number 125 (Fall 2009) is now available in .pdf format!

Some highlights include:

Alien labor has been changed to Foreign workers

College catalogs has been changed to Universities and colleges–Curricula–Catalogs

Peasantry has been changed to Peasants

Some headings for priests have been changed from indirect to direct order.  For example:

Priests, Buddhist is now Buddhist priests

Priests, Zen is now Zen priests

etc….

Happy recon!

Name authority for Rumpole author

The author of Rumpole of the Bailey died this year.  As a result a death date was added to his name authority.

However, the new authority doesn’t include a cross-reference from the old authority.

I wonder is this an oversight?  or… a new trend?  I think there should be a 400 tag in the new authority containing:  Mortimer, John Clifford, 1923- 

and I have added this 400 tag to the authority record in our database.  I believe it is useful to users seeing as that was the way his name appeared in catalogues for many years.

The old authority:

Mortimer, John Clifford, 1923-

001 n  50005846
003 DLC
005 20011114064124.0
008 800321n| acannaabn          |a aaa
010 – |an  50005846 |zn  85095138 |zsh 89000269
035 – |a(OCoLC)oca00041401
040 – |aDLC|beng|cDLC|dDLC|dIU|dDLC|dIAhCCS|dOCoLC
053 -0 |aPR6025.O7552
100 1- |aMortimer, John Clifford,|d1923-
400 1- |aMortimer, John,|d1923-
400 1- |aMortimer, Dzh.,|d1923-

has been changed to

Mortimer, John, 1923-1999.

LC Control Number:	n 50005846
HEADING:	Mortimer, John, 1923-2009
000	01642cz a2200265n 450
001	2796571
005	20090123092236.0
008	800321n| acannaabn |a aaa
010	__ |a n 50005846 |z n 85095138 |z sh 89000269 |z n 91059765
035	__ |a (OCoLC)oca00041401
040	__ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |d DLC |d IU |d DLC |d IAhCCS |d OCoLC |d DLC
053	_0 |a PR6025.O7552
100	1_ |a Mortimer, John, |d 1923-2009
400	1_ |a Mortimer, Dzh., |d 1923-2009
670	__ |a His Answer yes or no, 1950.
670	__ |a His Clinging to the wreckage, 1982: |b CIP t.p. (John Mortimer)
670	__ |a His Murderers and other friends, 1995: |b CIP t.p. (John Mortimer) publisher’s info (is a former barrister; author of many novels, film scripts, and stage, television and radio plays, as well as nine vol. of Rumpole stories)
670	__ |a His Advokat po naznachenii︠u︡, 1982: |b t.p. (Dzh. Mortimer)
670	__ |a Internet movie database, Jan. 24, 2000 |b (John Mortimer, b. Apr. 21, 1923)
670	__ |a Wikipedia WWW site, Jan. 16, 2009 |b (under John Mortimer: Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC; b. Apr. 21, 1923, Hampstead, London; d. Jan. 16, 2009; English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter, and author)
670	__ |a LC database, Jan. 16, 2009 |b (hdg.: Mortimer, John Clifford, 1923- ; usage: John Mortimer [predominant form], John Clifford Mortimer)
670	__ |a English fashions, 1947: |b t.p. (John Mortimer)
670	__ |a Telegraph WWW site, Jan. 16, 2009 |b (Sir John Mortimer; QC who took on liberal causes but found most fame as the creator of the fictional barrister Rumpole; produced a history of costume for Moss Bros.

OCLC report — “Online catalogs: what users and librarians want”

You might be interested in the results of various research efforts by OCLC.

The Online Catalogs report presents findings that indicate, among other things, that although library catalogs are often thought of as discovery tools, the catalog’s delivery-related information is just as important to end users.

 

http://www.oclc.org/reports/onlinecatalogs/fullreport.pdf

Some of the statistics contained within the report that I found especially interesting:

Desired Data Quality Enhancements
Which of the following enhancements would you recommend?
Base: Total library survey respondents

Merge duplicate records  52%

Add tables of contents to records  40%

Add summaries to records  28%

Fix typos  27%

Upgrade brief records  25%

Add cover art to results 25%

Make it easier to correct records  25%

Fix MARC coding errors  24%

Add summaries to results  24%

Increase accuracy of library holding information  24%

More records for online resources  22%

Add more formats  22%

More records for non-English materials  21%

More clickable links to online content 18%

Enable more libraries to make corrections  15%

Add excerpts to the records  11%

Add support for multilingual searching/record displays  10%

Greater exposure of holdings on the Web  8%

Do these statistics surprise you?

Our library is in the beta-testing phase of the social catalog software overlay AquaBrowser.  This overlay will address many of the issues presented above, but not all.

Also available is a Webinar entitled “Online Catalog: designing with users in mind“

N.S.A.L.T. conference PowerPoint slides (as promised)

The 2009 conference of the Nova Scotia Association of Library Technicians was held Friday, October 23rd in Kentville, Nova Scotia.

My presentation was in two parts. 

Part 1 explained the move toward Social Catalogues, with specific references to AquaBrowser, the social catalogue overlay which my library has chosen.  We are still in the beta testing phase at present, but we are excited about the day it goes ‘live’. 

The ‘Social’ Library Catalogue

Part II gave a rudimentary explanation of RDA, FRBR and the changes we are making to the catalogue in order to make it a more efficient online tool.

RDA is on the way

My handouts included many useful web links on the topics of RDA and FRBR.

RDA
http://www.rdaonline.org/
RDA FAQ
http://www.rda-jsc.org/rdafaq.html
MARC Changes to accommodate RDA
http://www.loc.gov/marc/formatchanges-RDA.html
Joint Steering Committee for RDA
https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rda.html
RDA Element Sets and Vocabularies
http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm

FRBR
The FRBR Blog:
http://www.frbr.org/
What is FRBR? a brochure created by Barbara Tillett of LC
http://www.loc.gov/cds/downloads/FRBR.pdf
An explanation of FRBR from TechEssence.info
http://techessence.info/frbr
From FRBR to FRAD
http://www.ifla.org/files/hq/papers/ifla75/215-patton-en.pdfen.pdf

Everything you ever wanted to know about LibraryThing.

View this You Tube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4genpc-DZs4&feature=related