Cataloging and Metadata Commons^™

Who Knew We Had This Stuff?: Collaborating To Expose Decades Of Hidden Collections Through Cataloging Before Processing, Rebecca A. Wiederhold, Matthew Leavitt

Faculty Publications

Unprocessed collections are a barrier to access that many manuscript repositories face. Our goal is to provide at least basic access to collections that have been hidden for decades. Acknowledging that our current workflow might take as long as ten years to catch up on our backlog of unprocessed collections, BYU's Harold B. Lee Library is rethinking workflows to re-emphasize user needs as a top priority. In an effort to better share resources across the library to solve this problem, catalogers are taking the first stab at archival description for backlog collections. We have developed procedures to provide a collection-level …

Spark A Conversation On Metadata Inclusiveness, Sai Deng

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This session introduces the context for metadata inclusiveness and presents some of the efforts the speaker has been involved with, including helped create the Inclusive Metadata & Conscious Editing Resources List as a member of the Sunshine State Digital Network (SSDN) Metadata Working Group, and organized “Embracing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Library Cataloging” for the ALA Core Interest Group Week in Spring 2021. It focuses on describing cases, examples and other resources from the SSDN Resources List, so as to give librarians and staff members in Technical Services at the University Central Florida Libraries a better understanding and …

Aidez Moi: Cleaning Up Non_English Language Cataloging, Sarah H. Theimer

Faculty Publications

From a Presentation given at ELUNA Learns, September 8, 2021. This presentation discusses the importance of using quality data in describing non_English Language material, as often errors negatively impact searching and public displays. By correcting the language codes, add 800 paired MARC fields, and correcting Diacritics the library can improve the quality of these records.

Modeling Black Literature: Behind The Screen With The Black Bibliography Project, Brenna Bychowski, Melissa Barton

Library Staff Publications

The Black Bibliography Project (BBP) plans to produce a bibliographic database of printed works by Black writers from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. With the support of the Beinecke Library and a grant from the Mellon Foundation, project co-PIs and codirectors Jacqueline Goldsby and Meredith McGill collaborated with a team of librarians from Yale to develop the data model for their database. Drawing on Beinecke’s James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection to pull case studies, the team of librarians developed a Linked Data model for BBP in an instance of Wikibase and trained and supported a group of graduate student …

Digging The Issues And Concerns In Subject Access Towards Discoverability Of Information And Resources, David A. Cabonero, Judy Ann P. Jandoc, Jeazel T. Cabalo, Wina B. Dominguez

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

There is an information explosion in this computer age due to the rapid developments of information and communications technology. As a result, research and studies are quickly published because of faster printing and open access publishing. With these, access to information and resources is somewhat compromised. Without access, these collections are meaningless to educators, researchers, scholars, and other information users. Thus, this study prompted to determine the: 1) level of familiarity in the fundamental principles of subject cataloging; 2) level of usage familiarity of: a) grammar and code of relationships, b) types of subject headings and subdivisions, and c) authority …

Cataloging Manuscripts And Archival Collections, Rebecca A. Wiederhold

Faculty Publications

Catalogers are increasingly responsible for creating metadata for a variety of unusual items. In the Beyond Books: Cataloging Special Format Items preconference at ULA 2019, participants learned how to catalog manuscripts/archival collections, artists’ books, zines, and posters. This webinar will reprise the Manuscripts and Archival Collections segment of that session, educating participants on when it’s appropriate to catalog special collections material archivally as a collection versus on an item level. Whether you have finding aids to use as a base for your catalog record or you are working directly with the materials, guidelines for using DACS and RDA for manuscript …

Customizing The Connexion Client To Work For You, Rachel S. Evans, Emily Williams, Kelley Ansley

Presentations

OCLC’s Connexion Client has a number of built-in tools to help catalogers save time and energy through customizations that provide controlled automation and ensure consistency. We’ll review a few of these tools, specifically Text Strings, Key Maps, and Macros, along with some resources that provide additional shortcuts.

Conference Roundup: Smart Cataloging - Beginning The Move From Batch Processing To Automated Classification, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

This article reviewed the Amigos Online Conference titled “Work Smarter, Not Harder: Innovating Technical Services Workflows” keynote session delivered by Dr. Terry Reese on February 13, 2020. Excerpt:

"As the developer of MarcEdit, a popular metadata suite used widely across the library community, Reese’s current work is focused on the ways in which libraries might leverage semantic web techniques in order to transform legacy library metadata into something new. So many sessions related to using new technologies in libraries or academia, although exciting, are not practical enough to put into everyday use by most librarians. Reese’s keynote, titled Smart Cataloging: …

Linked Data For The Real World: Leveraging Metadata For Cataloging, Rachel S. Evans, Robin Fay, Linh Uong

Presentations

Will the promise of linked data actually save us time? How will catalogers and machines work together to streamline recording of data and authority maintenance work, allowing catalogers and metadata practitioners to focus more on data stewardship and less on being data scribes? Will Real World Objects (RWOs) and linked data help bridge the gap between traditional cataloging and the larger semantic web communities of practice, ensuring that library metadata supports our users’ search behaviors, those FRBR User Tasks? Or will it just provide more maintenance work down the road? This session will explore the potential of linked data and …

My Internship At Freeman's Auction, Abigail Krasutsky

Art and Art History Presentations

In this presentation I will go through a typical day at my internship at Freeman's Auction in Philadelphia, along with some of the projects I was involved in. I describe the process of some of the things I learned and how this affected my career search after I graduate from college.

Telling Your Story: Articulating Your Value As A Technical Services Librarians, Leslie Engelson, Christina Torbert

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

If you can translate your skills and achievements so others see their value and impact, everyone wins.

Whether justifying the need to fill an open position, writing a tenure or promotion narrative, or even carrying on a conversation with a colleague, librarians who work in Technical Services are often challenged to articulate what they do and the value it brings to the institution they serve. In this webinar we will discuss:

• The challenge of defining value in the context of technical services
• Assessment measures that determine the impact of technical services “products” on users
• Connecting the impact of technical services …

Review Of Ethical Questions In Name Authority Control, Itza A. Carbajal

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Ethical Questions in Name Authority Control is a new and thoughtful addition to the metadata and cataloging field of study and practice. Consisting of eighteen essays written by a number of libraries, archives, and information scholars, this edited volume investigates and responds to a number of ethical questions regarding name authority control.These include topics such as the privacy of the creator, use of geographic names for contested lands, critique of the use of gender in authority control systems, as well as considerations around multilingualism, to name a few. While the title mostly appeals to a particular field of work and …

Richardson Collection Of Toy And Movable Books, Cindy Cline, Katie Caton, Alyssa Coon

Library Presentations

This presentation will focus on the Richardson Collection of Movable Books, including: what are movable books, how is the collection processed, and review different fields in the bibliographical records. We will also provide a preview of our new LibGuide for the collection.

The Zine Union Catalog, Lauren S. Kehoe, Jenna Freedman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lauren Kehoe and Jenna Freedman have been working on the Zine Union Catalog, aka ZineCat or ZUC, since their Introduction to Digital Humanities course in Spring, 2017: MALS 75500, Digital Humanities Methods and Practices. ZineCat is the home of a union catalog dedicated to zines. A union catalog is a resource where libraries and other cultural institutions that collect materials can share cataloging and holdings information from their individual collections. The most familiar union catalog is probably WorldCat which is used to locate books, journals, CDs, DVDs, and other materials in the world’s libraries. ZineCat facilitates researchers' discovery of zine …

Cleaning Up Messy Records: Uncovering Match-Points In Ils And Repository Data, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Evans shared the process and learning takeaways from a recent project, comparing and cleaning up the data in both a repository and library catalog for items from a single collection. This post discusses the need for knowing how to pull good lists and the benefits of solid control fields in the data from multiple different systems. It also shared candidly the challenges one faces when fixing errors and attempting to make fields more consistent for platforms with very different records and standards.

TechScans is a blog to share the latest trends and technology tools for technical services law librarians. The …

Best Practices For Cataloging Objects Using Rda And Marc 21, Julie Renee Moore, Robert B. Freeborn, Scott Dutkiewicz, Sarah Hovde, Jessica Janecki, Jessica Schomberg, Trina Soderquist

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

This best practices document is intended to assist catalogers in creating bibliographic records for objects, which RDA refers to as three dimensional forms, according to RDA instructions. This document provides guidance for the most common object situations encountered in libraries. Each section includes examples that reflect the RDA instructions. A list of resources and a selection of full MARC record examples illustrating common situations encountered in cataloging objects (of various types) completes the document. The Objects Task Force especially worked on the examples to provide a variety of materials that fall bibliographically under Objects. The Task Force found at least …

Diversity, Inclusion, And Social Justice In Library Technical Services, Rhonda Kauffman, Martina S. Anderson

Published Works

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries recently embraced a large-scale initiative to incorporate the values of diversity, inclusion, and social justice (DISJ) into library practices. In early 2017, the MIT collections directorate task force on DISJ released a report with recommendations for embedding DISJ values into the daily work of archives, technical services, preservation, scholarly communications, and collections strategy staff. This chapter focuses on the challenges and opportunities in undertaking a sustained effort to achieve DISJ specifically within technical services. The authors highlight how technical services staff can use their unique position within libraries to dismantle existing structures of …

Library Experiences Of Technical Services And Special Collections During The Covid-19 Pandemic At Edith Garland Dupré Library, University Of Louisiana At Lafayette, Zachary G. Stein, Sheryl Curry, Janelle Zetty, Michael Mitchell, Scott Jordan

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic put a major strain on everyday life. Academic institutions were forced to close, leaving many employees to resort to teleworking. Academic libraries were put in an unusual position, as they strove to provide access to library materials and services, despite limited to no access to the actual sites. This proved to be especially tricky for technical services and special collections departments, which heavily rely on being present at libraries. Therefore, these departments needed to develop solutions that would allow them to continue performing their duties while adhering to stay-at-home orders. With careful preparation and frequent communication, the …

Alma Normalization Rules: The Basics And Beyond, Julene L. Jones, Susan Wynne

Library Presentations

Alma normalization rules are a powerful tool for editing and enhancing bibliographic and holding records, in batch or individually. This presentation will describe how to read and write normalization rules for beginner and intermediate users. We will cover the syntax and logic of normalization rules, how and why to add a rule as a process, common use cases and real-world examples, and best practices and tricks we’ve learned along the way. No programming experience is necessary for this session. At the end of the session, attendees will understand the basic syntax of normalization rules, how to interpret a normalization rule, …

Breaking Out Of The Box: Transforming Archival Collections And Workflows Through Collaborative Description Projects, Cindy Cline, Libby Hertenstein, Lindy Smith, Rachel Howard, Rebecca Pattillo, Ruth E. Bryan

Library Presentations

Archivists and archival collections can often be siloed into the “special” corner of their parent library: under described, underutilized, and often even unknown. Finding a path out of isolation may require taking a new look at collection management needs and considering new partners in the work. Collaboration with colleagues can result in positive ripple effects that extend beyond the initial project goals. This session will highlight three innovative description projects where archivists partnered with non-archivists to improve access to targeted collections and will detail how their collaborations transformed their archival collections, work structures and relationships, and, ultimately, their users. After …

Book Review: Text Lies And Cataloging: Ethical Treatment Of Deceptive Works In The Library, Amy B. Parsons

Faculty Bibliography

No abstract provided.

My Own Private Library: A Peek Inside The Personal Library Of A Librarian, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

The author shares the scope of her personal media collection, detailing home collection management and cataloging practices, and item organization. Stories are given for special items in the collection throughout the piece and photos are included.

Olac Video Game Genre Vocabulary, Rosemary Groenwald, Jay L. Colbert, Eduardo Fojo, Julia Frankosky, Netanel Ganin, Rachel Jaffe, Charles Lemme, Neil Robinson, George Wrenn

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

No abstract provided.

Benchmarking Vended Authority Control Practices In Arl Libraries (Presentation), Rebecca L. Mugridge, Nancy Poehlmann

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

This presentation shares the results of a survey of ARL libraries on the use of vended authority control at their institutions.

Alphabetical List Of Genre Terms In The Olac Video Game Genre Vocabulary, Rosemary Groenwald, Jay L. Colbert, Eduardo Fojo, Julia Frankosky, Netanel Ganin, Rachel Jaffe, Charles Lemme, Neil Robinson, George Wrenn

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

No abstract provided.

Prospects For Connecting Community And Engaging Students For An Academic Resource And Repository System, Sai Deng

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

CALASYS is the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA)’s academic resource and repository system. The purpose of the system is to collect, organize, and store scholarly publications, library and information science related resources created or contributed by CALA members and others in the library field. The CALASYS Committee will share the experiences of collecting data, creating metadata, and improving access to the data. As an all-volunteer committee, the group works with the CALA community which consists of members from different types of libraries and information professions. The committee also reaches out to other groups such as the LIS students to contribute …

Guidelines For Olac Video Game Genre Terms (Olacvggt), Rosemary Groenwald, Jay L. Colbert, Eduardo Fojo, Julia Frankosky, Netanel Ganin, Rachel Jaffe, Charles Lemme, Neil Robinson, George Wrenn

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

A thesaurus of video game genre terms with a corresponding MARC authority record.

Linked Data, Bibframe And Rda Walk Into A Bar..., Amy B. Parsons

Faculty Bibliography

This poster illustrates basic introduction and concepts of linked data and how it relates to RDA and Bibframe. Currently catalogers in libraries are struggling with learning these new concepts and keeping up with our traditional cataloging knowledge and workflows. Linked data brings us a step closer to global bibliographic control. The MARC record is not going away any time soon but catalogers should be aware of these concepts and models as they are being developed for our workflows in the future.

Final Recommendations Of The Joint Mla/Olac 33x/34x Task Group, Joint Mla/Olac 33x/34x Task Group

OLAC Publications and Training Materials

The initial impetus for the formation of the task group came from Jay Weitz's request for input from both our groups as he was working on the OCLC-MARC update 2017, particularly in reference to the 23 additions to the Genre/Form Code and Term Source Codes list (http://www.loc.gov/standards/sourcelist/genre-form.html). This request led to the realization that best practices of both groups varied in regard to MARC 344 and 347. It seemed like a good idea to have both groups discuss these same issues together. The group considered 3 issues:

1. Inconsistent treatment of RDA and non-RDA terms in MARC 344 and 347
2. Consideration …

Build An Organizational Digital Scholarship Repository Using Omeka, Sai Deng

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As a non-profit organization for librarians of color, Chinese American Librarians Association has members from all over the world. Materials that document the evolution of the organization and its scholarly activities pertain valuable information. There was an urgent need to establish an organizational digital scholarship repository to preserve these materials as well as to serve as a hub that provides valuable research information.

After careful comparison and selection, Omeka, a content management system for online digital resources, was chosen. Omeka is open source and thus free with a stable group of developers for a long time. While Omeka is an …