Presentations

LLRX has an article "Ice Breakers and Other Related Activities" by Marie Wallace. Too often, we are in a hurry to get down to business. However, learning can occur better if the social atmosphere is improved

Group activities can be used throughout training but are especially useful at the beginning or forming stage. They immediately involve and relax people, open the lines of communication between the trainer and the trainees and develop a sense of trust. People often come to training tense from a prior activity. Some don't think they need training and resent the time spent. Icebreakers relieve tension and signal that the training environment is "safe." Used throughout training, group activities promote content flow, revive failing energy, stimulate creativity and get the trainees to look at the world in new ways. Also, they can equalize differences among learners with different job types or status.

Your Library Career

The latest issue of Career Trends is now available. Always a worthwhile read. The current issue includes:

• NEWLIB-L
• Interview: Reference Reviews North American Regional Editor Sarah Nesbeitt
• Showing What You've Got: Professional Presentations
• Lights, Camera, Action!
• Keeping In Touch To Keep Up
• Then I Saw the Web -- Now I'm a Believer
• What's Online? Recommended Resources
• But I Want To Hold It In My Hand! Print Resources

XML & Names

"XML and global name access control" by Ki-Tat Lam is a paper in OCLC Systems & Services v. 18 no. 2. "This paper discusses why the MARC21-based authority format has failed in a global setting and details the use of XML and its related technologies to achieve global name access control." The whole issue is worth a look.

Dublin Core Metadata

The latest issue of OCLC Systems & Services has the article "Qualified Dublin Core metadata for online journal articles" by Timothy W Cole.

This paper describes an implementation utilizing preliminary Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) guidelines for expressing Qualified Dublin Core (DCQ) metadata in RDF/XML. Primary source objects used in this research were online versions of articles published in more than 50 academic journals in physics and engineering. Articles were encoded in well-formed XML. While able to follow DCMI guidelines generally, it was necessary to augment DCQ semantics with local extensions in order to retain desired richness of semantics and structure. Also described is related work, including development of XML schema documents necessary to validate metadata and creation of a transforming XSL stylesheet to "dumb-down" metadata to simple Dublin Core. As a case study, this research illustrates issues encountered when expressing real-world DCQ metadata in RDF/XML. Significant initial investment of effort was required to develop RDF facilities and expertise. Pending more applications that exploit RDF, this investment may not be warranted in all domains.

XML and Taxonomies

XML and taxonomies A partnership cure for digital sprawl by Linda Farmer provides a business perspective on these tools. Information Highways v. 9, no. 2 (Jan.-Feb., 2002)

The judicious application of XML and taxonomies can go a long way towards stemming the sprawl of unstructured digital content throughout an enterprise and leveraging its potential in the service of business goals.

Culture

Beloit College has released the Class of 2006 Mindset List. This list is always interesting and useful for understanding some of our patrons. The first 10 items are:

1. A Southerner has always been President of the United States.
2. Richard Burton, Ricky Nelson and Truman Capote have always been dead.
3. South Africa's official policy of apartheid has not existed during their lifetime.
4. Cars have always had eye-level rear stop lights, CD player, and air bags.
5. We have always been able to choose our long distance carriers.
6. Weather reports have always been available 24-hours a day on television.
7. The "evil empire" has moved from Moscow to a setting in some distant galaxy.
8. "Big Brother" is merely a television show.
9. Cyberspace has always existed.
10. Bruce Springsteen's new hit Born in the USA could have been played to celebrate their birth.

Economic Impact of Libraries

Marylaine Block has offered to create a Web page for stories of how libraries have helped individuals become more productive, taxpaying citizens. Seems like it could be a valuable project.

I know you have your own success stories, even if they're mostly anecdotes. You may also have conducted some follow-up surveys with the people who've attended your workshops. What we need to do, it seems to me, is start gathering these stories and systematically recording them. If we're not currently doing follow-up surveys of our workshop attendees, we should start doing so, at least occasionally. We can put the stories and the survey results in our annual reports, and publish them on our web pages. In fact, we could use our web pages to gather stories like this, by including an interactive page for users, called something like I LEARNED IT AT THE LIBRARY.

The next step would be to take these stories from libraries all over the country and consolidate the information so we can get a sense of the national economic impact of libraries. I can do that, with your help. I can create a page for library success stories on my web site.

The page doesn't exist yet, because I can't do it by myself. You need to supply me with the content for it. Send me your anecdotes, and the URLs for your posted survey results or press releases about them, to mblock@netexpress.net (please use the subject line "library success story"), and I will include them on the page. I'll let you know when it's up and running. Let's jointly create documentation we can brandish in the faces of mayors and city council members and company financial officers, proving our worth in the dollars and cents terms they understand.

Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies.
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2002.

Open Source Library System, Koha

The Nelsonville, Ohio, Public Library has recently announced that they will be migrating to Koha, a GPL'd library software system which is written in Perl. They have decided to contribute to the ongoing development of Koha and have released an RFP to solicit bids to work on full MARC support for the 1.4 release, the RFP is available.

I'd encourage interested parties to read carefully through the RFP and to join the koha-devel mailing list. It may also be worthwhile to join the #koha channel at irc.katipo.co.nz to discuss the project in general or MARC support specifically. If you know anyone else that might be interested in responding to the RFP, please feel free to forward it as appropriate.

Further background on Nelsonville's announcement. For more information, please feel free to contact me by email at info@koha.org.

Pat Eyler
Kaitiaki/manager
the Koha project

Links

This from Library Techlog, another possible solution to broken links.

Robust Hyperlinks and Robust Locations. URLs can be made robust so that if a web page moves to another location anywhere on the web, you can find it. Even if that page has been edited. (If the page has been deleted and no mirrors are available, you'll have to try something else, obviously.) Today's address-based URLs are augmented with a five or so word content-based lexical signature to make a Robust Hyperlink. When the URL's address-based portion breaks, the signature is fed into any web search engine to find the new site of the page. Using our free, Open Source software (including source code), you can rewrite your web pages and bookmarks files to make them robust, automatically. Although web browser support is desirable for complete convenience, Robust Hyperlinks work now, as drop-in replacements of URLs in today's HTML, web browsers, web servers and search engines.

Subject Headings

Currently I'm reading the book Subject Determination During the Cataloging Process by Alenka Sauperl. The processes it describes sounds much more realistic than how the process was described in cataloging class. In class it ran (1) Examine the item to determine the subject. Look at the title, index, preface, and TOC. (2) Consult the subject heading list and determine the term(s) that match. In Sauperl's study it shows that the subject selection begins during descriptive cataloging. Looking at the publisher, series statements as well at the title and authors. Then the process becomes iterative moving back and forth from the vocabulary list to the item and to the catalog to see how similar items have been treated. How our users would look is also considered. Much messier. Better for our catalogs. It makes sense to consider how similar items have been treated. That's part of the collocation function of the catalog. Also, consideration of the user is basic. The 1st law (if I remember right) is save the reader time. If you are reading this while still in library school, do not believe the neat description from your cataloging class.

E-Journals

Project Muse is now offering journal data for download. No need to be a member either. It is available in Excel, tab delimited or comma delimited formats. No MARC format, still have to use jake2marc for that. Still it should make things easier for some folks.

TEI

The TEI Consortium, a non-profit membership organization that continues the efforts of the Text Encoding Initiative, will hold its second annual members meeting at the Newberry Library, Chicago, October 11-12, 2002. Members and non-members alike are welcome to attend the first day of the meeting, which will include a rich programme of technical briefings and presentations about the full variety of TEI applications. Further information is available.

AACR

Joint Steering Committee to Meet in York, England, 9-11 September 2002. Discussion topics and agenda are available.

Translation of Numbers

The site Numbers from 1 to 10 in Over 4500 Languages could be helpful if stuck cataloging in an unfamiliar language.

New Monthly

Free Range Librarian A Monthly Meditation from Librarians' Index to the Internet

This is the debut issue of Free Range Librarian, a monthly think piece from the Librarians' Index to the Internet. Each month we will feature one article or review on issues important to librarianship.

We welcome submissions (500 to 1000 words) but regret we cannot offer payment for publication other than an lii.org mug or t-shirt and a copyright agreement that allows you to retain rights to your content.

The 1st issue is "The Gospel According To Marvin: A Review of A Festschrift in Honor of Marvin H. Scilken" by Karen G. Schneider. This is an extended review of the book Getting Libraries the Credit They Deserve: A Festschrift in Honor of Marvin H. Scilken, by Loriene Roy and Antony Cherian. However, it goes beyond reviewing to a recollection of the man.

FRBR

LC has added examples to illustrate the ideas in Displays for Multiple Versions from MARC 21 and FRBR.

Copyright

Last night Janis Ian was on the Screen Savers discussing file swapping of MP3s, copyright and the music industry. The Web site reprints The Internet Debacle -- An Alternate View and provides links to some other resources. Her ideas do not have the force of law only common sense behind them.

RSS

Catalogablog is configured to support FeedMe. This is a slick tool. It allows you to be e-mailed the contents of an RSS feed. If you have any problem using FeedMe with this site, please let me know. These RSS functions are the first applications I'm seeing of XML on the Web.

Koha

"We're going to move our library services onto Open Source platforms, culminating with the conversion of our existing server system to Koha." says Stephen Hedges of the Nelsonville Public Library (NPL). "We want to use the Internet to offer some cutting edge information services to our library patrons, but we realized that this would require us to have control of our automation and database software. We needed the freedom to change things, to change the code if necessary, because the types of things we want to do are not going to appear in commercial library software for years."

Koha, being open source, provided the access that NPL required and the level of stability and functionality that they needed. NPL has committed to help support the development of Koha by funding some of the work on three specific projects. This support is seen as a wise investment, NPL expects to save as much money per year as they initially invest in Koha. More importantly, they will be able to offer what they consider to be "the best online services available anywhere in the world."

"NPL's involvement is a real validation of our model." says Pat Eyler, Kaitiaki (manager) of the Koha project. "We've got a solid base system. As people want to add onto it, they can make a small investment to fund the work (far less than they would for a comparable closed source solution) and everyone will benefit. I hope that we'll see other libraries pitching in too."

More information about Koha

NPL provides services to approximately 36,000 active borrowers through seven branches. Their collection includes over 250,000 items.

OAI

Here is a nice use of the Open Archives Initiative, Citebase. This searches arXiv, cogprints and Biomed Central. "Citebase allows researchers to search across free, full-text research literature eprint archives, with results ranked according to many criteria (e.g. by citation impact), and then to navigate that literature using citation links and analysis."

NAL

Dear Colleagues,

As some of you may be aware, a special task force recently studied the mission, management, programs, and operation of the National Agricultural Library in pursuit of its legislated mandate to serve as the chief agricultural information resource of the United States. The task force report and recommendations appear in the "Report on the National Agricultural Library 2001".

Please see the announcement of the release of the Report and invitation for public review and comment along with a link to the full report

We are announcing the availability of the Report and the period of public comment to a wide audience with the hope that we will get many comments from a variety of customers, stakeholders, and partners. We invite you to review and comment on the report recommendations.

Susan McCarthy
(301) 504-5510
smccarth@nal.usda.gov

Metadata

Keeping an eye on Metadata by Glyn Moody from Computer Weekly. Short article with plenty of links. Interesting because it shows computer folks are recognizing the importance of cataloging, by whatever name.

Few people bother to look at the code underlying Web sites they visit, but it is often worth doing so - not just to see how good pages are put together, but to examine any metadata lurking there. For metadata - data about data - is becoming an increasingly important area of Web technology (the World Wide Web Consortium has some background on the subject).

Not Cataloging

Here is a site that shows what the demographic folks think of where you live, You Are Where You Live. Interesting, for me some of the things are right on, others miss completely. I guess it shows why it has been valuable in the past, a 20% hit rate is better than just guessing where you customers are. However, with micromarketing using more precise tracking tools, cookies for instance, demographic profiling may become as useful as spam. I just finished the book Next: the Future just Happened and it discussed how this new marketing will break up national markets and introduce more customization and choices.

NACO Training

Later today, I'm off to Dallas for a refresher in NACO. I'm looking forward to this. It is always great to get together with other catalogers and this is a very competent group. The training is Friday and Saturday, so there will not be any more postings until Monday. I'm not bringing a laptop with me for just the one workday. We have weekend guests, so I'll not try to catch on the weekend. The guests are in connection with a GCOA workshop. The Gulf Coast Orff-Schulwerk Association is a local chapter of The American Orff-Schulwerk Association See you Monday.

Resource Description Framework

What is RDF? by Tim Bray is a good introduction to this important standard. It is also available as Que es RDF? in Spanish.

E-Prints

Eprintblog is a new 'blog devoted to e-prints "E-print archives in universities and colleges, particularly those hosted by academic libraries, and the e-print phenomenon in general."

Cookies

Why does Library Journal place a doubleclick cookie on my machine when I visit? I expect that from hungry dot.coms and crass commercial establishments but not established publishers.

Open Archives Initiative

On behalf of the Institute of Physics, I'm pleased to announce our recent implementation of the Open Archives Initiative technical framework for our Electronic Journals service.

As you may know, the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) 'develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content'. The key standard promoted by the initiative focuses on content providers making metadata records available in a common format - the Dublin Core Element Set. We are pleased to confirm that we have adopted this standard here at the Institute and metadata records for our article abstracts are now available in this format. They can be 'harvested' from our server on request.

This news will be of interest to a range of individuals and organizations including the E-Print community, fellow publishers and A & I service providers. It is also relevant to you if your institution subscribes to our journals and you wish to harvest our abstract data with a view to loading it locally and/or adding elements of it to your OPAC.

If are interested, please contact custserv@iop.org in the first instance.

Further information on the Open Archives Initiative can be found online.

Kind regards,

Lucy Pearce
Senior Product Manager
Institute of Physics Publishing

Inspiration

A golden oldie, Ten Graces for New Librarians by GraceAnne DeCandido. This has been around since 1996, but even older librarians should reread it every so often. It reminds us to be the kind of professional librarian we meant to be. Pause and reflect.

Multilingual Cataloging

I've just read an article "Perceptions of Catalogers and End-Users Towards Bilingual Authority Files" by Kaba Abdoulaye. The Electronic Library v. 20, no. 2 (2002) pp. 202-210. A shame it is so poor, since it treats such an important topic. Abdoulaye interviewed three catalogers then makes statements like "A majority (66.6 per cent) of the cataloguers believed...." or "A majority of the cataloguing staff believe ...." With a group of three we are dealing with case study, not statistics. Abdoulaye does interview a small group (23) of students as well.

Abdoulaye also is not always sure of the facts. "Authority files appeared to be organized according to AACR2 principle, which is applied today in many academic libraries. However, some of the records were found attached with birth and/or death dates within the name authority file." Anyone who has their first cataloging class in AACR could have told why some names had dates. And it wasn't because they were famous Muslim scholars as Abdoulaye guesses. There is a bibliography that may lead to some better studies, mostly concerned with Arabic language cataloging. The literature review may also be useful as a lead to better research.

Z39.50

YAZ-1.8.8 Sebastian writes: "The most notable changes are full support for character set negotiation and the use of UNICODE in Z39.50 sessions. Also new is support for Unix domain sockets ("file system sockets") as a high-speed, high-security alternative to TCP/IP connections for local client/server pairs." Posted on oss4lib

If you are wondering what YAZ is, here is the description from the YAZ page: "YAZ is a C/C++ programmer's toolkit supporting the development of Z39.50v3 clients and servers. ... The current version of YAZ includes experimental support for the industry standard ZOOM API for Z39.50."

Moving Images

An interesting article in Information Outlook v. 6, no. 8 (2002). "Organizing Moving Image Collections in the Digital Era" by James M. Turner, Michele Hudon and Yves Devin. This is not a how-to-do-it article, rather a research project showing decisions at various institutions. Lots of diversity, was their conclusion.

Information Policy at IMLS

Solicitation of Public Comments on Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library services (IMLS) announces that its draft Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by the Institute of Museum and Library Services have been posted on its website, www.imls.gov. IMLS invites public comments on its draft Guidelines and will consider the comments received in developing its final Guidelines.

E-Records Policy

Request For Information For Electronic Records Archives The NARA is looking for suggestions on e-record policy. This is a preliminary step to issuing an RFP for a product.

NARA intends to make an investment in Electronic Records Archives capabilities to capture, preserve, and provide access to electronic records indefinitely into the future. NARA is currently developing formal system requirements that will be used as the basis for implementation of the ERA. NARA has entered into research partnerships aimed at developing standards for preserving and delivering authentic digital records over indefinite periods of time, including the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model. NARA is participating in a number of research activities and prototypes aimed at improving the knowledge base for developing and evaluating potential technical solutions. These include the Persistent Archives project being performed by the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure, and the Presidential Electronic Records Processing Operational System (PERPOS) project, a collaborative effort by the Army Research Laboratory and Georgia Tech Research Institute. The existence of these demonstration programs and prototypes does not imply a commitment by NARA to require incorporation of the associated technologies and architectures into ERA.

Tech Services

I've just been alerted to the publication TechKNOW a publication of the Technical Services Division of the Ohio Library Council. As might be expected some of the articles are written for Ohio librarians. However, many are more general. The current issue has an introduction to music cataloging. The March issue has a very complete description of the changes in AARC. There are some well-written book reviews in each issue. This publication deserves to be read outside Ohio.

NACO

The end of next week I'm getting a NACO refresher and training on RLIN. NACO, the name authority component of the PCC, is a wonderful program. I would suggest all catalogers take advantage of the training they provide. The ability to add names to the authority files is very valuable. We can all use our expert knowledge to enrich the database for all. A public library could contribute records for local authors. A special library could contribute records for people in their subject area.

I've already mentioned this, but the LC authority files are now available online. The local author can now see their name in the file. Just another reason to participate.

MARC

The Tag of the Month is a great resource provided by Follett. Each month they provide an explanation of one MARC field with some examples. It can be nice when using a new field to read the LC, OCLC and this to get a better understanding of the field and how it is used. Just reading the documentation on the one field each month is a good way to become more familiar with MARC. However, they have had the same field up since June. I hope they are not thinking of doing away with this resource. Maybe it is on summer vacation.

Semantic Web

The latest issue of Information Research is a special issued on the Semantic Web. The contents include:

• The Semantic Web: opportunities and challenges for next-generation Web applications, by Shiyong Lu, Ming Dong and Farshad Fotouhi, Department of Computer Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Forms of labour in information systems, by Julian Warner, School of Management and Economics, The Queen's University of Belfast, UK
• The Semantic Web, universalist ambition and some lessons from librarianship, by Terrence A. Brooks, Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
• The necessity for information space mapping for information retrieval on the semantic web, by Gregory B. Newby, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Thanks to The Virtual Acquisition Shelf & News Desk for bring this to my attention.

ISMN

R.R. Bowker has begun to issue International Standard Music Numbers (ISMN) for sheet music. "The U.S. ISMN Agency is responsible for the assignment of the ISMN Publisher Prefix to publishers of printed music with a residence or office in the U.S. and are publishing titles within the U.S." This will make it easier to find copy cataloging for these items and speed up the processing.

LITA National Forum

I've just placed my registration for the LITA National Forum being held here in Houston, Tex. Oct. 11-13. Some sessions of cataloging interest include:

• The Next Generation of OPACs: XML, the Wireless Web, and the Voice Internet
• The Lowest Common Denomination: Utilizing Descriptive Meta-Data and XML to Create a Subject Based Cross-Institutional Research Portal
• Metadata Aggregation Networks and the Open Archives Initiative
• More Pages Than a Website Should be Allowed to Have: building purely web-based catalogs through data conversion (I'm sure to catch this one)

I'm hoping to be able to check out the LITA guide Open Source Software for Libraries if they have some there. Sounds like a very good book, but I hesitate to buy it sight unseen.

Record Enhancement

A streaming video presentation Electronic Table of Contents: Key to the Library's Book Collection is available.

David Williamson, cataloging automation specialist for the Cataloging Directorate, discussed enhancing bibliographic records using publisher supplied table of contents (TOC) data. He demonstrated how catalogers manipulate TOC data from publisher galleys into an electronic cataloging in publication (ECIP) record. He also described how publisher-supplied TOC information in the ONIX format is reformatted and made available over the World Wide Web and accessible through search engines. This information is then linked from the bibliographic record using a MARC tagged 856 linking note. Bruce Knarr, a team leader in the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division (RCCD) described and demonstrated the digital TOC project. This produces scanned TOCs from research materials which are HTML encoded and mounted on the World Wide Web. Like the ONIX-enhanced records, they are also linked from the bibliographic record by an 856 linking note. John Byrum, chief of RCCD, concluded with an overview on the uses and usefulness of TOC data to enrich bibliographic records.

From the LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE v. 10 no. 9 (August 2002)

NACO

The PDF-formatted Descriptive Cataloging Manual (DCM) Z1 (the "yellow pages"), and the LC Supplement Guidelines to the MARC 21 Authority Format, 2002 ed. (the "blue pages"), have now been posted and are available for downloading. A survey of PCC liaisons is currently being undertaken to determine future means of document delivery.

From the LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE v. 10 no. 9 (August 2002)

Bibliographic Control of Web Resources Action Plan

The Cataloging Directorate has published an updated version of "Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress
Action Plan". This version includes the detailed work plan for ten of the action items included in the plan. Each work plan includes such information as the name and contact information for the lead person and institutional affiliation, the names and/or institutional affiliation of others participating in the work item, definition of activity to be pursued, the task components and deliverables, as well as the timeline for completion of the action item. As developments occur, these work plans will be revised to include status information.

From the LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE v. 10 no. 8 (August 2002)

LC Staffing

The Cataloging Directorate and the Serial Record Division (Acquisitions Directorate) of the Library of Congress are currently seeking catalogers for all languages, formats, and subject areas. You do not need to be a current Library of Congress employee to apply for any of these positions.

The Serial Record Division plans to hire four catalogers. The Cataloging Directorate expects to hire more than 25 monograph catalogers. The serial cataloger position and several monograph cataloger positions have already been posted on the USAJOBS Web site, the United States government's official source of information for Federal jobs, and more are expected soon. The deadline to apply for the serial cataloger positions is Sept. 3. The deadline to apply for the law monograph cataloger position is August 16. Application deadlines for other monograph cataloger positions vary.

To read the vacancy announcements and submit your application online, please keep checking the USAJOBS site for vacancy announcements throughout the summer and September.

From the LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE v. 10 no. 8 (August 2002)

Linux

Eric Sisler provides a comprehensive introduction to using Linux in a library Linux in the Library: What can it do for you?

Thanks to Marylaine Block for pointing me to this from her Neat New Stuff I Found on the Web This Week.

Privacy

Those who have subscribed to receive items from this 'blog by e-mail should be aware:

Blog owners will be able to view the list of their subscribers. On the flip side, if subscribers want their email address hidden from view, they can set their account to "private" in their Profile section. In fact, this option is in place now, if you want to use it.

You can rest assured I'll not pass your addresses on to any third party or send you spam. I'm curious as to who is a subscriber, so I will take a look some time.

Digital Preservation

Preserving the Memory of the World in Perpetuity: a joint statement on the archiving and preserving of digital information by IFLA and IPA (International Publishers Association). Here are the principles and recommendations:

• An increasing amount of information published only in electronic form has enduring cultural and documentary significance and is just as important as information published in more traditional forms.
• The long-term availability of this information is required and action must be taken now to make this possible.
• Both organizations will work to make long-term archiving and preservation a key agenda item internationally.
• Both organizations will encourage the development and implementation of industry standards, systems, and research for digital archiving and preservation, including identifying funding opportunities to support such work.
• While publishers generally can ensure the short-term archiving of their publications so long as these publications are economically viable, libraries are best-placed to take responsibility for long-term archiving through appropriate arrangements with publishers.
• Since national libraries have the mandate to acquire and preserve the published heritage in their respective countries, and most are experimenting with the acquisition of digital publications, these libraries, with other leading libraries and organizations, should take the lead responsibility for long-term archiving of digital publications.
• A publisher/library working group will further develop joint initiatives regarding the technical, economic and policy issues of digital preservation including, where appropriate, the establishment of co-operative initiatives with other organisations which are investigating these issues.

LC Subject Headings

Berman wins victory - LC to create new subject heading. Short note on a new LCSH taking only a few weeks to have authorized. The new Web form for submitting SACO proposals may be speeding things up. The item does not say if that form was used.

Open Source & Digital Libraries

Materials from the NISSAT-NCSI Workshop on Developing Digital Libraries using Open Source Software are available on-line. The open-source softwares used were E-Prints Archive Software and Greenstone Digital Library Software running on Linux. Thanks FOS News for this one.

E-Books

The latest Journal of Digital Information has the article Many Outputs — Many Inputs: XML for Publishers and E-book Designers by Terje Hillesund. Argues that XML will not allow publishers to generate many expressions from one entity.

This essay questions the XML doctrine of "one input — many outputs". In the area of publishing the doctrine says that from one book one can produce many formats and end-products. Supported by insights of linguistics and experiences of writers and editors, I shall claim this assertion to be basically wrong. By examining the main properties of XML I will further, in contrast to the doctrine, argue that XML and related technologies add to the complexity of publishing. New media, new formats and new genres will, powered by XML, lead publishers into a new and challenging state of "many outputs — many inputs".

Open Source

Over at Slashdot the hacker/code writing community is concerned with privacy issues in the library, Building Anonymous-Friendly Computer Libraries?. Seems the FBI intrusions have had an impact.

Wouldn't it be nice if that crowd jumped in to help develop some of the open source library systems? Koha, PhpMyLibrary, Avanti, or OpenBiblio, for example.

Patrons

We do not have remote users, they have a remote library. That is a paraphrase of something from the Summer Workshop. A reminder to walk in our patron's shoes and look at things from their perspective. We should occasionally try our site out from home or a machine in an Internet cafe. How fast do pages load? Can the print be seen? Is it obvious how to get to the information we are looking for? Does the catalog have clear instructions? Looking for information as a patron gives a new view to our system.

EAD

The RLG Focus has the article RLG Continues Leading Role with Encoded Archival Description by Merrilee Proffitt.

This 'Blog

I've added a button to allow users to open links in a new window, if they wish. It is on the left side about half way down. If this causes any problems for you, please let me know.

AACR

The new edition of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules due to be published in Sept. will not be used by the Library of Congress until December. More details are available at LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IMPLEMENTATION OF AMENDMENTS 2002 TO AACR2. Still makes a nice gift for the holidays.

MARC Code List for Geographic Areas

The 2002 edition of the MARC Code List for Geographic Areas is now available from the Library of Congress. This revision of the 2000 edition contains a list of up-to-date geographic areas and their associated one- to seven-character codes used in MARC records. The list includes separate codes for countries, first order political divisions of some countries, regions, and geographic features. References from variant forms are also included. Changes and additions since the previous edition include a code for East Timor, and codes for outer space and celestial bodies.

The list includes all valid codes and code assignments as of September 2002 and supersedes the 2000 edition of the MARC Code List for Geographic Areas. There are 19 additions in this new publication.

MARC Code List for Geographic Areas (ISBN 0-8444-1055-1) is available for $20 (North America) and $22 (outside North America) from:

Library of Congress
Cataloging Distribution Service
Customer Services Section
Washington, DC 20541-4912
www.loc.gov/cds
TEL: 1-202-707-6100
FAX: 1-202-707-1334
E-MAIL: cdsinfo@loc.gov

MARC 21 information, including future updates to this edition of the geographic areas list, may be found online.

Another item for your Christmas list. The hard copy is not necessary, since the entire list is available online. Moreover, the online list is sometimes more current. I do like to use a hard copy since I make notes in it. I mark which codes I've used and place the class number from the G schedule beside the code to provide a basic index to that schedule.

PHP

A List Apart has the article "Manage Your Content With PHP" by Christopher Robbins.

XHTML for structured markup. CSS for presentation. What more could you ask? How about an easy way to manage your site, using free, open-source tools? Christopher Robbins shows how to use PHP to build a simple, template-driven system that handles site maintenance chores and remembers your visitors’ preferences.

AACR2

The Canadian Library Association, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, and the American Library Association will publish the 2002 Revision of ANGLO-AMERICAN CATALOGUING RULES, SECOND EDITION in September 2002. Major changes in both content and format will make the release of the 2002 Revision momentous.

WHAT'S NEW IN 2002?

• Fully integrated 1999 and 2001 Amendments and revisions approved and finalized through 2002
• More than 100 substantive changes throughout the text and completely updated Index
• Three completely revised and updated chapters (Cartographic Materials, Electronic Resources, Continuing Resources)
• A more user-friend format with 8.5" X 11" looseleaf pages that fit a standard 3-ring binder
• Separately numbered chapters for easy integration of future updates
• A brand new text design that clearly distinguishes the rules from the examples

With annual updates that will easily integrate into this brand new, streamlined format, AACR2-2002 is an up-to-the-minute, forward-looking revision that will equip you to catalog any type of resource, print or electronic. For more details, see the flyer/order form. To order in the United States and its territories or to learn about receiving AACR2 updates each year on standing order, please call toll-free 1-866-746-7252.

Preservation of E-Resources

The recent announcement from New Breed Librarian about closing up shop brought to my mind again the preservation problems of electronic resources. There are some articles and interviews at New Breed worth preserving. Will they be available a year from now?

The proposal made by Walt Crawford "Long-Term Access to Library Zines: A Call to Action?" makes sense. Has there been any movement on that idea? Maybe New Breed can perform one final service to our community by getting some action started on this issue.

Dublin Core

Besides initiating processes for the review and approval of new Dublin Core elements and qualifiers, the DCMI Usage Board has revamped the way Dublin Core Metadata Initiative documents its work. The documents currently include:

• Up-to-the-minute listings of all current Elements, Element Refinements, Encoding Schemes, and DCMI Type Vocabulary terms. These will supersede Web documents currently in use as authoritative sources of up-to-date information on DCMI metadata terms.
• For the historically- or archivally-minded, a complete listing of all Elements, Element Refinements, and Encoding Schemes -- including past versions of terms that have been corrected or revised. Each term has a cross-reference to a related Decision, and each such Decision points to supporting documentation in the archive. This master file is used as the source for periodically generating the updated listings.
• DCMI Usage Board Decisions, each of which is numbered for unambiguous identification.
• DCMI Usage Board Review of Application Profiles -- principles and criteria by which the Board will review profiles which use or extend Dublin Core in various ways.

At its latest meeting, held on 12-13 May 2002 in Bath with financial support from JISC, the Usage Board revised and simplified its model for conferring status on terms, making it easier for working groups to put new terms of proven usefulness into the DCMI-maintained namespaces.

The Usage Board now distinguishes the following:

• "Recommended" Elements, Element Refinements, and DCMI Type Vocabulary terms useful for resource discovery across domains.
• "Conforming" Elements and Element Refinements -- terms for which an implementation community has a demonstrated need and which conform to the grammar of Elements and Element Refinements, though without necessarily meeting the stricter criteria of usefulness across domains or usefulness for resource discovery.
• "Registered" Encoding Schemes -- terms which identify parsing rules or controlled vocabularies useful for interpreting particular metadata values. All encoding schemes, new and legacy, have the status of Registered.

Metadata

First Monday has the article "A Metadata Approach to Preservation of Digital Resources: The University of North Texas Libraries' Experience" by Daniel Gelaw Alemneh, Samantha Kelly Hastings, and Cathy Nelson Hartman.

This paper discusses the issues related to digital resources preservation and demonstrates the role of preservation metadata in facilitating the preservation activities in general. In particular, it describes the efforts being made by the UNT libraries to ensure the long-term access and preservation of various digital information resources.

RSS for Acquisitions

A new and rather interesting RSS application is the notification service of Amazon. Using a news aggregator, the link http://www.yaywastaken.com/amazon/amazon-rss.asp?keywords=???? will deliver a list of books. Just replace ???? with the keyword of interest. This could be useful in acquisitions on keeping up on a current topic. For more details see Amazon RSS - books delivered to your news aggregator! A poor title IMHO, it does not deliver books, only information about books.

"Oh, and in the interests of full disclosure, note that I have hooked my Amazon affiliate code up to the links returned by the feed. " Is at the end of the the article. I've nothing against someone picking up a few bucks for being clever and talented, just be aware.

Maybe a library or non-profit could duplicate the feed and either not collect or have it go to a library.

SACO

The Library of Congress’ Cooperative Cataloging Team is pleased to announce that two subject proposal web forms are now available on the SACO Home Page

The web form for new subject heading proposals had been in an experimental phase since 1998 and available only to BIBCO and select contributors to the SACO Program. Since the form’s inception over 3,500 proposals have been processed successfully and internal studies indicate that the majority of these proposals were approved and available to the library community via the OCLC and RLG authority files within 4-6 weeks of submission. The form for proposing changes to existing LCSH headings is newly developed and will continued to undergo development and improvements as contributions and comments are received.

In an effort to expedite the growing number of new and changed proposals the web proposal form is now the mainstream mechanism for processing subject proposals contributed to the SACO Program. Regretfully, there is no “save file” mechanism to facilitate internal review practices and prevent re-keying. Review of all proposals before submitting to the SACO Program is highly encouraged. Coop will continue to accept e-mail proposals; however, resources in Coop can no longer support an expeditious processing of proposals submitted via that mechanism.

To facilitate the approval of a proposed heading, please consult the appropriate LC Subject Cataloging Manual (SCM) instruction sheets and/or the proposal guidelines and FAQs on the SACO home page. Prospective SACO contributors are encouraged to attend the SACO workshops presented in conjunction with ALA before submitting new or changed subject proposals. Proposals that fail to follow the SCM guidelines to a reasonable degree will be deleted without further processing.

To facilitate the processing of the web form proposal read and follow the editorial instructions provided on the form before clicking the submit button. The web form programing is simple and will work best provided that ASCII characters are not used in any field, diacritics are copied and pasted from the list of diacritics linked to the form, and that initial subfields are left off in all fields.

Proposals submitted via the web form will be available for searching through LC web authorities within two working days of receipt.

Comments, questions, suggestions for improvements to the forms, etc. may be sent directly to acri@loc.gov

****************
Ana Lupe Cristán
Acting Team Leader/BIBCO Coordinator
Cooperative Cataloging Team
Library of Congress, LM 537
Washington, DC 20540-4382
tel: 202.707.7921
fax: 202.252.2082

LC Classification

Dear Colleagues,
The Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) wishes to announce that, with the highly successful introduction of Classification Web, Classification Plus, our CD-ROM product, will be discontinued with 2002, Issue 4.

Effective immediately no new full-year subscriptions to Classification Plus or the combination product Classification Plus /Cataloger's Desktop will be taken.

Renewing subscribers must purchase Cataloger's Desktop and Classification Web separately. For details on ordering these products visit the following Web sites:

• Classification Web
• Cataloger's Desktop

Customers who are currently completing subscriptions to Class Plus or the Desktop/Class Plus combination product may switch to Classification Web immediately and apply the remaining portion of their Class Plus subscription to Class Web or switch to Classification Web with the beginning of their next subscription year.

The final two issues of Classification Plus will be available on a prorated basis. For further information check the CDS Web site

Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service,
Customer Services Section
101 Independence Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20541-4912
E-mail: cdsinfo@loc.gov CDS Web site

Cataloging Resources

Anyone who has read AUTOCAT for even a week knows the name McRee (Mac) Elrod. (And if you are not reading AUTOCAT what are you doing here?) I have benefited many times from his clear, considered comments on many cataloging issues. What I never knew was that his Web site, SLC, contains some resources useful to the catalogers. Some of the information is specific to his company and their approach but many of the resources are more general. For example, his "cheat sheets" include:

• Brief Government Documents
• Common MARC Fields
• Cuttering and Years
• Electronic Resource Cataloguing
• Form Subdivisions Coded $v
• Government Documents
• MARC Authority Records
• MARC Punctuation
• MARC Tag Mapping for OPACs
• MARC Title Fields
• Monograph Cataloguing
• Reclassification: DDC to LCC
• Serial Cataloguing
• Selected Cataloguing Tool Acronyms, etc.
• Sound Recording Cataloguing
• Video Cataloguing

Indexing

Improving Usability with a Website Index by Fred Leise.

Indexes are important information-finding tools that can enhance website usability. They offer easy scanning for finding known items, they provide entry points to content using the users’ own vocabulary and they provide access to concepts discussed, but not named, in the text. Perhaps most importantly, site indexes provide direct access to granular chunks of information without the need for traversing multiple links in a hierarchy.

Thanks to Noteworthy for this item.

Comments on this 'Blog

The ability to add comments to the posts is available but has never been used. Is this something that I should eliminate? Or do you feel the ability to comment is useful, even if never used?

NewBreed Librarian

You'll be missed. Thanks for all the work done so well. There is quite a bit in this last issue for cataloging folks.

The last 18 months have been chock-full of sweat and joy as we've worked indefatigably to create a resource we hoped would inspire and resonate with progressive librarians of all ages and at all libraries. Pilgrims that we are, we poured our hearts into this emprise, growing and learning throughout the entire process. But now, even though there's plenty of love left, there's simply not enough time to keep NewBreed Librarian afloat. So, borrowing from Tom, goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchman flame keepers, and goodnight to NewBreed, too.

But we're not leaving you empty-handed - we've got one more issue of NewBreed Librarian to share with you:

• FEATURE: Corey Harper argues that cataloging is a public service
• INTERVIEW: Eric Miller on the Semantic Web
• PEOPLE: Fiona Bradley, Aussie music librarian
• TECHTALK: What's new and cool in library technology
• ASK SUSU: How do you propose a new subject heading?

MARC Tools

I've added links to MARC tools in the sidebar. If you know of any I've missed, please let me know.

OPACs & the Web

The Catalog vs. The Homepage Best Practices in Connecting to Online Resources by Georgia Briscoe, Karen Selden, and Cheryl Nyberg. Includes a Powerpoint presentation from American Association of Law Libraries 95th Annual Meeting, Selected Web Sites of Interest and bibliography.

NISO

NISO Z39.7-2002 Draft Standard for Trial Use Information Services and Use: Metrics & statistics for libraries and information providers--Data Dictionary

This standard identifies categories for basic library statistical data at the national level, and provides associated definitions of terms. In doing so it deals with the following areas: reporting unit and target population, human resources, collection resources, infrastructure, finances, and services. The standard is not intended to be comprehensive in scope. Instead, it presents a framework for comparable library data by describing common elements pertaining to libraries of various types in the US. It does not address detailed statistics for specific areas where it seems more appropriate for experts in those areas to make recommendations (e.g., music, government documents, maps). The standard also integrates metrics for electronic network use (e-metrics) into each section as appropriate.

XLM & Dublin Core

A new version of the "Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML" document is available. The principal change in this version is to Recommendation 7 in line with the conventions adopted in the proposed XML schemas for qualified DC.

Comments on this proposal can be posted on the DC-Architecture list until 16 August 2002

XLM & Dublin Core

Proposed XML Schema for Qualified Dublin Core is now available for Comment.

A small group has been working together to formulate a proposed XML schema for qualified Dublin Core. This work builds on a number of efforts including the joint work by the OAI and DCMI that led to the release of an XML schema for unqualified Dublin Core and the metadata work within the Harmony Project.

The proposal is available.

Comments on this proposal can be posted on the DC-Architecture list until 16 August 2002.

Open Source ILS

This from the Koha mail list. More details at the Koha site

Koha 1.2.2 has been released. Special thanks (again) to Steve Tonnesen, who drove this release to completion. 1.2.2 is a significant bug squashing release.

Many people have combined in testing this release, and we expect it to be the best Koha yet!

We encourage you to get this new release and give it a spin. We think you'll like what you see. We plan on continuing to improve Koha, and would love to have you come along on this exciting journey.

As always, downloads and more information are available from Sourceforge.

Weeding

On Library Stuff, there is an article about the Toledo Public School libraries outdated collection "Imagine the world before the Vietnam War, before men on the moon, back when cloning only appeared in fiction. Imagine a world unaffected by the changes of the last few decades." This is inexcusable, were these libraries run by professionals?

The Sunlink Weed of the Month Club is an excellent resource to help keep the collection current.

OAI

GNU Eprints (EP) 2.1, free software which creates web-based archives containing documents and metadata, was released in early July. EP 2.1 supports OAI 2.0 and still supports OAI 1.1 as well. EP 2.1's new subscription service allows registered users to store one or more searchers. Eprints' name change to GNU Eprints reflects its acceptance into the GNU project. Eprints allows organizations to create web-based archives (e-print services) for their research articles, lecture notes and other documents and associated metadata.

From SPARC e-news June-July 2002.

Advanced Search Facility

The Advanced Search Facility is an open source project worth notice. It supports MARC, GILS, XML, FGDC, Dublin Core, PICS and other standards. It also provides support for Z39.50.

The Advanced Search Facility provides tools for gathering and organizing information within and among information communities. If you want to:

• Collect information and publish on the Internet
  -- ASF provides a search facility for the collection
• Point to information elsewhere on the Internet
  -- ASF provides a "gatherer" to index other Web information resources and files
• Point to information not on the Internet or more complex than text documents
  -- ASF provides for building locator records for all manner of information resources
• Bridge among multiple information communities
  -- ASF provides for referral of searches within and between information communities

Publishing

Washington, DC - SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today released a major white paper, "The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper," which examines the strategic roles institutional repositories serve for colleges and universities. The paper asserts that institutional repositories are a natural extension of an academic institution's role as a generator of primary research, and envisions such repositories as critical components in the evolving structure of scholarly communication. It is available in HTML and PDF.

Z39.50

Here is the announcement of a new mail list for Bookwhere users, a popular Z39.50 client.

Hello BookWhere users,

Over the past few years the Bookwhere list has been used almost exclusively by Sea Change to communicate about new releases of the software. As a vendor run and moderated list it tends to be both quiet and uncritical of the product.

Many software packages have lists that are independent of the software vendor. These lists tend to be a lot more dynamic that the vendor run lists and really present a way for the user community to communicate directly with each other.

I've just established an independent, un-moderated "Unofficial BookWhere list" to provide you with an opportunity to communicate directly with other BookWhere users. The list can be used to discuss just about anything related to the product.

In case you're wondering who I am, my name is Paul Nixon and until recently I was in charge of the BookWhere product at Sea Change. I now run Neptune8.com which is an Authorized Reseller of BookWhere and other products. I'll be a regular contributor to the list and hope to offer tips and insights into the product.

Information on how to join this new list

By the way, there is information on this BookWhere list

I look forward to seeing you on the new list!
----------------------------------------------
Paul Nixon
Toll Free:(888)369-8889
Neptune8 Corporation
www.neptune8.com
pnixon@neptune8.com
(905)474-5285
Fax (905)474-3820

XML & MARC

XML and bibliographic data: the TVS (Transport, Validation and Services) model by Joaquim de Carvalho and Maria Ines Cordeiro.

This paper discusses the role of XML in library information systems at three major levels: as a representation language that enables the transport of bibliographic data in a way that is technologically independent and universally understood across systems and domains; as a language that enables the specification of complex validation rules according to a particular data format such as MARC; and, finally, as a language that enables the description of services through which such data can be exploited in alternative modes that overcome the limitations of the classical client-server database services. The key point of this paper is that by specifying requirements for XML usage at these three levels, in an articulated but distinct way, a much needed clarification of this area can be achieved. The authors conclude by stressing the importance of advancing the use of XML in the real practice of bibliographic services, in order to improve the interoperable capabilities of existing bibliographic data assets and to advance the WWW integration of bibliographic systems on a sound basis.

Thanks to pate at /usr/lib/info to directing me to this.

FRBR

“Furber” Debuts at ALA Exhibits" By David Dorman. If I had any doubt that cataloging theory could make a real difference for the library patron, it was dispelled at this year’s ALA Annual Conference." Notice of the award given to Seymour Lubetsky and ILS systems beginning to implement FRBR.

Ontologies

Deborah L. McGuinness. "Ontologies Come of Age". To appear in Dieter Fensel, Jim Hendler, Henry Lieberman, and Wolfgang Wahlster, editors. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press, 2002.

In this paper, we will discuss ontologies and requirements in their current instantiations on the web today. We will describe some desirable properties of ontologies. We will also discuss how both simple and complex ontologies are being and may be used to support varied applications. We will conclude with a discussion of emerging trends in ontologies and their environments and briefly mention our evolving ontology evolution environment.

Serials

The proceedings of the NASIG annual conference are now available to members online. They will be published as The Serials Librarian Volume 42, Numbers 1/2 and 3/4 (2001). Some of the items of interest to catalogers include:

• Taming the Aggregators: Providing Access to Journals in Aggregator Databases by John Riemer and Jina Choi Wakimoto
• Journal Holdings Lists on Web Sites: Designs That Non-Specialized Staff Can Build and Maintain by Susan E. Pulsipher
• Cataloging Web Resources on the OCLC-CORC: Issues Identified in an Empirical Study by Tschera Harkness Connell
• Using the ONIX Standard to Manage Serials by Brian Green
• Providing Web-Based Listings of Electronic Journal Titles the Low-Maintenance Way; or, Automating Ourselves Out of a Job by Rob Withers and Rob Casson

The North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) is an organization that is a best buy. Dues are only $25.00 a year, benefits far outweigh that cost.

LC Cataloging

The Library of Congress has a severe shortage of catalogers. They have finally started advertising to fill the positions. If interested the position description and application are both available. Due to poor mail service at LC, they suggest applying online.

Not Cataloging, Reference

Last week I attended the Summer Workshop for Distance Learning Librarians, a week of training on providing service to remote patrons. Very well done and interesting. One session was on using Chat for reference. I was surprised to see how many libraries are doing this. I was given the opportunity to try it, and found it easy. This was my first time to use Chat. I can see how it can become a part of reference service with little training and investment in equipment.

A good introduction to the topic is "Digital Reference" at the Teaching Librarian. It gives an overview, describes the technologies, links to other sites and links to libraries using Chat for reference.

XML

World Wide Web Consortium Issues Exclusive Canonical XML as a W3C Recommendation.

This specification augments the previous Canonical XML Recommendation to better enable a portion of an XML document (i.e., a fragment) to be as portable as possible while preserving the digital signature. It works in combination with XML Signatures, the W3C Recommendation produced jointly by W3C and the IETF in February, representing cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language for digital signatures.

Exclusive XML Canonicalization meets this need by providing a method of serializing an XML fragment into a portable and canonical form. This functionality, when combined with XML Signature, is critical for electronic commerce because it ensures the integrity of documents and protocol messages that travel between multiple XML processors.

Ensuring the document is authentic is also important in academic research. This is an important piece of structure.

OCLC

OCLC-Cat is a discussion forum for library staff using or considering any OCLC cataloging and metadata services, such as WebDewey, Passport, CatME, Connexion, and MARS.

TEI

"The Text Encoding Initiative invites proposals for the development and delivery of training courses and materials to be recognized by the TEI. We invite interested parties to contact us or submit proposals in writing that will meet the training needs of the community. We are committed to working with one or more parties to help develop the proposals so that they can be certified by the Text Encoding Initiative."

Electronic Records Research

FOS News broght this to my attention. The 25 questions will help the NHPRC set priorities.

The State Archives Department of the Minnesota Historical Society is managing an effort to revisit and analyze the electronic records research agenda currently guiding the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

XML

A List Apart has the paper "Using XML by J David Eisenberg.

More than a rulebook for generating your own markup, XML is part of a family of technologies that work together in powerful ways. Eisenberg demonstrates some of that power by creating an XML-based markup language from scratch and transforming it for a variety of formats, using nothing but his noggin and some off-the-shelf tools.

Cataloging & Search Engines

Here is an interesting article comparing search engines and OPACs. Before the comparison, there is much discussion of the purpose of the catalog and how it is achieved. "On the Theory of Library Catalogs and Search Engines" by B. Eversberg.

CONSER

The latest issue of CONSERline, No. 21, Summer 2002, is available.

• From the editor
• Jean Hirons awarded Margaret Mann citation
• Chapter 12 is almost here!
• SCCTP update
• CONSER publication pattern initiative sets future directions
• Highlights from the CONSER Operations Committee meeting
• CONSER people

Distance Learning

Next week I'll be attending the Summer Workshop for Distance Learning Librarians. I'd love to hear any suggestions on how distance affects cataloging. My initial assumption is that good complete cataloging is more important in a distance environment. The user cannot easily scan the shelves in an area. Nor can they pick up an item and flip through to see if it what they need. TOC's, abstracts, references to reviews and links become more important. Any other thoughts?

Since I'll be in class all day and I expect readings in the evening, postings here may be made less often.

Open Source

A very interesting looking book is now available from LITA, Open Source Software for Libraries

This guide introduces the reader to OSS and how it could benefit libraries, and illustrates this with a variety of library projects that have both used and developed Open Source Software. Includes practical information on installation of the software and links to additional resources.

One of the chapters is "Managing MARC with Open Source Software" by Kevin Clarke.

IFLA

IFLAThe latest issue of SCATNews: Newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Cataloguing is available in PDF format. News of the section and news from Australia.

ISBD(M)

The IFLA Section on Cataloguing's ISBD Review Group is pleased to announce publication of the 2002 Version of the International Standard Bibliographic Description for Monographic Publications (ISBD(M)). The document is available in PDF format on IFLANET. This version incorporates changes necessary to make the provisions of this ISBD consistent with the "optionality" features described in IFLA's Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), published in 1998.

In general FRBR produced recommendations to make "optional" certain data elements hitherto considered "mandatory". In the new version of ISBD(M), inclusion of a data element is considered "mandatory" in all cases for certain data elements, and in other cases is considered "mandatory" when necessary for identification of the publication being described or otherwise considered important to users of a bibliography or a catalogue. To facilitate the application of the practices stipulated, ISBD(M) designates particular data elements as optional, i.e. a cataloguing agency is free to choose to include or exclude these elements. The policy is further explained within the document at 0.1.3, and a review of the Outline provided at paragraph 0.3.2 will reveal which data elements are optional.

The 2002 revision of the ISBD(M) will be published only on the Internet because the ISBD Review Group views it as an interim document subject to further review and revision in the near term. This continued attention to its provisions will be undertaken in an effort to take into consideration changes to national and multi-national cataloguing codes resulting from the need to adjust practices to fit the evolution of publications that has occurred in recent years -- in particular, the emergence of electronic resources. The Review Group is hopeful that the investigations and rule changes resulting from these code revision activities will facilitate its efforts to maintain the currency of the ISBDs as well.

jbyr@loc.gov

John Byrum, Jr., Chair, ISBD Review Group
Chief, Regional & Cooperative Cataloging
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540-4380
USA
Tel: +(202) 707-6511
Fax: +(202) 707-2824

LC Cataloging

With the approval of the Board of ALA's Reference User Services Association (RUSA), the Library of Congress has begun adding to its catalog records the annotations for the sites selected annually by the RUSA Machine Assisted Reference Section (MARS), Best Free Web Sites Committee. The lists, which have been compiled since 1999, appear in the fall issue of the RUSA Quarterly and on the ALA RUSA MARS website. Usually, 25-30 sites are selected each year. The Library of Congress project to add the annotations has been undertaken under the auspices of the Library's Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT), a cross-departmental R & D group whose mission includes enriching the content of Library of Congress bibliographic records. The project follows a similar on-going undertaking to add annotations to the catalog records for the titles included in the annual list of print Outstanding Reference Sources produced by the ALA RUSA Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES). Additional information about BEAT projects is available from the BEAT web site.

jbyr@loc.gov

John D. Byrum, Jr.
Chief, Regional & Cooperative Cataloging
Library of Congress
Washington, D. C. 20540-4380
USA
Tel: +(202) 707-6511
Fax: +(202) 707-2824

UNIMARC

MARC21 and AARC are both not as clear as they could be on some topics. That is why there are the large binders with the LCRIs in cataloging departments. On a couple of these topics IFLA has provided guidance, it might be useful to review their guidelines as well as the Library of Congress Rule Interpertations.

Guidelines for Using UNIMARC for Component Parts The following guideline indicates how the UNIMARC format is to be used when creating records for two types of component parts: journal articles and articles in books. The focus here is on articles, although the treatment of other components that are one part of a larger physical piece would follow the same model.

Guidelines for Using UNIMARC for Microforms The following Guidelines indicate how the UNIMARC format is to be used when creating records for items which appear in the original hard copy publication and microreproduction forms. The focus here is on microforms, although the treatment of different kinds of reproduction would follow the same model.

Persistent URL

There is another PURL service available U-ID. This is a for profit organization. Seems to me the OCLC PURL system would be a better option for libraries. There is the need for these services. I just wonder why the OCLC service has not caught on more widely. The service there is free and so is the software to start your own service. When it first appeared I thought state libraries would establish PURL servers for their library systems and scholarly organizations would do the same for their fields. Hasn't happened.

A good introduction to persistent URL's is "URLs, PURLs & TRULs : Link Maintenance in the Web-accessible OPAC" by Tom Tyler. Or see my "Persistent Links, One Solution to a Common Problem"

MARC21

The updated proposals and discussion paper from the ALA Annual 2002 meetings of the MARC Advisory Committee are now available from the MARC Web site. They include a brief review of the discussion and status of the paper.

The updated papers are located at:

Proposal No. 2002-13

Discussion Paper No. 2002-DP08

Proposal No. 2002-11

Proposal No. 2002-06R

Proposal No. 2002-12

Proposal No. 2002-15

Proposal No. 2002-14

Proposal No. 2002-10

Proposal No. 2001-10R

Sincerely,

Jackie Radebaugh

Network Development and MARC Standards Office
Library of Congress
Washington, DC
USA
Phone: +1-202-707-1153
Fax: +1-202-707-0115
E-Mail: jrad@loc.gov