Collection Statistics

Benchmark is a free, for the basic service, tool for getting collection statistics. It does a comparison to Blue Ribbon schools and then shows collection strengths and weaknesses based on that comparison. It uses Dewey, not LCC and is geared to schools, not public, academic nor special library collections. Advanced reports are available for a price.

Ranganathan

An Introduction to the Thought of S.R. Ranganathan for Information Architects

There is, however, much that the practicing IA can take from Ranganathan. Besides exploring concepts such as the Five Laws or practices such as facet analysis, Ranganathan was also a diligent evangelist of getting information to people who needed it, and he thought deeply about the problems he faced from all sides. There is still a lot that needs to be done to build up the field of information architecture; Ranganathan may help us the most by serving as inspiration.

Blake at LISnews posted this item.

Metadata

The National Library of Medicine has developed the NLM Metadata Schema. It is based on Dublin Core. It is to be used with electronic resources published by the Library.

MARC Character Set

After many years and several thwarted attempts at getting the American National Standard for Extended Latin (ANSI/NISO Z39.47) character set assigned an escape sequence for use according to ISO 2022 in MARC 21 records, the international Registration Authority has finally made an assignment which allows users to designate and invoke the ANSEL extended Latin set as a graphic character set. For those of you who understand the workings of character sets in MARC records, you will know that this is good news.

The hexadecimal value assigned to be used as the final character in an ISO 2022 escape sequences to designate and invoke ANSEL is:

hex 45 [represented graphically by the Latin letter capital E]

For many years the MARC 21 Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, and Exchange Media have indicated that the final character for escape sequences for ANSEL was not assigned. The first registration request forwarded by NISO to the Registration Authority was delayed by other American bodies who objected to the inclusion of mappings of ANSEL characters to ISO/IEC 10646 characters and the call to revise the registration process itself. The most recent submission of ANSEL for assignment of an escape sequence made its way through the registration process and the final byte of the escape sequence was registered on September 26, 2002.

The Network Development and MARC Standards Office would like to thank the people at NISO, RLG, and Everson Typography who helped get this assignment through the registration process. Although a small detail in the larger context of MARC character encodings, it was a void that we have long wanted to fill.

Information about this new escape sequence will be added to the online version of the MARC 21 Specifications as well as the next printed edition of that document.

From the MARC mail list.

NLM Classification

The National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce the availability of the 2002 edition of the National Library of Medicine Classification. Beginning with 2002 the NLM Classification is being published annually in electronic form only. Publication of printed editions ceased with the 5th revised edition, 1999.

The Index to the NLM Classification consists primarily of MeSH® concepts used in cataloging. It includes concepts first appearing in the latest edition of MeSH and other older concepts as warranted by literature cataloged. Schedule numbers are added or revised to reflect changes in the biomedical and related sciences.

The new online environment offers many advantages over print, including hyperlinks between terms and the MeSH Browser and class numbers; however, the biggest improvement will be in NLM's ability to keep the Classification current with changes in MeSH.

Christa F.B. Hoffmann
Head, Cataloging Section
Technical Services Division
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894
301-496-5497
Fax: 301-402-1211
voicemail: 301-496-7135
email: CHRISTA_HOFFMANN at nlm.nih.gov

I've replaced the @ symbol inn the address with "at" to prevent spam.--D.B.

Hyperlinks

The latest issue of First Monday has the paper Hypertext Links: Whither Thou Goest, and Why by Claire Harrison.

The link is the basic element of hypertext, and researchers have long recognized that links provide semantic relationships for users. Yet little work has been done to understand the nature of these relationships, particularly in conjunction with the purposes of organizational/informational Web sites. This paper explores the semantic and rhetorical principles underlying link development and proposes a systematic, comprehensive classification of link types that would be of use to researchers and Web production teams.

Profession

A nice article on the cataloger for the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem, Beyond the Title Page.

Thanks to Bibliolatry for bring it to my attention.

FGDC Metadata Workbook

The FGDC Metadata Workbook has a new version available.

The workbook complies with the latest version of the FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM), FGDC-STD-001-1998 and contends both textual and color graphical information about the FGDC CSDGM including background information, how to read and use the Standard, a color graphical and textual representation of the content information of the Standard, a description of Profiles and User Defined Metadata Extensions, and some metadata examples.

Marc Tags

The Tag of the Month for October is the leader, 000.

Cataloging Tips

Here is a resource just too good to keep in Texas, Cataloging Tips written by Dr. Joanna F. Fountain. Tips include:

• Cataloging videos with multiple programs
• Reading Program Information
• Using Publishers' Names in Cataloging Records - Field 260
• MARC Agency Codes in Cataloging Records - Field 040
• Sometimes it's useful to know some things NOT to do
• Selected Genre Terms (MARC21 field 655)
• Records for Web Sites
• Classification of Software
• Award info in MARC records
• Importing templates into MARC Magician ™
• Core-level Template for Books
• Questions about "p. cm." in the 300a subfield
• Record-numbering Protocols
• Electronic Resources
• Free downloading of MARC21 Records from the Library of Congress
• Page Count Entries for MARC21 Records
• Multiple Publisher Entries for Cataloging Records
• Caldecott Medal/Honor Award
• More about fiction numbers
• Filing French & Spanish titles
• Where can I find a list of LCSH subdivisions?
• ISBN Cataloging Tip
• Sets of Encyclopedias

These were written in response to questions posed by school librarian. They are written so that a one-person librarian, one responsible for reference, acquisition, BI, as well as cataloging could understand and benefit from them. A few have details specific to the Texas Education Agency's union catalog.

Educational Metadata

I notice I've never mentioned the IMS Learning Resource Meta-Data Information Model. That has now been corrected.

Library System

The PhpMyLibrary Version 2.0.0 has been released. This new version now has an online reservation feature. Open source.

This will allow borrowers to reserve the book they want to borrow online. The Python polGenSQL program was also included to speed up the importing of MARC records. A Nuke-like themes system has been adapted. Post/PHP Nuke themes can be used even if on a non-nuked site. This is now a full package library automation software which consists of three core modules and the WebOPAC, Cataloging, and Reservation modules.