Library On-Line Forum

Between the Stacks "is an online community for all information professionals, from library assistants to library directors. BTS provides a common area where ideas and support can be shared."

I spent some time checking it out and made a few postings. It is interesting to see how each of these different forms of communication each have their own rules and etiquette. IM and chat allow the worst spelling and grammar and have a whole world of abbreviations, none of which would be acceptable anywhere else. Even though forums have been around quite some time, I first looked at them on Fidonet, I'm not used to the ethos. Just how it will fit into my overall effort to communicate and keep current remains to be seen. Another issue is the technology, I've not played with it yet. Can there be RSS feeds from topics? Would be nice. How about receiving postings via e-mail? Could I post using e-mail? If not on this software, how about another? Or would these techniques ruin the purpose of a common meeting place?

Dewey

Some free software from the Dewey Classification folks.

Dewey Cutter Software. Software program that automatically provides cutter numbers from the OCLC Four-Figure Cutter Tables (Cutter Four-Figure Table and Cutter-Sanborn Four-Figure Table) upon input of text. Works with Windows 95, 98, NT, XP, and 2000.

Dewey Screen Saver A screen saver to load on your PC to view the ten main classes of the DDC. Works with Windows NT, 95, 98, and 2000.

MARC21

Update No. 3 (October 2002) to the MARC 21 Format for Classification Data is now available from the Library of Congress. It includes changes made to the classification format resulting from proposals which were considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RUSA Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) at its 2002 meetings and by the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM) at its meetings in 2002. This update features important new information including:

• Addition of field 748 (Index term -- Chronological)
• Updated examples
• Improved descriptions of content designators

Keeping Up with Changes

Sometimes in cataloging it is important to track a Web site for changes. I have link checking software, Xenu, but that only lets me know when the site has moved or been taken down. I had been using Infominder for tracking changes to important pages, but then they began charging. I've been without a tracking tool for several months. Now, thanks to Steve at Library Stuff, I have a new tool, WatchThatPage.

WatchThatPage is a service that enables you to automatically collect new information from your favorite pages on the Internet. You select which pages to monitor, and WatchThatPage will find which pages have changed, and collect all the new content for you. The new information is presented to you in an email and/or a personal web page. You can specify when the changes will be collected, so they are fresh when you want to read them. The service is free!

Marc21

Update No. 3 (October 2002) to the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data is now available from the Library of Congress. It includes changes made to the bibliographic format resulting from proposals which were considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RUSA Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) at its 2002 meetings and by the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM) at its meetings in 2002. This update features important new information including:

• Addition of field 026 (Fingerprint identifier)
• Addition of subfield $u (Uniform resource identifier) in fields 506 and 540
• Addition of the second indicator values in field 655
• Updated examples
• Improved descriptions of content designators

MARC21

Update No. 3 (October 2002) to the MARC 21 Format for Authority Data is now available from the Library of Congress. It includes changes made to the authority format resulting from proposals which were considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RUSA Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) at its meetings in 2002 and by the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM) at its 2002 meetings. This update features important new information including:

• Addition of field 065 (Other classification number)
• Addition of subfield $u (Uniform Resource Identifier) in field 670
• Updated examples
• Improved descriptions of content designators

MARC21

Update No. 3 (October 2002) to the MARC 21 Format for Holdings Data is now available from the Library of Congress. It includes changes made to the holdings format resulting from proposals which were considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RUSA Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) at its 2002 meetings and by the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM) at its meetings in 2002. This update features important new information including:

• Addition of field 563 (Binding information)
• Addition of subfields $n (Pattern note) and $p (Number of pieces per issuance) in fields 853-855
• Updated examples
• Improved descriptions of content designators

MARC21

Update No. 3 (October 2002) to the MARC 21 Format for Community Information is now available from the Library of Congress. It includes changes made to the community information format resulting from proposals which were considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RUSA Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) at its 2002 meetings and by the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM) at its meetings in 2002. This update features important new information including:

• Addition of field 648 (Subject added entry -- Chronological term)
• Improved descriptions of content designators
• Updated examples

Does anyone use this format? For the type of information it contains I think I'd opt to use GILS, unless the information was to be in the OPAC. However, how many OPACs can handle Community Information and display it nicely? I used to see ads for a company that sold MARC records for national level community information services. I haven't seen them in a while. Has Google put an end to their service? I think if I wanted to contact an organization dealing with liver disease I'd do a Web search, not check out the local the local library catalog.

Dewey

There are Classification Tips for Dewey available. Scroll down past the Web Dewey tips and there is the listing of tips. They do give the tips cute names, so it is sometimes difficult to know what the topic is. A few include:

• Plain Planes
• Standing Room
• Amazing Grace
• Swimming Upstream
• Good Grief
• Time Periods
• Significant Expansion
• Medical Research

Faceted Classification

Matthew Eberle at Library Techlog has provided a useful set of links on faceted classification and XFML. He has links to examples, articles and the standards. Thanks Matthew.

Serials

The AACR2, 2002 Revision: Chapter 12, etc.- presentation by Judy Kuhagen in Denver, Colorado, Sept. 19, 2002 is now available on-line. This is nice, it has a panel for notes, as well as the slides. There are over 100 slides, so this is not a quick read.

Type of Material

The latest Cataloging Service Bulletin had LCRI 1.0, "What is Being Cataloged" This is also on-line as Monograph, Serial, or Integrating Resource: Guidelines for Making the Decision in PDF format. It gives LC policy on issues that are unclear.

Hong Kong

Ian Fairclough thought worthy of notice. Hong Kong and the City of Victoria have had some major changes in the past decade. This affects their subject headings, country codes and language codes.

CONSER

2001/2002 CONSER Annual Report is now available. Even if you are not a CONSER member it is good to read the report, since CONSER rules have a tendency to spread. They are looking at FRBR, PURLs, and single records. Publication patterns and training are also concerns.

Information

Currently I'm reading Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger. He makes an interesting point about information that we (or at least me) often overlook. There are times we want just the facts, but most often we what more than that. The Web isn't interesting because there are many facts there, but rather because there are interesting people there. At a party, the person spouting facts, we avoid. The person telling jokes, stories or even his opinion is whom we seek. So it is on the Web. I read Library Stuff and The Shifted Librarian not for the facts but because Steven and Jenny are never boring. If I was at a conference, I'd want to sit at their table for lunch and not because I agree with them on everything.

Libraries and our catalogs tend to be "just the facts" places. There is no place in a MARC record for an opinion. Amazon has a place for reviews and comments. Maybe, we should consider this for our catalogs. It would be messy, but maybe richer and more interesting.

Serials

NISO and EDItEUR to Set Serials Exchange Standard. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and EDItEUR are establishing a Joint Working Party (JWP) to explore the development of a common standard format for the exchange of serials subscription information.

A NISO White Paper released in September 2002 reported that libraries, content aggregators, publishers, and third party service providers are increasingly exchanging information about serials subscription. The White Paper indicated that a standard exchange format would be beneficial to all parties in the supply chain and identified ONIX for Serials as a good foundation for such an exchange format.

The NISO/EDItEUR group will begin work in November 2002 and will be tasked to:

• Recommend specific enhancements to the ONIX for Serials schema and documentation to support exchange of serials subscription information
• Recommend how the query/response scenarios can be accommodated within the emerging EDItEUR framework for transaction-based exchange
• Plan, organize and coordinate a pilot project involving publishers, intermediaries, and libraries to demonstrate the feasibility of using ONIX for Serials as an exchange format for serials subscription information

The Joint Working Party will be co-chaired by Priscilla Caplan, a member of the NISO Standards Development Committee and Assistant Director of the Florida Center for Library Automation, Gainesville FL and Richard Gedye, Journals Sales and Marketing Director, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK.

Thanks Ian for passing this on.

OCLC

News from OCLC. Using OCLC Connexion: An OCLC Tutorial is now available! This tutorial provides both an introduction to Connexion and a workflow-oriented approach to searching and cataloging. Within the tutorial, you can print review pages and use them later for online practice or as job-aids. The tutorial is suitable for existing and new OCLC cataloging users as well as cataloging users migrating from Passport. The tutorial is web-based and is best viewed with Internet Explorer version 4.01 or higher.

Writing

If you ever thought of writing a novel, now is the time. November is National Novel Writing Month

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

OPML

I've added the standard, Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML), to the list at the left. (I've yet to move everything over to the right side. One of these days....) It is an XML standard for outliners.

The purpose of this format is to provide a way to exchange information between outliners and Internet services that can be browsed or controlled through an outliner.

The design goal is to have a transparently simple, self-documenting, extensible and human readable format that's capable of representing a wide variety of data that's easily browsed and edited. As the format evolves this goal will be preserved. It should be possible for a reasonably technical person to fully understand the format with a quick read of a single Web page.