Classification

This news is a bit old but still worth mentioning, Classification Web from the Library of Congress now has LC Subject Heading & Dewey Classification Correlations and LC Classification & Dewey Classification Correlations. It is not a replacement for the Dewey schedules but a nice enhancement to an already useful tool.

Authority Records and School Standards

A group of school librarians here in Texas are adding standards to the subject authority records to enhance retrival by teachers. The TexasLink Project then makes the enhanced authority records available to all school libraris in the state.

The purpose of the TEKSLink Project is to provide a tangible link between the materials located in the library media center and the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) standards used in the classroom.

The principle behind TEKSLink is simple: materials are accessed through subject headings in the automated catalog. Books about rain can be looked up by typing "rain" into a subject search. The drawback to this method is that the teacher might not think of all the subjects related to a certain TEKS standard when he or she is ready to teach it, and looking up each subject heading is tedious.

TEKSLink provides the link between the standards and subject headings. By amending the authority record of the library catalog, a teacher can search by TEKS in the catalog, and the resulting materials are available in his or her campus library.

Form & Genre Listing

The AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway has compiled a listing of forms and genres of the manifestations of works. Creator roles is in process.

Ian, thanks for the pointer.

Metadata

Metadata and cataloging practices by Magda El-Sherbini and George Klim appears in The Electronic Library (2004) vol. 22 no. 3, pp 238-248.

Metadata standards existing today range from very complex to very simple. Relative simplicity or complexity of metadata standards depends in large part on the resources for which they were created and the depth of description that is deemed necessary to make these resources accessible. This paper reviews the differences between metadata standards and current cataloging practices, and discusses how the various metadata standards are applied in libraries. In addressing these issues, the authors introduce definitions of key concepts of metadata and cataloging standards and provide an overview of the most common metadata schemes. The discussion of current cataloging practices includes an overview of the most commonly used cataloging practices and standards, the impact of metadata on library practice and the role of librarians related to metadata. The authors will discuss the OHIOLINK Electronic Thesis and Dissertations (ETD) as an example of how Anglo-American Cataloging Rules 2nd (AACR2) and Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC21) are used as metadata to store, describe and access this unique information resource.

Federated Searching

Integration of Non-OAI Resources for Federated Searching in DLIST, an Eprints Repository by Anita Coleman, Paul Bracke and S. Karthik appears in the latest issue of D-Lib Magazine.

Federated, distributed, and broadcast searches on the Internet depend on an underlying common metadata framework by which the information resources to be searched are organized. The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is designed to facilitate searches across OAI-compliant databases. Software such as Arc allow service providers to offer federated searching of multiple, OAI-compliant resources. The majority of web-accessible information resources, however, are not OAI-compliant. This article describes a process whereby readily available open source tools and customized scripts were developed for integrating metadata from non-OAI compliant repositories for a federated search. The work described is being carried out as part of the development of the Digital Library of Information Science and Technology (DLIST), an Eprints repository.

Open Source Projects

DOAP (Description Of A Project) is a project to create an XML/RDF vocabulary to describe open source projects. There is a DOAP-a-matic tool for creating DOAP records and a reader and validator are in progress.

Catalogs

Here are some freely available programs that could act as a library catalog.

• CERN Document Server Software
• Rapid Visual OAI Tool
• OpenBiblio
• iVia
• Koha
• PHPMyLibrary
• CDS/ISIS

OLAC

I've received the latest OLAC Newsletter in the mail. Always worth reading. A reminder, this is the conference year, I've never made it but it always looks so very worth the time, money and effort.

TechKnow

The June issue of TechKnow includes

• Establishing an LCSH Subject Heading by Jane Myers
• Editing Sensational 520 Fields by Amey Park

This is a very well done publication. Maybe they could provide an RSS feed? That would prevent me missing an issue or even getting it late.

Authority Control

L'authority control in un contesto universitario: una scelta obbligata [Versione italiana presentata alla Conferenza internazionale] = The authority control in the Academic context: a Hobson's choice [English version presented at the International Conference] by Guido Badalamenti (2003) In Proceedings International Conference Authority Control: Definition and International Experiences, Florence (Italy). Full text available as:

• PDF (English text)
• PDF (Italian text)

The control and standardization of cataloguing access is a subject that has always been present in the academic libraries' services organization. This control has been apparent in both the cataloguing context and in the setting up of OPAC tools that are coherent and adequate for the users, enabling students and researchers to conduct easy and thorough searches of the bibliographic collection. The problem of authority control is more apparent in larger libraries than in those of smaller size as it is easier to "control" the search results in smaller libraries. However the increased use of the net has highlighted the need to improve the quality of the results of bibliographic researches. In the last few years this need has been felt more strongly because of the introduction of important projects involved in the conversion of cards catalogues and for the of retrospective cataloguing onto information mediums.

MARC & Metadata

Volume 22 Issue 2 of Library Hi Tech is the second part of the metadata special issues.

• Title: Using XSLT to manipulate MARC metadata by Corey Keith
• Meta-information about MARC: an XML framework for validation+ explanation and help systems by Joaquim Ramos de Carvalho; Maria Inês Cordeiro; António Lopes; Miguel Vieira
• Creating metadata practices for MIT's OpenCourseWare Project by Rebecca L Lubas; Robert H.W. Wolfe; Maximilian Fleischman
• Medium or message? A new look at standards+ structures+ and schemata for managing electronic resources by Sharon E Farb; Angela Riggio
• Repurposing MARC metadata: using digital project experience to develop a metadata management design by Martin Kurth; David Ruddy; Nathan Rupp
• Future considerations: the functional library systems record by Karen Coyle
• A bibliographic metadata infrastructure for the twenty-first century by Roy Tennant

Typos

Paradise Lost is Found: Typographical Errors in Online Catalogs by Wendee Eyler appears in ASSOCIATES (vol. 10, no. 3, March 2004) "Finding and correcting Milton's "Pradise lost" gives the same satisfaction as adding a new title to UCR's collection."