TMEA

I've recovered from TMEA last week. The Texas Music Educators Association's annual conference had over 10,000 people in attendance. Tech was low to non-existent. It is a very different conference than most I attend. Folk dancing is not a session I expect to see at a library conference. Many of the sessions were about doing something not listening to someone, or watching something but doing it oneself. These experiences are not easily communicated, so (IMHO) the low level of tech use. I'd much rather do a Hora than write about it being done, or even watch a video of it. Same thing with the sight reading sessions. I saw one tablet PC in the poster sessions, a place Ph.D. students get to show their research. A couple of folks had laptops, no PDAs, mine stayed in my pocket the entire conference. There was WiFi at the convention center, but little use was made of it. Here were over 10,000 folks having a wonderful conference with very little in the way of computing power. I'm not sure even blogging it after the fact would be of much use. A list of the dances conveys little of the session. Even if I gave my opinions of the dances, the Armenian Misealu was wonderful, that would not capture the event. It would take a real writer, not just a reporter to capture TMEA. No blogs, nor RSS, nor PowerPoint, not even the Semantic Web. Merely people coming together to share by doing.

RedLightGreen

Recent changes and improvements to RedLightGreen.

• New links to thousands of libraries -- now it's easier to check your library for books you find in RedLightGreen
• Firefox plugin -- you can make RedLightGreen one of the choices
  in your Firefox toolbar

It is possible to add your library, if it is not currently available.

Cartographic Materials

I just noticed that the SMD relief model has been shortened to model. While technically correct, I do think the older term more descriptive and less confusing.

RSS Tool

The ListGarden RSS Feed Generator Program, looks interesting. I'm always interested in tools for structuring metadata

Features:

• Creates and maintains RSS feeds
• Produces both XML and optional human-readable companion HTML
• Runs either on your PC or on a web server
• Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
• Open source
• Requires no knowledge of XML or the RSS data format
• Tuned for quick manual additions of new items and simple editing

Happy Birthday Unshelved

Unshelved is now 3 years old. Thanks for the grins and chuckles every morning. When are we going to meet the cataloger?

D-Lib Magazine

The latest issue of D-Lib Magazine contains:

• SRW/U with OAI: Expected and Unexpected Synergies by Robert Sanderson and Jeffrey Young and Ralph LeVan
• A Metadata Search Engine for Digital Language Archives by Baden Hughes and Amol Kamat
• The eXtensible Past : XML as a Means for Access to Historical Datasets and a Strategy for Digital Preservation by Annelies van Nispen, Rutger Kramer and René van Horik

Also includes other articles and short notices.

Serials

SUNCAT is the pilot Serials UNion CATalogue for the UK.

The pilot service includes records from 22 of the largest UK research libraries and the databases of the CONSER programme and the ISSN International network.

It has MARC display and save options so it could be useful for copy-cataloging.

USEMARCON

The latest version of USEMARCON (Version 1.51) offers librarians the ability to carry out fast on the fly conversion of MARC formats.

USEMARCON facilitates the conversion of catalogue records from one MARC format to another e.g. from UKMARC to UNIMARC. The software was designed as a toolbox-style application, allowing users with detailed knowledge of the source and target MARC formats to develop rules governing the behaviour of the conversion. Rules files may be supplemented by additional tables for more accurate conversion of MARC-specific character sets or coded information. The tables and rules files are simple ASCII text files and can be created using any standard text editor such as MS Windows Notepad.

Scholarly Communication

Handouts, videos and PowerPoint slides from the CERN Workshop Series on Innovations in Scholarly Communication: Implementing the benefits of OAI (OAI3) are available. Some of the presentations are:

• OAI and OAI-PMH for absolute beginners -- a non-technical introduction
• Institutional Repository Software Options: Questions and answers with the experts with representatives from ARNO, CDSware, DSpace, Fedora, GNU Eprints, i-Tor, MPG eDoc and MyCoRe
• Implementing the OAI-PMH - an introduction
• Overview of OAI and its relation to scientific publishing in 2004
• Two roads, One Destination: The Interaction of Self Archiving and Open Access Journals
• How to disseminate Open Access Journals through OAI, the DOAJ project
• Possible Enhancements to OAI-PMH including MetaSearching and Authentication

Integrating Resources

The document Integrating Resources: A Cataloging Manual has been revised by a task group of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging's Standing Committee on Training. TG Chair Judy Kuhagen (LC, CPSO) and her committee took into account changes to AACR2 outlined in the 2004 Amendments and incorporated improvements suggested by catalogers and trainers.

The Integrating Resources manual in its new version appears as Appendix A of the BIBCO Participants' Manual.

Privacy

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released logfinder, a software tool to help people reduce the unnecessary collection of personal information about computer users. Often computer network servers automatically log information about who has visited a website and when, or who has sent and received email. Such data tells a lot about a user's browsing and email habits and could be used in privacy-invasive ways. Moreover, log data must be turned over to government entities with court orders and can be subpoenaed by opposing sides in court cases.

By finding unwanted log files, logfinder informs system administrators when their servers are collecting personal data and gives them the opportunity to turn logging off if it isn't gathering information necessary for administering the system.

Logfinder was conceived by security consultant Ben Laurie and written by EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. It's intended to complement EFF's recent white paper, Best Practices for Online Service Providers, in which the organization argues that administrators should remove as many logs as possible and delete all personally identifying data from them.

It would make sense for most libraries to run this and then decide just what information is needed and what collections files can be turned off. This is a system level tool in UNIX, not something for the average user.

MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description

Addition to the MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions

The code listed below has been recently approved for use in MARC 21 records.The new code will be added to the online MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions. The code should not be used in exchange records until after April 9, 2005. This 60-day waiting period is required to provide MARC 21 implementers with time to include the newly defined code in any validation tables they may apply to the MARC fields where the code is used.

MARC Term, Name, Title Sources & Other Sources
Addition:

• fnhl - First Nations House of Learning Subject Headings (Vancouver, BC: Xwi7xwa Library, University of British Columbia). For use in subfield $2 in Bibliographic and Community Information records in fields 600-651, 656, 657 and field 040, subfield $f (Cataloging Source / Subject heading/thesaurus conventions) in Authority records) [use after April 9, 2005]

LC Updates

Update No. 5 (October 2004) to the MARC 21 Format for Holdings Data is now available from the Library of Congress. This update features information including:

• New content designators
• Updated and new examples
• Improved descriptions of content designators

Update No. 5 (October 2004) to the MARC 21 Format for Community Information is now available from the Library of Congress. This update features new information including:

• Improved descriptions of content designators
• Updated examples

Update No. 5 (October 2004) to the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data
is now available from the Library of Congress. It This update features new information including:

• Addition of field 031 (Musical Incipits Information)
• Addition of field 258 (Philatelic Issue Date)
• Updated examples
• Improved descriptions of content designators

Update No. 5 (October 2004) to the MARC 21 Format for Authority Data is now available from the Library of Congress. This update features new information including:

• Addition of field 031 (Musical Incipits Information)
• Updated examples
• Improved descriptions of content designators

Update No. 5 (October 2004) to the MARC 21 Format for Classification Data is now available from the Library of Congress. This update features new information including:

• Change in content designator name: 1st indicator in field 016 (National Bibliographic Agency Control Number)