Shameless Plug TLA

Two of my collogues will be presenting at the Texas Library Association annual conference.

Space Science Resources for Students
2:00 - 3:20 PM (Thurs.)

Educators at NASA Johnson Space Center’s ARES program and the Lunar and Planetary Institute have assembled exciting, free space science resources that librarians can share with students and include in programming.

Katy Buckaloo, education assistant; and Stephanie Shipp, manager, Education and Public Outreach, Lunar and Planetary Institute (Houston).

Give them a full room and a warm reception.

Rare Map Cataloging

News from ALA.

An editorial team has been appointed to develop DCRM(C). The initial plan of action calls for a review of Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books) (DCRM(B)) and Cartographic Materials: A Manual of Interpretation for AACR2, Second Edition (CM) to identify 1) areas of conflict between the two standards, 2) lacunae in CM, whether or not they are addressed in DCRM(B), and 3) areas where existing guidance from practices and other sources (such as LC’s Map Cataloging Manual) usefully addresses conflicts and lacunae.

From the Feb. 2008 issue of Baseline.

MODS MADS Changes

Some news from the MODS/MADS folks.

The MODS/MADS Editorial Committee is working through a long list of change proposals for the 3.4 and 4.0 versions of MODS. The 3.4 release will include minor changes, and the 4.0 release will include more major changes that prevent backwards compatibility with the 3.x versions. We'll be posting to this list and to the MODS web site specific change proposals as they are approved for inclusion. The Committee meets via conference call biweekly, and we expect that approving the queued changes for 3.4 will take at least two more calls. Here is a summary of our current status:

Changes for 3.4 approved on March 11, 2009:

• Add the following attributes to location/holdingSimple/copyInformation/note: "ID", "lang", "script", "transliteration", "xlink", and "xml:lang". Rationale: adding these attributes will harmonize the definition of <note> with the other places this element appears in MODS.
• Add the "type" attribute to location/holdingSimple/copyInformation/form. Rationale: adding this attribute will harmonize the definition of <form> with its definition within <physicalDescription>.
• Add the "displayLabel" attribute to all top-level MODS elements that now lack it. Rationale: makes MODS overall more consistent, and promotes easier use of MODS as a back-end format for customized cataloging and discovery systems.

The MODS/MADS Editorial Committee will hold our next conference call on Wednesday March 25, and will be reviewing more change proposals at that time. Please post to the MODS list if you have a feature you'd like to see in 3.4 or a future revision, or if you have any comments on the changes to be discussed on the next call by the Editorial Committee.

Changes to be discussed on March 25, 2009:

• Address the differing definitions of extent within physicalDescription and part
• Add script attribute to language
• Add lang, xml:lang, script and transliteration attributes to language subelements
• Add edtf date format as an option on date elements
• Support RDA "Content Type" element
• Add "references" or "reviewOf" to relatedItem type attribute list
• Expand use of qualifier attributes

Normalize your LCCNs

Jonathan Rochkind points out the need to normalize your LCCNs when using some services. OCLC Identities apparently does not do this. LC does provide an explanation of the process. Seems like a simple enough process. Have any of the Code4Lib crowd written anything? Just how useful would this generally be?

Bibliographic Record Production

There is now a Ning group for the Bibliographic Record Production project, R2's investigation and analysis of the MARC record "marketplace" Not much content there yet.

We are very happy to see people here at bibrecords.ning and ask that you invite other catalogers, cataloging coordinators, library administrators, and vendors to join.

Throughout the project, we will encourage you to express your perspectives, offer ideas, and engage in respectful dialogue. We will consider all comments to be useful indicators and will do our best to keep the site updated as to our progress.

There is an RSS feed even though I couldn't find the icon.

OCLC's PURL Server

News from OCLC about their PURL Server

The PURL Server is being replaced with a new architecture.

During this transition period the ability to Register, Create, or Modify records on the Server will be disabled.

This transition will occur soon. When a specific date is know the main purl page will be updated. The new achitecture is estimated to be available a week after that date.

Information about the new server.

An OCLC announcement about this server.

TxLA

I'm so looking forward to seeing the Unshelved folks at the Texas Library Association annual conference. I hope I can catch Terry Moore on the panel. Echo is the best comic I've read in quite some time. Maybe he will also have a booth? Have to check the vendor list.