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Barbara Washecka | 1 Dec 01:13
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Re: LC slowdown?

I've had trouble all week, but don't even get a message; I just can't
get in! Going home now and giving up til Monday ...

Barbara Washecka
Tarlton Law Library
University of Texas at Austin
bwashecka@...

-----Original Message-----
From: AUTOCAT [mailto:AUTOCAT@...] On Behalf Of john g marr
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 5:45 PM
To: AUTOCAT@...
Subject: LC slowdown?

Hi List:

   Has anyone else been having difficulty with LC database searches, or 
shouild I gripe to our local Computer Nerd Desk?  I have been getting 
"Cannot find server" on 95% of my searches this week.

   If LC has changed the paragigm from the old "Sorry, busy, try later!"
approach, I herewith register a complaint.

                                             John G. Marr
                                             Cataloger
                                             RMBA, UNMGL
                                             Univ. of New Mexico
                                             Albuquerque, NM 87131
                                             jmarr@...
                                             jmarr@...
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ehler043 | 1 Dec 02:19
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Re: LC slowdown?

John Marr wrote:
>Has anyone else been having difficulty with LC database searches, or 
>shouild I gripe to our local Computer Nerd Desk?  I have been getting 
>"Cannot find server" on 95% of my searches this week.

I only had problems last Monday, I believe it was. Getting to the catalog 
and the authorities file was at best awfully slow for much of the day, but 
later in the afternoon things progressed to normality. I only had one or 
two more "stalls" searching the sites through the remainder of this past 
week.

--

-- 
Mark K. Ehlert
MINITEX

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Dan Clinton | 1 Dec 03:03
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Re: LC slowdown?

I've noticed no difference in response time this week.

Dan Clinton / Census / Suitland MD

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J. McRee Elrod | 1 Dec 03:09
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Re: Main entry

Jim Weinheimer said: 

>But that's the entire idea. If we want to pretend that this book was
>written only by one person, OK ...

That's the function of the statement of responsibility, not the main
entry, and the reason the RDA provision to allow access points to
replace statements of responsibility is such a !@#$%$ idea.  

No matter how much the world changes, an acquisitions clerk checking a
bibliography would only want to consult the library catalogue once to
see if the collection has a particular item, a scholar only wants to
cite a book once,  and I would be *most* upset to track down a second
reference only to find it is the same work as the first.

Works need unique citations.  That's a basic fact of scholarship.

Pragmatism has its value.

   __       __   J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@...)
  {__  |   /     Special Libraries Cataloguing   HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
  ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________

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Hal Cain | 1 Dec 04:14
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Re: RDA (was: Harvesting metadata)

Quoting Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer@...>:

> It's still a mystery to me why people want to retain a format   
> created in the 1960s when there are much superior methods today.

Because we're still struggling to get sydsem vendors to deal properly  
with what's in MARC now, and the thought of getting them to start  
afresh (with something they think they understand, because it's XML,  
but don't, because it's bibliographic and authority data) would be  
enough to prompt instant notice of retirement/resignation?

All
> the ISO2709 format is used for now is for transferring library-type   
> information. Nobody besides libraries uses these formats anymore. It  
>  deals with an area that doesn't touch cataloging. Everything could   
> become MARCXML, tomorrow, and nobody would notice a thing. We would   
> just have more options than we have today.

And in the sector of the real world I dwell in, more options means  
more problems.

Hal Cain
Dalton McCaughey Library
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
hal@...

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Glenda Claborne | 1 Dec 08:06

Re: RDA (was: Harvesting metadata)

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:09:17 +0100, Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer@...> wrote:

>Actually, here is a request for the group: although I keep looking for it,
I still haven't found an electronic copy of the Royal Commission's
investigation on Panizzi's catalog on the web. It is such an important work.
Would someone who has a copy volunteer to enter it somewhere? Or maybe
someone has found a digitized copy already?
>

I've found a digital copy (PDF)on the website of Biblioteche Oggi
(http://www.bibliotecheoggi.it/2000/20000603301.pdf). It's in Italian which
may not be a problem for you James since you are living and working in Rome.
But why can't an English-speaking library get the rights to publish this
classic online in English? All the rules for putting it in the public domain
apply so there should be no problem. I hold on to my dear printed copy from
Allyson Carlyle's class but here are the references to Panizzi in case
anyone wants to photocopy it from their library:

Panizzi, A. ([1848] 1985). "Mr. Panizzi to the Right Hon. the Earl of
Ellesmere.--British Museum, January 29, 1848." In M. Carpenter & E.
Svenonius (Eds.), Foundations of Cataloging: A Sourcebook (pp . 18-47).
Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited. 

Panizzi, A. ([1841] 1985). Rules for the compilation of the catalogue. In M.
Carpenter & E. Svenonius (Eds.), Foundations of descriptive cataloging (p.
314). Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Glenda Claborne
Business Analyst
Bibliographic and Technical Services Dep't
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James Weinheimer | 1 Dec 17:45

Re: Main entry

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:09:13 -0800, J. McRee Elrod <mac@...> wrote:

>That's the function of the statement of responsibility, not the main
>entry, and the reason the RDA provision to allow access points to
>replace statements of responsibility is such a !@#$%$ idea.

I agree that we need statements of responsibility. Getting rid of that area
would be a huge step backward, plus adding a lot of work (figuring out all
those $e).

>No matter how much the world changes, an acquisitions clerk checking a
>bibliography would only want to consult the library catalogue once to
>see if the collection has a particular item, a scholar only wants to
>cite a book once,  and I would be *most* upset to track down a second
>reference only to find it is the same work as the first.

I still don't understand how this would change bibliographic citations at
all. Citation guides never say to use AACR2 forms of anything--they have
their own styles. Here are some examples:
MLA:
Howe, Russell Warren, and Sarah Hays Trott. The Power Peddlers. Garden City:
Doubleday, 1977.

Chicago:
Laumann, Edward O., John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels.
The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Harvard:
Leeder, SR, Dobson, AJ, Gibbers, RW, Patel, NK, Mathews, PS, Williams, DW &
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Janet Webb | 1 Dec 17:57
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online cataloging education


I am just finishing cataloging online at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.
I LIKE online classes, and the cataloging has been .excellent. Our professor
has chat sessions and responds quickly and well to our questions, she has
excellent lecture notes. We learned it a little at a time, building on what
we had previously learned.  Learning online for me is like having 20 or so
teachers, not only does the professor lecture and answer questions, but the
students talk about what's going on too.

We've also discussed how useful an online degree is. Several professors have
said that in some ways it is very good - you have to be motivated to work on
your own, you get to work with more technical stuff than you might in class
(we've done chat, blogs, wikis, film lectures).

Working in a library while you're in school is definitely a plus. 

Janet  Webb

Reference Dept.

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Heidi Hoerman | 1 Dec 18:35
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Re: Online cataloger education?

I can't speak for my students but I can speak as one who teaches 
cataloging both online and in person -- although lately I've been 
requesting online for my descriptive cataloging and subject analysis & 
classification courses.  

My preferred medium is via live web-meeting, voice & webcam out for me, 
chat box in for students -- although a student could use a mic & webcam if 
s/he preferred.

I find that I cover more and the students seem to learn more using the 
online environment.  The simple reason is that for something like 
cataloging, where detail is important, it speeds up "writing on the board" 
and looking at tools.  Imagine the difference between three students going 
up to the chalk board to write what they did versus students cutting and 
pasting their answers into a chat box!  This way, we can see several 
answers at once and discuss the differences among them, right and wrong.  
We can quickly haul up a screen of a catalog or 'most anything else.  If a 
student has a URL that all of us should see, s/he just puts the URL in the 
chat box and we can all head there.

Now, another way the students get more is that I find that they actually 
think and talk about cataloging all week.  When I have in person classes 
we are "out of sight out of mind" to each other between classes.  With the 
web -- class distribution lists, discussion boards, individual emails, we 
are constantly all in our "electronic hallway" easily able to ask each 
other questions or share observations.  With a weekly in-person class, 
students & I tend wait until we are back in the building and don't 
remember half of what we thought about during the week.

Now, web teaching is harder on the faculty -- students expect us to be
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benjamin hockenberry | 1 Dec 19:00
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Hired as cataloger right out of grad school?

I was hired as a cataloguing librarian for a government library, and
started only weeks after my last semester of the MLS program ended
(beginning of January, 2007).  My previous experience was in two
practicum positions during my LIS coursework, as well as a cataloguing
position at a non-profit organization's resource library.  I found the
relocation to the government job wasn't for me, and went back on the
job market in a few months to seek a more local job.  I was hired by a
vendor after a couple of months.

To echo Mike and Scott, vendor work is a great environment for getting
to spend a lot of time in actual cataloguing...when I was working for
the government agency, a significant amount of time was spent in
committees, negotiating with different departments and external
vendors, and working out kinks in systems.  Since starting work at a
vendor, I've been able to concentrate my attention, honing a lot of
the cataloguing and language-comprehension skills that I wasn't able
to develop as fully in work concurrent with school.  There's also a
great variety of materials -- I'm cataloguing for a number of
different academic institutions in different countries, each with
different policies and specs.  It's consistently challenging.  The
main disadvantages of working in this area are in balancing quality
and quantity -- product (records) have to be shipped out, and I can't
afford to spend three hours on a single record without a very good
justification.  But in truth, that's the case for any environment --
time is money.

That's $0.02,

Benjamin Hockenberry
MLS, University at Buffalo
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