Entries Tagged as 'Cataloging'
The area TLA District 8 meeting was yesterday…around 275-300 members attended, I hear. It was a nice opportunity to learn and share information and visit with professional friends.
At the general session, among the welcomes including TLA president Steve Brown, we heard a little bit about the coming of Encyclopedia Britannica Online to all the school libraries as an addition of TexShare things we get as a result of the the recent legislation change. That is quite exciting!
The speaker for the general session was Rene Saldana, children’s author and education professor at Texas Tech University (his blog). His new book is A Sky Full of Stars, a book about friendship. In his remarks, he shared with us some of his favorite books as a child. He spoke fondly of things like The Hardy Boys and admitted he liked Nancy Drew stories even more because of “one chick being able to do more than 2 guys” and he also loved the Little House books as well.
The most enduring moment for me was when he told us how he takes his 4-yr. old son to the public library only one a month because the child checks out 50+ books at a time (yea for that librarian/library) and that on the first day of “real” school, he intends to take his son FIRST to the library to meet the librarian before going to the classroom or filling out the “mountains of forms” required of parents!
If you would like to participate in a live chat with him about this book, go to http://alan-ya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=2at 8:00 pm CENTRAL time on Wednesday Oct. 17th.
Among the many sessions offered, I attended one on copy cataloging pointers and helpful sites. During the Q&A portion, I did find out the records from WorldCat are not downloadable as I suspected…it was not my inability to make it work after all! But the info for many items including AV can be found. “Copy & paste” is still faster than original cataloging.
A colleague reported that in the session on transitioning from high school research to college research that bib cards are still required by many professors at her college (although she doesn’t necessarily agree with that practice) and when asked how to help more traditional teachers understand there is NO difference between an article in print that is identical online, the speaker said “good luck and just keep plugging way one teacher at a time to make them understand and accept the online version!”
Then it came time for my presentation on blogging. The room was overflowing and VERY warm, but the audience was so gracious and enthusiastic and attentive…even when we discovered that virtually ALL of the blogs (including my own!!) were blocked. Yup…the firewall and the technology department got us right where it hurt…nothing got thru except for Library Stuff and some Teacher Tube videos. This was the pitiful situation despite the careful planning by the people in charge to obtain the list of websites, blogs, etc. that I needed unblocked well in advance of the date.
Thank goodness for PowerPoint…I had planned for this situation because it had happened before…not this badly, but before nevertheless, and screen shots are not as good as the “real” thing, but with the enthusiasm of the audience and the slide show, we had a great discussion on the power of blogging and the many things that you can do with it. And needless to say, we a had a very frank discussion on what we all have to do in order to make administrations and tech people understand that this type of situation can NOT continue. It is unfair to our students…the very reason we were all in that hot room on a beautiful Saturday morning!
HANDOUT for those that did not get one!
Tags: Authors · Blogging · Cataloging · Libraries · Social Networking
September 24th, 2007 · No Comments
I got to do one of my favorite things again this evening…talk to a group of library school students, some practicing librarians and some still in classrooms, ABOUT cataloging, not how to catalog.
The professor, a former school library colleague, asks me and my office colleague each semester to speak to her students on a number of subjects in introductory terms. My topic is always cataloging and tonight’s group contained about 50% cataloging surviors and about 50% still waiting to take the class. (Aren’t they a nice looking group?)
Two points I always stress are how access to and accountability of any and all items are the main reasons for the cataloging procedure. Knowing what is available and where something is, are key to the item being useful to the student, teacher, parent, or community member needing the information contained in it. If these users don’t know about its existence and where it “lives,” then the library might as well not have it to begin with!
Accountability comes into the picture in these days of shrinking budgets, rising prices and more and more needs. When something is needed in our district, because of our union catalog, anyone can determine if the item already exists, who has it currently, and track usage. That way, t can be determined whether more copies are necessary expeditures or luxuries. Duplication of items can be avoided because it is possible to know ahead of time where and when an item needs to be purchased.
Careful cataloging…lots of keywords in the description or contents notes and lots of subject headings, allows for better collaboration between teachers, and between teachers and librarian. Cross-curricular use of the material can occur and an increase of materials available can occur when everyone can check on availbility.
I brought up several cataloging tools available to all librarians that make this “often-described as painful” process more palatable, if not more pleasurable.
1. Vendor records: Let the pros do it for you…not matter the cost. Have you ever figure the cost of cataloging if you do it? Figure 20 minutes per book and an hour per AV item…calculate your salary per 2o minutes or an hour! YOU are an expensive commodity…vendor records are not!
Time with your students and teachers is much more valuable.
2. Cataloging software: There are several out there. I am only familar with the Mitinet product currently known as Marc Wizard. It IS worth its annual subscription rate. Whatever your school or district has available, use it, and continue the subscription. Once again, let the pros help you in a much more efficient manner so you have more time with students and teachers!
3. Among several online resources is the Library of Congress catalog for downloading records AND its authority records for finding appropriate (and correct) subject headings. Free to anyone and everyone. Another source that has recently become available is WorldCat from OCLC…a tremendous resource for children’s literature that hasn’t made it to the LOC yet or professional teaching materials that never will. I am still trying to understand the lack of downloading process (that WAS available from some locations very early in the game), but subject heading are easy to find and MARC records acan be copied and pasted with greatest of easy. Ask me–I’ll show you my multiple screen process. Again all for free!
Included in the discussion were some points about the Dewey Decimal System. I tried point out the same things as I did here and I issued them the same challenge as I did to the librarians in my sphere–check the signage in the library of your world. Can you as a patron navigate around based on the signage alone? Can you find your favorite book or topic?
A few more points…
why records in a union catalog must be consistent while holdings can be more individualized to meet the campus’ needs.
why a librarian must always remember she/he is merely a temporary caretaker of the collection and NOT do something to the records taht would make it harder for the next librarian to comfortably use the records…i.e make up subjects, use “strange” call #s.
the differences between stand-alone and union catalogs as far as using the information.
AND online catalogs vs cards! (yes, there are a few libraries out there that still use cards!)
Links with interesting and useful stuff in addition to the ones included above are:
Cataloging post here
Cataloging post here
025.41The Dewey Blog
Catalogablog (David Bigwood)
Catalog Futures
All in all, a successful evening. I learned a lot as I always do. It was another good adventure LP…and thanks LA…I look forward to it again soon I hope!
P.S. Class members, please feel free to comment about the discussion or any points within!
Tags: Cataloging
The speaker for the general session was Rene Saldana, children’s author and education professor at Texas Tech University (his blog). His new book is A Sky Full of Stars, a book about friendship. In his remarks, he shared with us some of his favorite books as a child. He spoke fondly of things like The Hardy Boys and admitted he liked Nancy Drew stories even more because of “one chick being able to do more than 2 guys” and he also loved the Little House books as well.
The most enduring moment for me was when he told us how he takes his 4-yr. old son to the public library only one a month because the child checks out 50+ books at a time (yea for that librarian/library) and that on the first day of “real” school, he intends to take his son FIRST to the library to meet the librarian before going to the classroom or filling out the “mountains of forms” required of parents!
