Tech Services Workshops for the Fall

I haven't been posting to this blog because I've been working on the Continuing Education catalog which will be out this week. Please watch for it on the CMRLS website (www.cmrls.org) and in delivery.

Mark you calendars with these Technical Services programs. Note that the first one is only a week away. There are several courses offered by WebJunction. Contact me for the code so that you can take these courses for free.

Also, CMRLS is now using GoToWebinar for some of its workshops so that you can participate without leaving your library. I’ll be giving “Behind the Bib Record” using this technology.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for other T.S. programs.

Here's the list:

WebJunction Course: MARC 101
Tuesday, September 8 • 2-4 P.M. AND Wednesday, September 9 • 2-4 P.M.

Technical Services Roundtable
Wednesday, September 30 • 10–12 Noon Beaman Library, W. Boylston

Where Do I Put Them? Cataloging and Classifying Graphic Novels
Friday, October 9 • 2 – 4 p.m. CMRLS Meeting Room

WebJunction Course: FRBR - What It Is And How It Can Help You Prepare for RDA
Tuesday, October 13 • 2-4 P.M. And Thursday, October 15 • 2-4 P.M. Online

WebJunction Course: Basic Digitization: Everyday Imaging
Wed., Nov. 11 • 11:30 A.M.-1:30 P.M. AND Thursday, Nov. 12 • 11:30 A.M.-1:30 P.M. Online

Behind the Bibliographic Record
Monday, December 14 • 10–12 Noon Online

FRBR – Group 2 Entities

I thought this section might be easier to understand since Group 2 has only 2 entities (Person and Corporate Body) versus 4 entities in Group 1 (Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item). The section was shorter, but not really much easier to absorb. And a third Entity – Family – got tossed in there, too. As author Robert Maxwell explained, Family is “not found in FRBR, [but] is defined in FRAD”. FRAD stands for Functional Requirements for Authority Data and is related to FRBR.

With Group 2 Entities we begin to see the relationship aspects of FRBR because a Work can be created by a Person or a Corporate Body. It can be about a Person or a Corporate Body. An Expression can be translated by a Person. A Manifestation can be published by a Corporate Body. An Item can be owned by a Person or a Corporate Body. Several of the above statements are often true simultaneously.

Group 2 Entities can also have relationships with each other. A Person can be part of a musical group which is a Corporate Body. A Person can write under multiple names. And (looking at FRAD) a person can be a member of a Family.

This is the easy part of FRBR’s Group 2 Entities. Things get more complicated once the discussion turns to the Attributes of each entity. Attributes of Person are Name of Person, Dates of Person (as in birth, death, or when the person was actively creative), Title of Person (Doctor, General, etc.), and “other designation associated with the person.” FRAD, however, delineates slightly different attributes of a Person and more of them (details like place of birth, gender, language) and Maxwell constantly compares FRBR to FRAD. Keeping them straight can create headaches.

What is really interesting about all of this is something Diane Hillman talked about in a program at the 2008 Mass Library Association Conference and again at NELINET. As a cataloger creates a bibliographic record, he/she does not have to determine (and key in) the “one authorized form” of a person’s name. The cataloger will be able to link that “author” line to a registry of names that will include more information than our current Name Authority Files. The same for publisher: No need to worry about which words (if any) to abbreviate, simply link to the registry of Corporate Names.

Of course, this assumes an infrastructure that we don’t exactly have yet. But as more registries are developed and linking rather than keying in becomes the norm, our information (and therefore our catalogs) will show relationships between and among works, expressions, manifestations, items, people and corporate bodies, not merely individual bibliographic records.

LCSH

The Cataloging and Distribution Service of the Library of Congress has just published the 31st edition of the Library of Congress Subject Headings (a.k.a. The Red Books). Included with this edition is a 6th volume called Supplementary Vocabularies which contains free-floating subdivisions, genre/form headings, and children's subject headings.

The price is $295; ordering information is here.

Or you can use the Online Authority File which is updated continuously and includes names and series for free.

MARC resources

For the last few years, since RDA has been in the making, there has also been talk about MARC’s demise. That’s MARC as in Machine Readable Cataloging. As our metadata evolves, the way to transmit it will probably also evolve. XML is a possibility, but for now we have MARC. MARC codes have recently been updated in anticipation of RDA.

If you have problems understanding all those codes, or just need to check out one(s) that you don’t use very often, there are some good sources available.

Understanding MARC Bibliographic is the best quick and easy MARC reference I’ve ever run across. If you want a copy in your hands, it is available from either Follett or Library of Congress for $5.

Library of Congress also hosts the official MARC21 Format for Bibliographic Data. After you click on a tag, you will have the choice of seeing the “full” or “concise” version of the description.

I’ve always preferred to use OCLC’s Bibliographic Formats and Standards . BF&S is freely available on the web; you do not have to be an OCLC member to use it. Perhaps it’s because I began using the print version of BF&S so I was familiar with the text and layout, or perhaps because I’m more used to it than MARC21 Format. I find it easier to navigate from one tag (or subfield) to another.

MARC uses codes for Geographic Area, Country, and Language. All are available on the official MARC21 site. When it comes to these codes, BF&S (eventually, after a few clicks) leads to MARC21.

If you’d like to practice by using a tutorial, there are a couple available. MARC21 Tutorial is from the University of Southern Mississippi and based on Understanding MARC Bibliographic. Introduction to the MARC System is one of several free cataloging-related tutorials offered by Idaho's Alternative Basic Library Education (ABLE) Program. Be careful, though as the ABLE program is slightly out of date. Maybe that’s a good test: See if you can find the obsolete indicator.

LISWiki – Cataloging & Classification

Similar to the famous Wikipedia but more focused, there is a Wiki just for library topics called LISWiki. Begun in 2005, it still needs lots of work by knowledgeable librarians since many of the articles are just “stubs”.

For those new to libraries, it looks like a good place to start since most of the articles are not lengthy and therefore easy to read in a short period of time. Check out both of the categories Cataloging and Classification. Each has a link at the top of the page to the other, so once you’ve located one, it’s easy to find the other.

Cataloging has 52 articles and 3 sub-categories (Authority Control, Cataloging Elements, and Catalogs) each with several articles of its own. As stated earlier, some are only stubs. Classification has 26 articles. Many articles have a link to the Wikipedia article on the same topic. While the texts are similar, they are not identical.

As cited on the “About” page, the reason for having a separate Wiki devoted to library and information science is to allow for
-Conjecture and other original research
-Opinion and position pieces not written in a neutral point of view (with factual information properly presented, of course)
-Lists, directories, esoteric library information, and non-encyclopedic knowledge that may not meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria.

Here’s a chance for catalogers to contribute to the professional literature. You can embellish upon the existing topics or add new pages for topics that need coverage. Wikis are easy to edit – which is the whole point.

FRBR Entities - Group 1

I've been plugging away at Robert Maxwell's FRBR: A Guide for the Perplexed for the last few weeks so that I could write a review of it in this blog. I've just finished the section on Group 1, the section with which many are most familiar: Work, Expression, Manifestation, Item. I've seen it written as WEMI which is helpful because it is very easy (for me at least) to confuse Expression and Manifestation.

FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) is not easy to understand, but I feel this book has helped me a lot. However, the book hasn't helped enough for me to explain FRBR very well to others. Or maybe FRBR is just not easily explainable. It is, after all, a conceptual model that explains relationships. Attempts at making FRBR concrete by creating diagrams can make it look even more complicated. So here's my understanding of how the Group 1 entities relate to each other.

A Work is an idea, a thought, a creation - not written, not spoken. It doesn't refer to a concrete item.

The Expression of a Work is also conceptual, not concrete. If we are ultimately talking about a book, the Work can be Expressed in English or French or Chinese or another language. Two different translations into French are two different Expressions.

With Manifestation, we approach actual things we can hold in our hands. The English language publication of a book by HarperCollins is a Manifestation. The English language publication of the same content by Bantam paperbacks is a different Manifestation. At this point, we're not talking about a single book, but the entire run. A Manifestation is what we catalog. A bibliographic record represents a Manifestation.

What I'm still confused about, is how the audiobook of this Work fits in here. Is the oral version a different Expression or a different Manifestation? Maxwell says that "... as currently written, FRBR does not deal well with genre/form relationships with Group 1 entities." Maybe that's the problem.

An Item is something we can all grasp - literally as well as figuratively. We can purchase one Item of a Manifestation. We can catalog it, classify it and put it in our library.

There's a lot more to FRBR than what I've described above. All of these entities have attributes such as title, form, date, other distinguishing characteristics. All attributes of Work are also attribute of Expression plus some additional ones. Fortunately, not all available attributes will apply to every entity.

As he explains each entity and its attributes, Maxwell sometimes points out difficulties or problems with the model. As I look at the FRBR diagrams and try to follow the relationships, I have to wonder who figured this out?

Now it's on to the Group 2 entities: Person, Corporate Body, Family. Perhaps this section with help shed some light on what I've already read,

Catalogers' Learning Workshop

On the Library of Congress site is a section called Catalogers' Learning Workshop, which includes freely available cataloging and metadata training materials.

While using these materials takes some self-discipline, what a great way to learn about LCSH, LCCN, authority work, metadata and digitization and continuing resources (in all their permutations).

The list looks like this

Cataloging Skills (CCT)
Basic Creation of Name and Title Authorities
Basic Subject Cataloging Using LCSH
Fundamentals of Series Authorities
Fundamentals of Library of Congress Classification

The Digital Library Environment (Cat21)
Digital Project Planning & Management Basics
Metadata and Digital Library Development
Metadata Standards and Applications
Principles of Controlled Vocabulary and Thesaurus Design
Rules and Tools for Cataloging Internet Resources

Continuing Resources (SCCTP)
Advanced Serials Cataloging
Basic Serials Cataloging
Electronic Serials Cataloging
Integrating Resources Cataloging
Serials Holdings