Library Cataloging
There is a debate raging on folksonomies vs controlled vocabularies. Both sides seem to adopt an either/or position, things are rarely so clear-cut. They seem to place librarians on the side of control and it is true we have developed subject heading lists, thesauri and classification systems. However, we also recognize the importance of fields 653 and 690 in subject cataloging. The inclusion of TOC information and summary statements that contain other terms useful to access for our users is also part of good cataloging. Good cataloging uses both controlled and uncontrolled vocabularies.Another mistake the folks debating make is to assume all material deserves the same level of treatment. Those millions of pictures of cats or millions of abandoned weblogs are hardly deserving of much more than being spidered by Google, if that. Something like the Report on the Challenger Accident demands full treatment. I think it was Michael Gorman who years ago said that there are basically four levels of materials, those deserving of full cataloging (MARC, EAD, FGDC), those deserving of qualified Dublin Core or some similar level of minimal level of description, those deserving unqualified Dublin Core and those that the search engines can provide access for. Folksonomies can be useful in providing some kind of access to the great mass of material in the latter two categories. It can provide additional points of access in the previous two groups.The other thing about folksonomies is that they could provide a useful topic of study. Users are wondering whether to use the singular or plural, they are finding that a popular term becomes useless when it becomes too common. This could be useful in showing how our users approach access issues and inform our practice.
- Field 720
Why do I so rarely see field 720 used? I just downloaded a record that had two names not in the LC Authority file, yet both were in field 700. Here is the description of field 720 from MARC Full. Added entry in which the name is not controlled in an authority...
- Dublin Core And Social Tagging
A new Dublin Core Metadata Initiative group, the DCMI Social Tagging Community.The DCMI Social Tagging Community is for those who are interested in investigating how the increasingly common practice of informally tagging resources, known as a process...
- Series Work At Lc
This is a memo distributed April 20 to LC staff.The Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Announces the Library of Congress's Decision to Cease Creating Series Authority Records as Part of Library of Congress Cataloging April 20, 2006The...
- Skos Documents From The W3c
The W3C Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group has announced the publication of the following technical reports as second W3C Public Working Drafts:SKOS Core GuideSKOS Core Vocabulary SpecificationA summary of revisions since first Working...
- Trackbacks
So arXive now has trackbacks. I'm wondering what it would take to provide trackbacks in our catalogs. Would links like that to individual bibliographic records be useful? There is Freetag, an open-source tool, that allows tagging in a MySQL database....
Library Cataloging
Folksonomies
There is a debate raging on folksonomies vs controlled vocabularies. Both sides seem to adopt an either/or position, things are rarely so clear-cut. They seem to place librarians on the side of control and it is true we have developed subject heading lists, thesauri and classification systems. However, we also recognize the importance of fields 653 and 690 in subject cataloging. The inclusion of TOC information and summary statements that contain other terms useful to access for our users is also part of good cataloging. Good cataloging uses both controlled and uncontrolled vocabularies.Another mistake the folks debating make is to assume all material deserves the same level of treatment. Those millions of pictures of cats or millions of abandoned weblogs are hardly deserving of much more than being spidered by Google, if that. Something like the Report on the Challenger Accident demands full treatment. I think it was Michael Gorman who years ago said that there are basically four levels of materials, those deserving of full cataloging (MARC, EAD, FGDC), those deserving of qualified Dublin Core or some similar level of minimal level of description, those deserving unqualified Dublin Core and those that the search engines can provide access for. Folksonomies can be useful in providing some kind of access to the great mass of material in the latter two categories. It can provide additional points of access in the previous two groups.The other thing about folksonomies is that they could provide a useful topic of study. Users are wondering whether to use the singular or plural, they are finding that a popular term becomes useless when it becomes too common. This could be useful in showing how our users approach access issues and inform our practice.
- Field 720
Why do I so rarely see field 720 used? I just downloaded a record that had two names not in the LC Authority file, yet both were in field 700. Here is the description of field 720 from MARC Full. Added entry in which the name is not controlled in an authority...
- Dublin Core And Social Tagging
A new Dublin Core Metadata Initiative group, the DCMI Social Tagging Community.The DCMI Social Tagging Community is for those who are interested in investigating how the increasingly common practice of informally tagging resources, known as a process...
- Series Work At Lc
This is a memo distributed April 20 to LC staff.The Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Announces the Library of Congress's Decision to Cease Creating Series Authority Records as Part of Library of Congress Cataloging April 20, 2006The...
- Skos Documents From The W3c
The W3C Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group has announced the publication of the following technical reports as second W3C Public Working Drafts:SKOS Core GuideSKOS Core Vocabulary SpecificationA summary of revisions since first Working...
- Trackbacks
So arXive now has trackbacks. I'm wondering what it would take to provide trackbacks in our catalogs. Would links like that to individual bibliographic records be useful? There is Freetag, an open-source tool, that allows tagging in a MySQL database....