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Importance of Metadata

13 Mar

Now more than ever, metadata is crucial for finding something (or not) online. In an age of an over-abundance of information, in which much of life and most transactions occur via the Internet and in apps, everything is virtual and relies on metadata. Complete and correct metadata ensures that something is found, while if it’s incomplete or incorrect, it likely won’t be found.

In libraries, we talk about metadata in terms of cataloging, information literacy and reliable sources, as well as collections of materials and their content. If there’s a misspelling in a title or an author name is omitted or an item has a wrong topic or discipline listed, a user won’t find that item in a search that usually would include it had the metadata been complete and correct. During a time in which usage statistics are one factor to determine what electronic/online resources are kept versus which are cancelled in order to meet the current budget, metadata can make all of the difference. Tracking metadata trends in vendor cataloging records and reporting findings to the provider to ensure metadata is complete and correct at the source improves both the metadata and its discovery for everyone. While not all librarians, catalogers, or library staff are able to spend the time needed to do so, it is beneficial to know the quality of the vendor records received for electronic/online resources at the very least and, if able, to help ensure that it is the highest quality possible from the source.

In the world more generally and in daily life, I also frequently notice issues with metadata. One example is searching for music in a streaming service and finding the same artist multiple times, listed with slight variance of their name instead of all grouped together as they should be in one. That’s a less problematic example but a simple one. Another occurs with in-app shopping and how out-of-stock items are handled. This recently changed in the grocery app that I use, and now instead of being able to add an item to the cart that they know is not available, the item just doesn’t show up in a search if they know that it’s not going to be fulfilled in my next order. Metadata or the misuse of it can contribute to the propagation of misinformation or promotion of an unrelated website that’s using terms for the sole benefit of driving users to it instead of correct metadata for the actual content. It’s important to be aware of it use even in daily life since it typically is hidden, or at least below the surface.

Good metadata takes work but is entirely worth the effort. We, as users and consumers and even librarians, must do what we can and be ever vigilant. Over the years I have worked towards this professionally and made recent strides with co-workers and our vendor and publisher partners. This week, we are presenting one of our projects at ER&L 2022 in our session titled “Partnering with Publishers and Vendors to Improve Metadata Worldwide: An OhioLINK Case Study about Collaborating with Springer Nature and OCLC on High-Quality MARC Records and e-Resource Metadata”. In a presentation about the same project but with more cataloging details, OhioLINK and OCLC also presented last year at OVGTSL 2021. I am very proud and thankful that we’ve been able to partner and work on such efforts to improve metadata for all worldwide. Plus, there will likely be more in the future about this project as well.

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Posted by on March 13, 2022 in metadata

 

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iTunes needs artist authority control: it’s not the only one

02 Aug

Last week at a concert, The Sidekicks performed with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and So Long Albatross.

The Sidekicks Facebook page

The Sidekicks are an Ohio band that I hadn’t heard before so I looked them up on iTunes but their name pulled up other albums by different bands with the same name.

The Sidekicks albums in iTunesNot all of these are the albums of The Sidekicks that I saw perform. In libraries and their online catalogs, this problem comes up with regularity and has been solved by creating an authority file that allows for authority control of names, subjects, and series. This is a fancy way of saying that there is a single list of unique names, for example, in order to ensure that the correct person gets adds to the correct work; while this is the goal, it’s not always the case in the authority file since there are still undifferentiated records, meaning that the names haven’t been researched and sorted out into separate, distinct records. That is the case with The Sidekicks in iTunes–the album artists are undifferentiated. However, the biography tab is for the Ohio band:

The Sidekicks bio in iTunesAnd yet, the genre is listed as country. The band I heard is certainly rock and punk, not full-blown country. After over a decade of dealing with music, iTunes should have its act together. They clearly need a cataloger…or, ahem, a metadata specialist/manager. The bio itself describes the band as punk. Seriously, iTunes doesn’t have a script that checks genre against bios against albums and flags possible differences?

A new way to describe authority files and control is to talk about author id. It is the same idea but instead of relying on particular languages and name translations, the unique identifier is a number and all of the person’s various forms of their name and any known personal information is listed in the record attached to the number. There are several attempts to create a consistent, reliable source that bridges internationally (VIAF) or for researchers use (ORCHID).

This got me thinking, what about other music websites? Do others do a good job separating The Sidekicks or not? How does Amazon.com do? Well, not so hot it turns out:

Amazon.com The Sidekicks search resultsAlso on Amazon, clicking the artist name doesn’t pull up all of their albums together since at least one is listed as Sidekicks instead of The Sidekicks. Clearly they too need to reconcile their metadata. Streaming music websites vary on how they handle the band. With LastFM, The Sidekicks from Ohio are front and center but there is a length note talking about similarly named bands:

LastFM The Sidekicks

LastFM The SidekicksAlthough, maybe not after all because the albums for The Sidekicks also have the country and bluegrass tribute ones listed:

LastFM The Sidekicks albumsSo, how about Pandora?

Pandora The Sidekicks seed stationPandora only has the country band called The Sidekicks:

Pandora The Sidekicks bioGuess I won’t be listening to the Ohio The Sidekicks on Pandora. One last streaming option…how about Spotify?

Spotify The Sidekicks search resultsSpotify also has undifferentiated artists, grouping the different The Sidekicks albums together. Again, though, the bio only describes the Ohio band:

Spotify The Sidekicks bioInterestingly, this bio on Spotify is the same as the one in iTunes and mentions exactly when they released which albums. Why is that important? It’s the type of information that librarians, catalogers actually, seek out when forming an authority record for a name. Based on this, we can rule out that this band did not play the bluegrass, country, tribute albums. Since the bio doesn’t mention recent works, we would look for other sources of reliable information about the band, such as their website or a professional music/album review, and cite it in the authority record for them. Also, we could then create a record for the country band in the authority file as well to show the distinction. Many libraries these days are unable to do their own in-house authority control for one reason or another but it remains a crucial part of cataloging and metadata because in the end it helps the user find exactly what they are looking for and distinguish that there are people or places, etc., with similar names.

Let’s take a quick look at two different John Smith records in the LC authority file to show how catalogers do authority control:

LC Authority File John Smith search resultsThis is just the top portion of the search results but already we see that there were many John Smiths around the same time period. Each record includes enough information so that anyone looking at it can tell the various people apart. Usually that may include a middle initial or name, a birth year, and sometimes a death year. There can also be additional information tacked on at the end of the authorized heading (the names that we see listed), such as occupation or certification, etc.

LC authority record John Smith 1

LC authority record John Smith 2Besides the birth and death years, catalogers put in 670 notes to provide evidence for the dates included in the name. The second record even says where the information is from and the date that the cataloger added it to this authority record: “Oxford DNB online, 3 July 2007”. Another common way to obtain information is to reach out to the author, if living, or call the publisher, which is then also noted in 670. Links to websites can also be provided.

Metadata for authority control is crucial, especially on the Internet, in keeping people, places, works unique. Catalogers and librarians already have the skills and training needed to untangle and organize these issues. As linked data becomes a reality and libraries begin incorporating our catalog data into the Internet and search engines, we must hold on to these standards and carry them forward into the web. Programmers behind software, apps, and websites also need to realize that we have this valuable knowledge and know how to do what should be done, like having unique artist ids for musicians and conducting authority control frequently. Maybe this path can create more librarian jobs for the future, using our degrees in a wider capacity and context beyond the library and its catalog.

 
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Posted by on August 2, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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There’s always something more : farewell to Chicago

02 Jul

How did the conference fly by? ALA is always too packed and too short. For Monday, I relaxed a bit went over to the MCP Center later in the afternoon.

Part of the fun of attending a conference in person is the connections made with people you otherwise wouldn’t meet. The Annual Library Camp session fosters round table, small discussion for whichever topics interested the attendees. In a way, it is very similar to an unconference. Due to the smaller size of the group, we decided on four tables and split up to discuss either multiculturalism, mentorship, community engagement, and social media. After a while, we shared with the room and swapped tables to start another round. The social media table morphed into cataloging and metadata with the four others and myself, no surprise there, who came to that table. I met a variety of librarians that I wouldn’t have otherwise and learned about topics concerning other librarians.

For my final session of ALA Annual 2013, I went to a talk about altmetrics. At Conversation Starters: Altmetrics, the decoupled journal, and the future of scholarly publishing, Jason Priem, co-founder of ImpactStory, described altmetrics and the various impacts that the web now affords scholars. This is where ImpactStory becomes an exciting possibility of capturing the variety of online connections and interactions between scholars in order to document meaningful impact in their field, beyond print journal citation as in the past. There are other alternatives out there and more will arise since altmetrics is up and coming, and worth being involved in or at the very least watching it develop.

Jason Priem’s graphic from his presentation:

20130702-161008.jpg

After these final two sessions, Steve and I had a quiet dinner together at an awesome sushi bar. Most librarians had left already, if not Sunday evening. I did bring too much SWAG back–I’ve learned to truck through the exhibit hall at a good pace, a feat in itself as you’ll agree, and managed only to be coming back with two books and a can cosy. I’d rather enjoy sessions than collect SWAG but that’s just me.

While there are always too many sessions to attend, and more worth sitting in on, it’s good to not try to pack all day, everyday full, especially if your hanging out in the evenings too. I find it hard adhering to this myself. But I loved ALA Annual in Chicago this year, and even though I’m tired, it was worth it since I met great people, saw friends, learned a lot, and became more involved.

Thank goodness it is 4th of July weekend! Beach time is way overdue. Enjoy your long weekends–I sure will!

 
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Posted by on July 2, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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“Lascivious librarian story time” : nightlife fun in Chicago with librarians

02 Jul
“Lascivious librarian story time” : nightlife fun in Chicago with librarians

My Sunday morning began with a presentation in the ALA job placement center. The state of academic library jobs : what you need to know to be competitive in the current job market by Penny Beile from the University of Central Florida talked about the academic librarian job market and the breakdown of job postings and their statistics. She addressed the infamous study that we all know about as librarians, that claimed LIS master’s was the worst degree. Her concluding advice was to gain as much experience pre-degree as well as during the program and to set yourself apart and impress people so that you can set yourself up for being hired. I attended this talk in order to hear what kind of advice is being given to current graduate students. As is expected, it was well attended.

Then I headed over immediately to the BibFrame session. Library of Congress BibFrame update forum did not fit everyone in the room even though we were seated in a large auditorium. The session itself was recorded and will be posted on the LC website fairly soon. Roberta Schafer from LC described their overall vision and plan for the future, which also included BibFrame as a connector for all of their initiatives and future consolidation of services and reading rooms. Her portion showed the possibilities and potentials that such a framework for metadata could provide. Next Eric Miller of Zepheria covered what BibFrame community profiles, how they work, and the broader implications not only within the library community but within the Internet itself. The two next speakers highlighted their BibFrame projects. Jeremy Nelson from Colorado College gave a technical yet approachable explanation of the BibFrame Redis data store that he works on at his library. The files are on GitHub if you are interested in looking at the code. Vinod Chachra from VTLS showed how BibFrame can make metadata and the next generation catalog a visualization within a browser. This is such a cool idea to me and that makes a lot of sense especially as touchscreens and smart phone tablet devices are taking over Internet usage. Chachra argued for using ISAD over FRBR as well, since it is more flexible and malleable. The KCPL will unveil a Civil War collection using the website navigator technology from VTLS so watch for that in the late summer. Finally Jean Godby from OCLC finished the session by discussing OCLC’s projects with schema.org and BibFrame. The work is in its beginning phases but it sounds very promising and OCLC is trying to incorporate the library terminology and needs within the vocabulary and goals of schema.org so that we can truly have metadata that is of the Internet instead of being on it. I enjoy hearing about the progress that is being made, especially the early experimental projects that are trying to figure out the best ways to use and apply and incorporate BibFrame and library metadata in the wider Internet community.

An area of librarianship that is still fairly new but developing really rapidly is Digital Humanities and in particular Digital History. Digital History : new methodologies facilitated by new technologies covered both the practical and theoretical aspects of this topic. This session was also recorded but it wasn’t mentioned when or where it would be posted. The first two speakers enumerated the various tools and online resources useful for Digital History collections and projects. Anne Flannery and Adam Strohm, The Newberry Library, segmented their talk into different areas: access, content creation, identifying narratives, interaction with materials, and new modes of authorship. Michael J. Kramer and Josh Hohn, Northwestern, discussed the importance of Digital History and showcased their work with the Berkeley folk music festival collection. Kramer conducts research within the online collection for himself as well as creating and teaching a course with Hohn as a means to engage and convey new ways to analyze history by the students. Not knowing much about this topic of librarianship, I found this session very fascinating and useful.

As with most ALA conferences, there are various social events throughout the entire time there and it can be hard to choose what to go to in the evenings. Steve snagged an invite to the Thompson Reuters reception, getting a +1 for me. Light appetizers and drinks along with the outdoor patio made for a great start to the evening. We chatted with his rep and a couple of others ones, carrying on conversations about travel that they do, places worth going especially for food, and other fun topics. As Steve likes to say, vendors are people too–a joke I like since I work for ProQuest!

After the reception, we hopped onto a city bus with a librarian friend to go see a librarian-themed burlesque show at The Backroom, which usually has live bands but also puts on private events. Before we arrived, we didn’t realize that it was themed! How fun though. A new librarian friend, met at this ALA, told us about it the day prior and met us there. The place was packed, with librarians, so someone spread the word about the theme. They even provided ALA flags for name tags at the front desk! The show included lots of glasses, hair pulled back in buns or swept up, skirts and blouses, the Reading Rainbow theme song, the use of a scanner as a prop, a sexy male puppet show, book props, along with a librarian lemonade drink. Good drinks and food in a room full of fun librarians made for an awesome night. The show had lots of humor tailored to the crowd (i.e. book humor, etc.) and was tasteful. If this is what Chicago offers, I can only imagine what someone will put together for Annual in Las Vegas next year!

 
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Posted by on July 2, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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Annual 2013 : it’s not just librarians doing the spotting!

29 Jun

Before heading to the conference center this morning, we stopped at a local coffee shop and while ordering, the baristas asked if we were librarians. Yes, we all were. He said he’s been playing “spot the librarian” downtown yesterday. Clearly librarians aren’t the only ones who play it! They loved talking to us and one said that the world needs more libraries, so make sure you go stop by the Overflow coffee bar if you’re near State and 16th and say hi to these wonderful guys and gals, and grab an awesome cup of coffee.

Like all days at ALA, today was jam packed. Since it’s always hard to pick and choose what exactly to attend, I began my morning a bit later so that I could attend more sessions this afternoon. My day began with the 10:30 Cataloging Norms Interest Group that I co-vice chaired this year. Despite the room being in an odd location in the conference center, but then again what’s not, we had an awesome turn out for our session. The speakers covered a range of topics all centered around metadata and cataloging, and how to help users best find exactly what they’re looking for as well as how to be successful with their use of information and images. One speaker talked specifically about defining accuracy and completeness of cataloging records, which can be expanded to metadata in general and so the topics made for a cohesive and interesting panel this morning.

Next, I headed over to Library Code Year IG at the Hilton Chicago, a fairly short bus right away but with so many people waiting in the line for it, I wasn’t sure that I’d make the first bus. Thankfully I did. This group had put on the Python preconference all day session that I wasn’t able to make yet I heard that the people who did attend really enjoyed it. At the interest group session, a lot was discussed as this is still a new group being formed and deciding how exactly to provide useful opportunities for attendees in the future, the goal is to facilitate librarians learning how to code. I will be co-chairing this group over the next year so watch for various announcements on listservs to find out more about it. It is a joint LITA/ALCTS interest group which encourages interested librarians from both areas of ALA.

The final session of my day was Multiple identities: managing authorities in repositories and digital collections. A librarian From Hong Kong University spoke about cleaning up name authorities and creating a research and researchers digital repository that was useful for the entire university. The second talk was given by three librarians from the University of Notre Dame who are working with the Gates foundation to create a database for malaria research to help with the eradication of it. Although they are both bigger institutions and the grand scale truly makes the efforts worthwhile, it was still good to hear about the process and what kind of software they are using and the things that they had to consider when going about these projects. Once again this topic ties back to accuracy and completeness of information, from my first morning session today, while also begging the question of what information best serves users. For example, at Notre Dame, various people use their database for the research and so they have included more indexing than might normally be done since they want to ensure that people doing searches will find what they intend to look for even if the term searched isn’t exactly the MeSH heading.

Throughout the day, I ventured into the exhibit hall a few times. It’s always a jungle in there, it seems!

I kept this evening a little quieter, going out to dinner with a few friends and then heading back to my place to write these blog posts to keep track of what I’ve done the past couple of days here. Although it can be difficult sometimes to make time to get these posts up on the same day, as seen with my Friday post that showed up earlier this evening, they give me the chance to reflect on the sessions that I attended today and make connections between them, my prior knowledge, and generate ideas and thoughts for the future. I find that the best part of ALA is the inspiration and food-for-thought that the sessions, conference interactions, and networking provide me.

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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#ala2013 : hash tags and socials

29 Jun
#ala2013 : hash tags and socials

The first day of ALA Annual in Chicago and already the conference is busy and in full swing! Even before it began this year, hash tags on Twitter were flying by with excitement, though not always the “official” ones. It’s always humorous to see the variations on Twitter but we do want consistent use so that everyone can find all the relent Tweets–a priority of mine anyway as a cataloger! Lets agree on metadata, especially for hash tags. Maybe next time ALA can add them to the session info in the book, scheduler, and placard for the rooms…and make the conference one a part of the logo!

Even though it was Friday, the conference had many regular sessions, in addition to the majority of all-day pre-conference events. I was surprised to see the conference center was full and buzzing that morning already.

First up was the Annual Unconference, which was completely packed and standing room only by the time I showed up. Clearly the room was too small and more people showed up than they had expected but the discussion was really fruitful: user expectations versus reality for content, access, and search result; check out history and recommendation systems versus user privacy; circulation and count of items, especially print material; and the role of the library, what it is and should or can be. That’s as much as I caught before heading to the Networking Uncommons to look at the schedule again for the rest of the weekend.

Despite the size of the conference, I always run into friends, co-workers, and librarians that I met at other Annuals and Midwinters. Lunches, dinners, coffee breaks, hallway chats are one of the highlights of these conferences. But then there are the times when I cannot seem to connect with someone due to different schedules. You can’t see everyone, even when you plan to sometimes!

Competencies and education for a career in cataloging IG turned out to be exactly what I tried to find out at MidWinter: how LC conducted their training program internally for RDA. Melanie Polutta works at LC and was an internal trainer, and even an early tester when RDA first came out. She discussed how LC conducted training at the various stages of testing and adoption within LC, the challenges, and some of her lessons learned in hopes that the attending librarians could take away something to help them with training at their own institutions. Most of her advice revolved around understanding the standards and concepts inside and out. That includes terminology, the structure and content of the documentation itself, the theory and purpose, how to apply the standards versus when to use cataloger’s judgment, and deciding what cataloger’s judgment means for local policies. Time and practice are also the obvious other take aways. That and to divorce RDA from MARC when learning and talking about it with others; use publication information instead of referring to the 264 (previously 260) field. Her recommendation was for everyone to learn RDA, and FRBR, at least somewhat since whether you catalog in it or not, there will be hybrid records from here onward along with RDA elements in some AACR2 records.

For the final official ALA event of the day, I attended the Emerging Leaders poster session. One of my friends was a part of this great program this year and so it was exciting to go and hear about her project but also see what everyone else was doing this past year. People are split into various groups surrounding topics of interest and they conduct research and then present their findings at poster sessions. It’s a great way to hone project management skills and develop professional rapport within ALA. The topics vary and this year they included assessing the value of the Emerging Leaders program, assessing the retention rate of first year ALA members, and looking into the funding of the ALCTS journal.

And then came the most fun part of the day, hitting various receptions and happy hours around the city. UMich SI put on a get together for alums. I caught up with many fellow classmates from grad school that I haven’t seen for a few years and met many people who had graduated before me. It is always fun to hear about what people are doing now and the cool projects that they’re working on. Next we met up with other friends at an Irish pub, although we got caught in a bit of rain just as we were almost there. That meant waiting it out and drying off a bit, which we were happy about just staying put and hanging out. To wrap up the evening, we headed to the President’s Reception on the terrace of the Hilton Chicago overlooking Millennium Park. Midnight on a balcony with champagne networking with librarians as the red-orange moon glowed over the lit up city–not much could be better. Walking back to our place, a fat rat scurried by us as if to remind us all that we were in fact in an urban setting; the guys on the sidewalk joked that it must be New York not Chicago.

Also, the AirBnB that I’m staying at with my husband and our friend is a great walkable location and perfect for the conference. There’s even another librarian here too!

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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ALA MidWinter 2013 Movement Monday

29 Jan

Today was about moving forward and ensuring that the future is better and more useful and effective than anything now or in the past. A refinement, if you will.

That said, my day began early with the 8:30 session PVLR (Publisher/Vendor/Library Relations) Interest Group Forum that focused on the topic of enhance ebooks. This is of great interest to me since I catalog ebooks, and have seen a few “enhanced” with links out to other material but that’s it as far as enhanced. Jake Zarnegar from Silverchair Information Systems gave the most comprehensive explanation of the myriad of different types and levels of ebooks, along with the some challenges and benefits. Susie Stroud from Credo Reference demoed their enhanced ebooks, which are more like interactive websites with immediately playable embedded videos and interlinking to other relevant articles and research materials. It’s a great way to think about content and the learners, meeting them where they are and chunking the information up (you’ll see the next tie-in shortly!). Nancy Gibbs from Duke University Library focused on the challenges of faculty by-in and how hard it is to get the library involved. On her campus, different professors created one-off ebooks solely for a class. One professor had the grad students create the content to be bundled at the end as an ebook but then the professor merely deleted it at the end of the semester, finding no future value in it and wanting the next year to do their own, possibly on a different topic. Even for just preservation reasons if nothing else, how can they convince a faculty member to involve the library to save a copy if the professor himself doesn’t value the end result of the students creating an enhanced ebook? It’s tragic but if they create the project on their own and don’t include the library, it’s a huge hurdle to get involved later on in the process, or at the end; this is something to work on. Andrea Twiss-Brooks from the University of Chicago science libraries discussed more of the hurdles with enhanced ebooks, concerning use, pricing, and support. Ebook apps, while a great idea and cool, aren’t sustainable for libraries and check-out or reserve shelf, etc. Questions around ILL, upkeep, cataloging, and acquisitions were also discussed. While it brought up more thinking points than it resolved, this session truly stimulated the room and myself into considering what is out there, what’s to come, and what do we do about it?

My final session of ALA was Taking a New Look at Training and Learning that centered around small group discussion that filtered back into the larger group. People from Web Junction facilitated the event and kept an agenda and plan going to keep us in the time limits. But with all the great ideas and comments, the time literally flew by, with most of us wanting to continue on talking. What do learners need? What motivates people? How do we apply these lessons to training to better serve the learners? Despite not teaching or supervising in my cataloging role, I have taken webinars for software and helped teach my grandparents and parents about the iPad, and my uncle about his Windows laptop. From these experiences, I could relate and project these take aways into future situations to ensure the best learning environment for me or others. I dropped into this session last minute and loved it, learning a lot too. That’s what ALA is great for an can be really fun–stepping outside your usual bounds and seeing what you can learn and apply later. Ideas abound!

Lastly, I walked the exhibit hall one last time. Besides following Steve around on his booth business, I peeled away to explore on my own. One of the best stops was at the LC booth. At the RDA update, Beecher Wiggins discussed the training that they are wrapping up for all of their staff, including overseas. At the Learning session, one lady asked me about assessment tools for those RDA modules online–yes, she was a cataloger too! I didn’t know but thought it a great questions so I headed over to LC to get an answer. No one there could give me one at that point so they put me in touch with a couple of people in their training office, so hopefully in the next week or so I’ll hear back from them. Being able to talk in person can really get the ball rolling, if not work things out.

And since I avoided all of the swag, I just couldn’t resist those darn cute mini read tote bags and a call number tea mug!

ALA tote and mug

And, of course, our shot glass for each new city that we visit.

Seattle shot glass

 
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Posted by on January 29, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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ALA MW 2013 Successful Sunday

28 Jan

What a day! So much for taking it easy and not having so much on my list to do today. I ended conferencing for 12 hours, staying busy and engaged nearing the whole time. My plan was to be finished at 4 but things fall into place that you have to roll with sometimes!

This morning began with a change of pace. My mother-in-law @Lorna_Librarian works ILL at the College of Wooster so Steve (@sxflynn) and I went to meet Rapid ILL to find out information for her. They were at a hotel as their home base rather than being on the exhibit floor since they are so specialized, serving only academic librarians. The service and support that they is amazing. Their goal is to provide ILL within 24 hours, and their current average was 13 hours! Most of that is due to electronic resources that some are nearly instantly filled but even print versions usually have a quick turn around. Though they are a small organization that is inside of the Colorado State University library, this is their benefit because they work with their users everyday and are bettering the software and know it inside and out because it what they use. Originally, they created the program after a flood when they lost all of their bound widths and half of their monographs and since then it continues to grow and expand. Very cool!

Luckily, I made it back to the conference center in time for the LC New Bibliographic Framework Update. Roberta Schaffer introduced the session and speakers and said that the session was being recorded. It will be on up YouTube shortly and on the LC website after 6-8 weeks once they have closed captioned it. Beecher Wiggins gave an overview on what has happened since ALA Annual in Anaheim as far as committee work and moving forward. Reinhold Heuvelmann from the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek discussed their trial of Bibframe, touching on the difficulties, what they recommend for improvements, where they see this potentially going and its benefit, and how they are proceeding now to prepare for a linked data Bibframe future. Ted Fons, a Tech Evangelist at OCLC, then also gave his examples of what OCLC has done with linked data and Bibframe, and how a shift is taking place to a more agile, iterative system to get software out sooner and with continual revisions and releases. Part of the push to ensure that this is a long term standard is to use schema.org to utalize the web and linked data, gaining more clout in libraries and use of the resources that we already have by making them more findable in the internet. The purpose is the expose library data. At this point, I left for my lunch plans, knowing that the rest I can catch recorded. The three remaining speakers were Eric Miller, Sally McCallum, and Kevin Ford. However, with leaving early, I missed the official unveiling of http://www.bibframe.org but I caught it on Twitter. This is when Twitter and hashtags truly rock!

After lunch, I hit the exhibit floor and ran into friends and people who know my co-workers. That is part of the beauty of attending a conference, you never know who you will see and catch up with. Or who you will meet! And now, I am recognizing people from past conferences and they are becoming conference friends. Plus, it’s always fun to meet those librarians who work with Safari MARC records that I create. They love meeting me and putting a face to the who is behind the product and making it run. One guy came up and said hi at another session later, already making a point to build our connection–awesome!

Next was the all important RDA Update Forum that had huge attendance, over 200. This one wasn’t recorded and if I had planned ahead I would have brought my laptop to record audio since it was very detailed. That is one issue with sessions, you never know if it will be practical or theoretical, and even then if it’s actionable information or just informative; this was practical and actionable, and I wish I’d had my laptop. Sure I could have used the iPad but it would have been as good from the back of the room–this is my assumption since I’ve not tested iPad Mini recording against a laptop’s. Again, Beecher Wiggins gave the RDA update since last Annual. The final RDA update rewording/rewrite is wrapping up after a few chapters were reviewed and okayed. He also mentioned the http://www.bibframe.org launch. LC have 150 training resource available online for use, just give credit to them. All their staff training will wrap up around March. Next, Troy Linker from ALA Publishing talked specifically about RDA revisions and publishing a new version. RDA Toolkit’s latest improvements was a main portion, pointing out in particular RDA MARC mappings, auto sync table of contents, global and local workflows, videos and tutorials (part of the free section on the toolkit), their blog with first Tue of the month announcing change and second Tue implementing it, and a new print edition out around mid 2013, among other things. Also, there is an Essential RDA in the works, similar to Concise AACR2, that’s meant to be a practical guide and live outside of the toolkit. John Attig from the JSC gave his updates. He walked through the revision process that they did in November at their meeting. CC:DA and JSC websites discuss the changes for RDA and Fast Track keeps a history of all of those changes. Phillip Schruer, a PCC chair, covered PCC and RDA, talking about RDA BIBCO Standard Record, different task groups that have progressed to reviewing recommendations and comments on their reports to create a final version and guidelines. Three in particular focused on hybrid records, access points for expressions, and relationship designators and will be out in a few months. Undifferentiated names are a new focus now but they are still working on it. He also mentioned RDA PCC decision tables. Finally, Cynthia Whitacre from OCLC gave a brief summary of the new RDA policy and how records will be treated in OCLC. They plan to be very open and informative about when they make global changes, doing it piece by piece rather than whole records. In the Q&A, new to me, she mentioned OCLC working on a new bib notification that is very customizable and based on your holdings–no name at this time. I need to find the slides because of all the information convey, especially the very detailed field and subfields changes that are difficult to type everything out. There was a lot of great, useful information provided; a lot to take in!

Surprisingly, RDA ended early. I guess they expected a hour of questions but not many people asked. So with time to spare, I headed over to the Collection Management and Electronic Resources IG. Since it is newish and their leadership fell through, it ended up being an open discussion about ERMs. Very fascinating, not having dealt with them. Apparently there isn’t one perfect software to do everything so based on your institutions needs, and funding, there are multiple things necessary to management the data and other documents for electronic resources. Part of the initial challenge is gather the info but a major hurdle can be all of the data entry. There was a lot of interest in the group and they are look for a chair and vice chair so let me know if you are interested because I have their contact info!

Not having had enough fun for the day, I hit up on last session to satiate my curiosity–the Digital Humanities Discussion Group. This had huge turn out for what the organizers originally planned. This began only at Annual Anaheim last summer and now they are trying to make it an IG due to the interest and growing area and need for it. The session was, similar to my previous, an open discussion about several topics: data and alt-metrics, retraining, digital humanities space. Many people talked about their work and projects, or the challenges faced with beginning, as well as how to proceed as professional librarians. Do we need to change the perception of us as specialists, experts, and end points to being experimenters and explorers along side faculty members? Does buy-in need to come from tenured faculty, newly hired, newly tenured, grad students, or those already using tech, OA, and DH who might be more receptive and interested? Though provoking stuff! Can’t wait to see what these librarians put together for Annual in Chicago! They have a blog and a Twitter @DHandLib–they live tweeted so you can follow the gist of the meeting.

By now, at 5:30, my day was definitely going to end. Plans were to eat chowder, walk to the Space Needle and take in the Chihuly Garden and Glass. However, as things present themselves…

While eating said chowder, we noticed a Thompson Reuters Customer Reception going on next door. And librarians were still going in! So we headed over, Steve being a customer himself, and met some great people, had drinks, food, and collected our first tile. Apparently this is a big thing, and some have attended for 20 years so they have quite a collection! Who knew!?

By 9 p.m., we were back to our place. So much for my plan to not do as much. The thing is, once I get to conferences, I always want to do and see what I can. Being curious also keeps me seeking out topics of interest, or speakers that I want to hear. And ALA sure provides a great selection for no matter what type of library you work for or what your role is. If you are willing to do it, there is always something new or more to learn, and people to meet who are just excited (sometimes if not more)! Making connections is always fun. Especially when you run into again at later ALAs. That’s one of the benefits of returning.

Tomorrow I promise myself not to do as much. Maybe.

Seattle 2013 TR tile:

Seattle 2013 Thompson Reuters tile

 
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Posted by on January 28, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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ALA MidWinter 2013: Solidarity Saturday

27 Jan

Sitting in Seattle right now, it is still hard to believe that ALA MidWinter is upon us–even having spent the day conferencing all around the city. Though enjoying seafood and 50 degrees, despite some drizzle, is enjoyable!

This is my first MidWinter but it is just as crazy and bustling as Annual, it seems. As co-vice chair for the Cataloging Norms Interest Group, I helped with our panel this morning and it had 60-some people attend. And that’s for MidWinter. It amazes me that thousands of librarians turn out for this mid-year event, though it shouldn’t because it seems to be gaining in size and clout each year.

Today, I attended four sessions, though two were closely related. That is a lot in one day for a conference. Cataloging Norms IG started off my day with two distinct presentations that dovetailed each other nicely. The first speaker, Harold Thiele, gave an in-depth look into the history and beginnings of cataloging, starting with Mesopotamia and Sumer up through RDA. He discussed how title main entry slow progressed and evolved to the form that we know in AACR2 and how with RDA the approach is more with its lack of main entry as we know it. Maura Valentino discussed the 21st century, focusing on metadata beyond that of description and how it affects workflows and process. Though very different, the two talks paired well together and truly gave a complete picture of how far cataloging and metadata have come.

The Catalog Management Interest Group focused on managing catalog workflows, content, metadata, and prepping for RDA field displays. This ended being a more practical session that I first anticipated. Sherab Chen spoke about his new role as an e-resource manager, focusing on personnel tips and his lessons learned so far. He balanced his talk well between a no-nonsence, realistic approach and having an optimistic, can-do attitude despite all of the work and problems that such a job entails. Next, Jessica Hayden covered demand driven acquisitions within an consortial environment. Not having worked in such a setting, I am fascinated by all of the collaboration and discussions that must go on in order for a consortium to function well, and yet there are myriads of benefits to such a arrangement. Also, the distinction of what is done at the consortial level versus local can create either more roadblocks or paved ways, depending on the situation. Sarah Beth Weeks, however, gave my favorite presentation due to her topic of using Google Refine to clean up data in the catalog. For a cataloger, the chance to provide more access and an easier search for the patron to find what they are looking for is the main goal that we all strive to achieve. At their college, rather than amend specific MARC fields to make them all uniform, they added the most common form of a term as a 9xx field for better access. Finally, Roman Panchyshyn closed off the session with his testing of RDA catalog display and how to best make it work for the patron. The 3xx, no surprise, were the oddest and trickiest to work with of the new fields. Since the 264 has a 2nd indicator to help define it, those were easier to display, as were the 502 field labels after a wording tweak. Next month, he will send of his recommendations, basically what he presented at the session, to Innovative in order to get their ILS to display RDA records and fields how they want them, and ensure that they are included in indexing for search results.

After a great lunch break–ALA plans out 1.5 hours over the lunch hour, thank goodness, for no sessions–a back-to-back linked data two part session began. The first hour was informative. Some of it I had heard in Anaheim at Annual but it was a good refresher and parts of it were new information, or said a different way. Eric Miller, president of Zepheria, discussed linked data, tying git in a little bit to Bibframe. Mainly he covered the underlying structure of linked data and why it is an important task to take on as a library community. If all of our libraries were linked data, search engines would include our books and items in the top results pages, allowing users more access especially if they begin their research in the web. Next, Richard Wallis from OCLC talked about all the different projects that they are a part of concerning linked data–mainly VIAF, FAST, Dewey Classification, and now WorldCat linked data. They hope to create a large, more prominent presence on the internet with library data, and are setting an example for member libraries. It is true that if all of the libraries work together, we could make a huge splash in online metadata and set president for all who are part of the web; we have the specialized knowledge and wonderful data, so we just need to make it accessible openly on the web through links that bring users back to the library websites and catalogs.

During the second part of the linked data session, two librarians showed the small-scale projects that they completed using linked data. Both approached the idea differently and created two unrelated yet amazing projects. Violeta Ilik linked her universities math department in Viewshare, allowing for new connections and analysis to be done on the faculty itself, including gender ratios and research areas. One of the coolest part of her data ended being the PhD. location of all the faculty, which displayed on a map. Jeremy Myntti used Viewshare for an entirely different purpose with a whole other type of data. His institution has an online collection of animal sounds recorded in several states. To get even more out of the data, he loaded certain information into Viewshare and was able to display not only a map of locations for the sound recordings but to show pie charts that broke down the kingdoms and genus. The link to the recordings for each animal was included so that a person could click and follow the link to the website with the player on it. Both Violeta and Jeremy said the from start to finish, their projects took no more than 1 hour to create the linked data. Though these were fairly small scale, the implications and ease of linked data are amazing to consider.

What a day! I love attending sessions that sound interesting and I always yearn to learn more while at a conference. That’s why I am here! However, there gets to be an overload point if you pack too much in, especially if you aren’t used to it. Thankfully MidWinter is slightly shorter in the sense that there aren’t as many sessions, so I can conference a bit harder today and tomorrow knowing that Monday will be fairly sparse and Tuesday I fly out before the crack of dawn.

So far it’s been a great conference. Let’s hope tomorrow can live up to today’s standards! We will see that that huge RDA afternoon session brings…

 
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Posted by on January 27, 2013 in Uncategorized

 

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Happy National Library Week!

12 Apr

This week was National Library Week. To celebrate, ProQuest offered free access to some of their most used databases and resources, along with giving away donations to libraries. Sweet deal, for sure!

My blog post proclaiming libraries were a stable necessity in society embraces the spirit of NLW. Twitter, blogs, and local library webpages have commemorated this week as well, encouraging people to use their libraries and enumerating how they celebrated this week.

However, next week Harvard Library Strategic Conversations will host a debate to determine if libraries are obsolete. Who knew we needed this debate? Although, some people must think that it’s about time. After my previous blog post, we all know which side I fall on–I’m just amused that I made my post last night before I saw the information about this debate. It should be good and I hope they post a full video afterwards! If you do visit the above site, the embedded clip there is from a 2007 debate and not the Harvard one, which is scheduled for April 18, 2012; if you are around there, you should go and listen then vote!

Libraries definitely need more attention and use, which essentially comes down to the librarians themselves and marketing plus providing wanted services. Many libraries already do a super job but it is now more than ever that we should all be much more vocal about libraries and their great offerings.

On that note, I’m learning to love RDA, a way to be vocal within libraries as catalogers. I blogged about looking past RDA not long ago, but having looked into it, while not perfect, it’s definitely an interesting turn for cataloging that could be spectacularly beneficial. An official member now of the RDA-L listserv, RDA issues will certainly be on my mind from here on. It’s exciting to be at the forefront of a new standard. Since I won’t be retiring any time soon, as the RDA joke goes, I’m ready to get acquainted for the start of what will likely be a long-lasting cataloger-cataloging standard relationship. Bring it on!

Also, if you didn’t catch my photo post earlier, I am a librarian with Pearle Vision glasses, thank you very much.

And show your libraries some love this week: stop in and say hi to the staff and use those resources and services! Happy National Library Week!

 
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Posted by on April 12, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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