Category Archives: Cataloging

I have been a big fan of Steven Levy’s ever since my brother gave my a copy of the paperback copy of Hackers a couple of decades ago. I was eager to read his new book about the iPod. But I didn’t expect it to be quite so innovative.
bq.Borrowing one of the definite qualities of the iPod itself, The Perfect Thing shuffles the book format. Each chapter of this book was written to stand on its own, a deeply researched, wittily observed take on a different aspect of he iPod. The sequence of the chapters in the book has been shuffled in different copies, with only the opening and concluding sections excepted. “Shuffle” is a hall the of the digital age–and The Perfect Thing, via sharp, insightful reporting, is the perfect guide to the deceptively diminutive gadget embodying our era. – The Perfect Thing I just hope it doesn’t end up requiring every library to have a custom MARC record.

Back when I was taking cataloging a decade or so ago, I had a Professor who had what I have found to be a pretty unique perspective: She detested OCLC. She considered WorldCat to be filled with errors and problems. While she may have been a little harsh, she did have a point. For example, in front of me right now, I have Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President’s War Powers by James F. Simon. If you search for the isbn, 074325032x, on the book, you will find that it also links to Whistling past Dixie: how Democrats can win without the South by Thomas F Schaller. According to Amazon, the correct isbn is 0743290151. In the end, it turns out the Schaller book shows both versions of the ISBN and that is why it is searchable either way. My question is, is a mistake presumably made in a CIP record worth keeping?

I was cataloguing some paperbacks and I happened to notice that they were displaying the proper book cover even with an ISBN-13 listed first. Apparently, my issue has been fixed and ahead of any schedule I was expecting. Good for B&T. And good for us because it means we won’t have to continue bad practices to get the covers to display correctly.

I was just looking at something in our catalog and noticed that whenever a book is referenced by the new ISBN standard, a book cover is not displayed. I went and did some checking and found a partial answer.
bq.Content Caf̩ is just a source of data and relies on the requesting system to format a request for data correctly. We are in the process of completing the testing of Content Caf̩ 2. Content Caf̩ 2 has been enhanced to determine whether an ISBN-10, ISBN-13 or a UPC has been passed in the request for data and returns the appropriate information. Content Caf̩ 2 also provides additional data elements like author biographies and publisher summaries. РHelpful Information from Baker & Taylor It sounds like they are aware of the problem, but an actual date of implementation would be kind of useful. You may want to check into this if you are noticing similar issues.

I got an e-mail today reminding me of the upcoming switch to ISBN13 next January. Polaris has prepared a document that provides what looks to be a good overview, Understanding the Impact of the 13-Digit ISBN, even if you are not their customer. You definitely want to be paying attention to this. Oh, and by the way, I have already seen two copies of two books, Overcoming Sleep Disorders Naturally and An Army of Davids that did not include an ISBN10.

bq.I have a hunch that the aggregation of reviews/summaries/screenshots/renting beats the pants off anyone’s OPAC. Now, I’m not saying that we need to have robotic materials dispensing machines (which probably could be easily achieved with conveyor belts and RFID), but I am saying that it would be great to have, for instance, Novelists’ content out where people didn’t have a search to use it? Can anyone show me a prime example of an OPAC doing something like this? – Aaron Schmidt I don’t know if this is a prime example, but Polaris does offer something of what Aaron is looking for. This example doesn’t make use of Novelist, but it can. My library had a Novelist subscription for awhile, but we decided as nice as it was, it was just too expensive for our needs. And I still think while book covers are great, patrons are expecting more of an Amazon-like experience.

I did a double-take when I found this entry in my Cnet Feed. The live bookmark sits right next to Catalogablog which recently had this entry. Only the thing is that I can’t figure out why Cnet couldn’t link to The FRBR Blog correctly.

bq.Tagging is fundamentally about tapping the collective human wisdom, rather than relying on a computer algorithm, for search. And that human wisdom is bound to help you discover information a computer might not otherwise know to retrieve. – Ben Shneiderman
bq.Folksonomies are far from generating a thesaurus never mind an ontology. That is not to say they are not useful and have their place, I’d love to get one on our library catalog, but they will never have the structure of more sophisticated structures. – David Bigwood

I haven’t read much about AACR3 yet, but since I appear to be taking on a new role within our Cooperative, this document by Deirdre Kiorgaard and Ann Huthwaite, Authority control in AACR3, may prove to have been essential reading. FRBR appears to have an important place in the new standard, which will definitely be a good thing.

I just catalogued two books: In the Name of Ishmael by Giuseppe Genna and Platform by Michel Houellebecq. Both by European authors and both with plots involving sadomasochism. Is this a trend, or what?