Library Science Related Blogs
Software developer from Harvard's Library Innovation Laboratory, Paul Deschner, writes about the importance of quality cataloging for the development of new library applications. One of the primary challenges in this work is getting data describing books and periodicals (catalog records) to relate to data from non-library sources, such as data about book talks on YouTube or to NPR broadcasts of author interviews or to archival collections. It’s all about connections in the data. The barer the data, the less describedit is, the more it falls flat.
Cataloging Futures
As part of our Archives Month 2010 celebration , archivists and librarians here at the Smithsonian are blogging about the work they do. I was asked to describe what it's like to be a cataloger. I filled up pages of notes with thoughts about the past, present, and future of cataloging archival and library materials, and, more specifically, about my job as Special Collections Cataloger for the Smithsonian Institution Libraries . It was a great exercise, but I generated way more information than I could pack into one entry. Therefore, I've suggested to my fellow SIRIS bloggers that we ought to do a continuing series on the glories and travails of cataloging (do you agree? Let us know in the comments section below!).
What It's Like to Be a Cataloger