So this morning I come walking into the library, coffee in one hand, prepared to walk right back to my desk and commence the wonderful and magical work of fixing something in the ILS. The reference librarian on duty (and in fact, the head reference librarian) yells at me. Yes, she yelled. Yes, I went over and said "Ma'am, we are in a LIBRARY." We both laugh.
Anyway, she directs my attention to this subject heading, and asks "what the heck is this? It's just a number. And there's a whole bunch of them."
651 $7 $a7.150.$2gtt
Yeah. There it was. The dreaded $2gtt marking on that 651. "Gemeenschappelijke Trefwoordenthe-saurus (GTT)" (Joint Subject Headings Thesaurus). In other words: the Dutch.
I'll admit it: I badmouth the GTT like nobody's business. Mostly because I find it to be horrible. What kind of subject heading is "History"? I know that you catalogers out there are with me. It's ridiculous. This is the Dutch National System, not Jan's World of Paperbacks. Surely they can do better? I mean, this is the country that built the dykes, that produced the Dutch Masters, held England and Spain at bay while they built one of the greatest international corporations in the world. Subject headings should be a breeze, am I right?
Anyway, this was a new one, but I wasn't surprised. A number for a subject heading? Why not? Why not just move on to pictograms, GTT?
But really, I am just poking fun at what is really a system that is not designed to be the LCSH. Yes, I made a joke of it to the reference librarian, but at least now when she sees something like that, she will know from whence it came. If you, gentle reader, are interested in knowing more about the GTT, which is really just an index of very general terms and not like the LCSH in either form or function, there's a good article here.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Semantic Web BlahdeBlah
Reading about how libraries need to embrace the Semantic Web. Here's my note in the margins to myself:
"Isn't there a larger problem with metadata for the Semantic Web (or XML, or MARC) that all these tags are still *text*, and therefore subject to misspellings, misunderstandings, and the vagaries of the human mind? The problem that we have with databases and their inability to catch inconsistencies is also a problem for any XML or Semantic Web entity. You can call a cat a cat or a feline or a kat or a kitty, and no one can nay-say your tag. But your tag will not necessarily fall in with other tags which may be the same *thing*, but not the same *word.*"
I'm interested in how we resolve this problem. It's a problem that catalogers have obviously been wrestling with since time out of mind, but now we have an infinitely larger population of data-inputters, with infinitely less training in the importance of standardization and uniformity of metadata. Are we forced to just give up and let things be kind of crappy? I don't know that the answer is just "more programming."
"Isn't there a larger problem with metadata for the Semantic Web (or XML, or MARC) that all these tags are still *text*, and therefore subject to misspellings, misunderstandings, and the vagaries of the human mind? The problem that we have with databases and their inability to catch inconsistencies is also a problem for any XML or Semantic Web entity. You can call a cat a cat or a feline or a kat or a kitty, and no one can nay-say your tag. But your tag will not necessarily fall in with other tags which may be the same *thing*, but not the same *word.*"
I'm interested in how we resolve this problem. It's a problem that catalogers have obviously been wrestling with since time out of mind, but now we have an infinitely larger population of data-inputters, with infinitely less training in the importance of standardization and uniformity of metadata. Are we forced to just give up and let things be kind of crappy? I don't know that the answer is just "more programming."
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The Philosophy of the Book
I've been inundated today with the question of "what is a book?" I heard a piece on the radio where the commentator asked this question. I of course started yelling at the radio: "Librarians have been asking that questions for years, stupid! ASK A LIBRARIAN!" Then once at work in the library, the ILL librarian comes up and we have a talk about connecting traditional philosophical ideas of physicality and reality with FRBR. I don't know if anyone's done this, or if we've all moved way beyond traditional philosophy and just reference our own works now with nary a thought towards the people who spend all their time asking "what is knowledge?". I'd be interested in reading something that connected the two areas of study.
And THEN, another librarian (from acquisitions this time) came in to say that she saw an exhibit by Steve Wolfe that looked like he framed book jackets, and hung paperback novels on the wall. But it turns out that he actually painted those book jackets, and the "novels" are just woodblocks made to look exactly like a book. Objects that are books to the naked eye, but have no knowledge in them.
The universe is telling me to think about this issue. I like it when convergences occur like this, but I'm having trouble even articulating what I'm grappling with today. It obviously requires a lot more thought, but I don't have time to think about these things, either (cataloging awaits me!). What is a book? Is it just information? God, am I turning into Michael Buckland??
And THEN, another librarian (from acquisitions this time) came in to say that she saw an exhibit by Steve Wolfe that looked like he framed book jackets, and hung paperback novels on the wall. But it turns out that he actually painted those book jackets, and the "novels" are just woodblocks made to look exactly like a book. Objects that are books to the naked eye, but have no knowledge in them.
The universe is telling me to think about this issue. I like it when convergences occur like this, but I'm having trouble even articulating what I'm grappling with today. It obviously requires a lot more thought, but I don't have time to think about these things, either (cataloging awaits me!). What is a book? Is it just information? God, am I turning into Michael Buckland??
Thursday, April 29, 2010
A New Era of Responsibility
...A book which has come across my desk has this title. Which reminded me that I haven't posted on this blog since I was 7.5 months pregnant. Well, now our daughter is almost 15 months, I'm working a little bit again, and for the love of God, surely I can get myself back into the world of blogging about organizing information. Right?
So, in that vein, I want to write some about a project I was recently involved with. Since I am not working full time any longer, I took on a side project, archiving the personal papers of a successful businessman here in town. His dad was very famous as a businessman, as well, and some of his papers were also included in this job. The total amount was probably 20 linear feet or so.
The interesting thing about this project was how basically different it FELT than the professional archivist jobs I've had. I went to their (very large and well-appointed) home once a week, and worked out of their dining room. His wife would periodically come in, not to check on me, but to relate some historical factoid, or to show me something that she found, or to ask if she framed something correctly. Your own personal archivist! And, I found I did not have the same kind of mental freedom that I had while working in an institution. If I found something in a collection that I knew was superfluous and common, like, say, an envelope with no letter and no address, I could put it in a stack of things to get rid of. Not so with these papers, because the owner was working in his office down the hall, and he was a pack rat, and when I showed it to him, he'd say "we should keep it, I suppose."
It's interesting to be able to go to the creator and say "what is this? what were you doing at this time?" instead of just having to guess and research.
So, in that vein, I want to write some about a project I was recently involved with. Since I am not working full time any longer, I took on a side project, archiving the personal papers of a successful businessman here in town. His dad was very famous as a businessman, as well, and some of his papers were also included in this job. The total amount was probably 20 linear feet or so.
The interesting thing about this project was how basically different it FELT than the professional archivist jobs I've had. I went to their (very large and well-appointed) home once a week, and worked out of their dining room. His wife would periodically come in, not to check on me, but to relate some historical factoid, or to show me something that she found, or to ask if she framed something correctly. Your own personal archivist! And, I found I did not have the same kind of mental freedom that I had while working in an institution. If I found something in a collection that I knew was superfluous and common, like, say, an envelope with no letter and no address, I could put it in a stack of things to get rid of. Not so with these papers, because the owner was working in his office down the hall, and he was a pack rat, and when I showed it to him, he'd say "we should keep it, I suppose."
It's interesting to be able to go to the creator and say "what is this? what were you doing at this time?" instead of just having to guess and research.
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