Karen Coyle has a great post on her site where she calls for help on creating “An easy, online, social library catalog.” Why another cataloging tool? Karen has recently returned from Kosovo where many of the library don’t have catalogs and certainly don’t have the resources to run many of the affordable solutions out [...]

This is an interesting sounding event hosted by NFAIS at PALINET headquarters:
The Internet, search engine technology, and the growth in electronic resources have significantly changed both the publishing and the library environments. And a new, born-digital generation of information seekers is accelerating the pace of change as they embrace technology and integrate it into all [...]

Tim Spalding has written a tiny little API to change ISBN10 into ISBN13:
A smart young programmer from a book-related company and I were talking. It turns out that, to validate ISBNs and get back both 10- and 13-digit versions he was submitting ISBNs to Amazon Web Services. That’s like calling NORAD to find out if [...]

It took me a little bit to figure out what to do - but this is a fun idea. Library of Congress Classification, the game!
Via Thingology.

Thank you Brad - I was very tired and cranky because I had to go back out after work to a work party - but now I can’t stop laughing! You have to read his post entitled Michael Gorman makes me cry. Well Brad, I’m still laughing and that’s why I’m crying!! I [...]

Back when I started here at the Seminary I decided to catalog my blog as an exercise in cataloging a serial. “But why a serial?” you may ask. I recently got an email to this affect and sent it on to Chris Schwartz, my cataloging mentor here, and here was her answer:
Here’s how [...]

I had an interesting chat with a friend regarding cataloging rules and tools that I wanted to share with you all. I know it can sometimes be hard to follow someone else’s chat transcript - but here you go:
Brooke: I think I want to try gluing my catordogging cripple speak to my lack of [...]

Via AutoCat (by J. McRee (Mac) Elrod) & Cataloging Futures:
Brian Campbell called my attention to this recorded lecture by Francis Miksa. It’s well worth the hour and a half it takes to listen to it (and I probably kept Hal awake doing so).
http://www.catalogingfutures.com/catalogingfutures/2007/11/essential-liste.html.
After a fascinating detailed history (which establishes that nothing is new under [...]

I think there is a need for a blog/website/mailing list/general list of OCLC Connexion tips! I’ve been attending training at PALINET and keep learning new little tips that will make my life easier - plus I keep finding that I sometimes know a thing or two that the others in the class didn’t. [...]

While watching a demo of Primo at the EMA conference today I had a brainstorm.
Most academic libraries remove the dust jackets from books before putting them on the shelf. This means that adding images of book covers isn’t quite at valuable to us as it might be to a public library. So - [...]

The Daily News: This just in, a volunteer at the Crocker Art Museum Library was crushed to death by the AACR2 (Anglo-American Rules for Cataloguing 2002 edition).
Well, not quite, but that’s what I felt like. I am now volunteering at the Hansen Library at the Crocker Art Museum in downtown Sacramento on Saturdays. I met [...]

I know I haven’t spoken much about my new job, but now I have something big to announce. The Princeton Theological Seminary has signed with Mark Logic to assist in the development of our digital library! The big release was today at a conference at the seminary, but I was at a training [...]

I’m finally reading Everything in Miscellaneous - and it’s awesome. The irony is that I’m taking a two day subject cataloging class. While the instructor (who is awesome and full of energy) talks about how getting the most specific subject heading is our goal and having things in alphabetical order is good - [...]

I just love every video I’ve seen by this man! Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and author/director of The Machine is Us/ing Us has another video addressing the issues brought up in Everything is Miscellaneous (a book I’m finally reading now that I have some time):

I’m not quite as offended as Chris Schwartz is about the statements made by Chris Oliver in her Changing to RDA article - maybe because I haven’t read it - or the RDA draft, but I wanted to chime in anyway
Chris Oliver says:
The standard is designed to be easy to use and to [...]

I feel like I should duck after hitting submit on this post - I might be opening up the flood gates - but here it goes!
My friend (and colleague) Chris Schwartz has written about the future of MARC (and probably will have many more posts on this topic).
When it is mentioned, MARC usually gets a [...]

Ages ago I mentioned that I was going to put this blog into OCLC and by extension WorldCat. I didn’t want to submit the record without consulting a few experts (Jennifer Lang and Christine Schwartz — thank you both) so it took a bit longer than I expected. Since you can’t see my [...]

I’m not completely sure how to respond to Martha Yee’s article entitled “Will The Response Of The Library Profession To The Internet Be Self-Immolation?“, but I do want to respond.
While reading the article I found myself nodding and then saying “yeah, but…” I think that Martha is right in many ways, but [...]

Back in May I wrote about a Koha Demo that I organized at the Jenkins Law Library. Well, I did it again! Only this time I got Chris Cormack, VP of Research & Development at LibLime and one of the original developers of Koha to come and talk at the Princeton Seminary Library.
First, on [...]

Richard Wallis has a post at Panlibus about an article found via the BBC regarding the Open Library project.
My favorite quote:
As with the rest of society, the fear of something nasty happening can be far more corrosive that the possibility of it happening.
Maybe I should give you a little bit of background. This was [...]

Resoum Kidane of Bibliographic Services at King's College London is conducting a survey on DC use.
I am currently conducting a survey concerning the use of Dublin Core (DC) and MARC amongst cataloguers and other information professionals. The main aim of this research is to obtain a perception from cataloguers and other information professionals, concerning [...]

Disclaimers:

I’m a new cataloger
I haven’t kept up with RDA

Now to the meat.
Karen Schneider has an interesting post at the Techsource blog. Karen says:
…the next time you complain about the limitations of library data"”the gazillions of records we have created about the physical items in our libraries"”and wonder why none of the cool [...]

Awesome! Alice posts about WorldCat Lists.
Lists are a way for you to group library-owned items you have found while using WorldCat. Lists let you keep track of items of interest and refer back to them whenever you want to. You can share your lists with friends and colleagues, too.

Here are some existing lists. I [...]

Chris points us to a survey to help decide if there will be a print version of RDA.
I find that while I have access to Cataloger’s Desktop, I still rely heavily on the print versions of my cataloging guides. It’s just easier to flip through the pages than it is to find what I’m [...]

There is an interesting discussion going on at Cataloging Futures. The question is how do we upgrade our Cataloger’s skill sets? How do we prepare them for cataloging of digital collections?
Most catalogers have the important skill set already: experience with structured data and standards, good analytical skills, the ever necessary discipline of [...]