Yesterday I had an interesting chat with my sister about library catalogs. We were talking about the post I made regarding IM & SMS and whether librarians should skip over IM and move on to SMS? I told her about the fact that card catalogs are still being used and she replied with “Well, I’d rather use a card catalog, it was much easier to find things that way.” This from my younger sister! We all keep assuming that the younger generation wants technology - but here’s one person who’d rather use the cards than deal with the library OPAC. I asked her why.

She said that the OPAC (my word, not hers) is very intimidating (I opened up a Voyager example and we did a little keyword search and it proved her point … there were too many results, none of which seemed to match her initial intent). Instead of upsetting me, this actually got me a little excited.

I decided to show her a Koha example and see what her opinion was. We did the same search on the Athens County Public Library site and found the perfect result come up as the first result (yes, we did the same search). “So, is this better?” I asked. “Yes, much” she replied. She found that the Koha interface was familiar and friendly, less intimidating. She also said that she feels that the younger generation is less likely to learn what’s old (in her case - card catalogs are the way she learned - so while they’re old they don’t count in this argument) and more likely to stick with what’s new and hip and familiar - in this case the Koha search results reminded her of Amazon and made it easier for her to find what she was looking for without being overwhelmed.

I need to add here that my “younger” sister is only 2.5 years younger than I am - we’re not talking about a teenager here - but we are talking to someone who finished her undergraduate last year and was very recently surrounded by the next generation of library researchers.

I love my job - I love getting to go out and talk to librarians about what’s new and available for libraries - but I also love talking to the non-librarians to see what they want and expect from their libraries - this was a great chance for me to talk to someone about libraries who doesn’t actually work in a library. I think I’ll try to do this more often

Technorati Tags: libraries, koha, opac, ils

I’ve been saving a post by Karen Coyle for a while now - wanting to give it a good read. The post was titled The ILS minus the catalog. If you couldn’t tell, I’m spending this morning catching up on blog reading and blog posting

Anyway, back to Karen. This is an interesting post and on that I can relate to both as a librarian and as a developer. Karen mentions that the movement to pull the Catalog out of the ILS seems like a strange move since the ILS was such an amazing feat not too long ago. At the same time she understands the need now that we’re all focusing more on our patrons. In the beginning the systems were built to make librarians’ lives easier - bringing all library functions together under on roof. In that process something had to suffer and unfortunately patron search/research success is not easily measured and as such the OPAC was not focused on as much as it should have been.

All that said, as a developer - who does understand this predicament - I disagree with the way the ILS was designed in the first place - I disagree with the librarians who told their developers that only quantifiable services were important and the other areas were secondary. Whenever I developed an application I always made sure that the librarians I was working with knew that the patrons were my first concern. If that meant that the staff interface was going to be less than ideal - so be it! If it means we have to work harder to make our patrons happy - so be it! That’s what we’re here for - isn’t it? To help the patrons?

I would think that this is more an issue in a public library than an academic or corporate library where there is a captive audience - but that doesn’t mean that academic and corporate librarians get to focus more on themselves. I think we all need to take a good long look at our libraries and the services we provide. Are we really making it as pleasant for the patron as possible?

I know that I’ve been very hard on the proprietary vendors in the past - and while I still have strong feelings on the matter - I think Karen’s post makes it clear that this is not the sole fault of the vendors, but the librarians who initially requested these systems as well. We all know it’s time for a change - and I can’t wait to see what happens.

From Lorcan Dempsey:

OCLC distributed around 2 million printed catalog cards last year. They are still being used ….

I understand that there are some libraries that just can’t afford monolithic library systems - but there are so many affordable options out there today - why would so many libraries still be using cards?

Earlier this week I was lucky enough to join in a podcast recording with the new Library 2.0 Gang:

I’m often asked when we are going to bring back the regular Library 2.0 Gang podcast show, especially after the special we did on Roy Tennant’s Library Software Manifesto, back in December.

The great news is that the Gang will be back - this month! The first show in a new improved regular Talis Library 2.0 Gang series is being recorded this week and, subject to technical wizardry, should be heading towards a podcast player near you, next week.

That’s right folks - the gang is back and I’m now a member Keep an eye out for our first podcast due to be released next week sometime - we talked with Aaron Schwartz about the Open Library. If you want a preview you can review my notes from Code4Lib on the subject.

I had a great chat with a friend today:

Anne: I LOVE LIBRARIES
Nicole Engard:: lol
Nicole Engard:: why?
Anne: because i just found all the awesome stuff that my library card will get me at my local library
Anne: as far as on the internet stuff goes
Nicole Engard:: hehe
Nicole Engard:: great!
Anne: i can get MCSE training materials for free on the internet
Nicole Engard:: awesome
Anne: and audiobooks which im sure i’ll be able to hack
Anne: and programming references
Anne: and im sure a bunch of other stuff
Anne: OH
Anne: awesome
Anne: apparently O’reilly’s Safari was bought by ProQuest
Anne: and i have access to ALL of that for free
Anne: AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME
Anne: man, libraries need to publish this crap!
Anne: this is such a resource
Anne: thousands of dollars worth of information
Nicole Engard:: hehe - totally copying & pasting to blog
Anne: yeah yeah
Anne: i figured
Anne: but man
Anne: this is a MINT
Nicole Engard:: LOL
Nicole Engard:: I know
Nicole Engard:: and it’s true
Nicole Engard:: libraries have to advertise this stuff
Anne: i feel like i should write an article for slashdot
Anne: or something
Anne: maybe ill write a life@icrontic article about libraries
Anne: and how awesome of a resource they are
Nicole Engard:: yes
Nicole Engard:: do that
Anne: i think i will
Anne: it’ll just be a short snippet i suppose
Anne: but it’ll get me started
Anne: im sure alot of counties libraries’ have safari access
Nicole Engard:: i’m not sure
Nicole Engard:: safari costs a lot
Nicole Engard:: ….
Anne: oh wow…i dont even have to log in
Nicole Engard:: LOL
Nicole Engard:: that’s awesome
Anne: it’s just according to the referring URL
Anne: it’s awesome
Anne: im very psyched
Nicole Engard:: good
Anne: YES

The moral of the story is - advertise your services your patrons will be grateful and find it “awesome”!

In his presentation, Building the Open Library, Aaron Swartz introduced us to his vision of an online library. In his vision, like Brewster’s, he sees a wiki with one page for every book. For this reason, the small group (6 people spread out around the world) is starting their project with monographs.

To achieve this feat, the team is using their own database framework called ThingDB:

ThingDB stores a collection of objects, called “things”. For example, on the Open Library site, each page, book, author, and user is a thing in the database. Each thing then has a series of arbitrary key-value pairs as properties. For example, a book thing may have the key “title” with the value “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and the key “genre” with the value “Memoir”. Each collection of key-value pairs is stored as a version, along with the time it was saved and the person who saved it. This allows us to store full semi-structured data, as well as travel back thru time to retrieve old versions of it.

Gathering Data

Obviously a library isn’t anything without data, so to start, the team contacted publishers for their ONIX data - surprisingly they were mostly receptive - they wanted their books to be findable.

Next, they contacted librarians to ask for data dumps for their catalogs - unsurprisingly they didn’t get the same kind of response that they got from the publishers. Librarians wanted to think about it for a while… Long story short, they have some library data, but would love more.

Now that they had book data, they wanted to enhance it with additional content like book reviews from the New York Times, Harper’s, Reader’s Catalog, and the New York Review of Books. These titles will all soon have their reviews integrated into the site!!

Lastly, they’re scanning books to get data. This is where the Internet Archive comes in. They are providing their scans and data for the Open Library project.

The Library

The library itself has to focus on display. When a user enters a search term you will get back a book page, each book page gives you more info about the book - buy, borrow, download. From each book page, each author has a page as well, this way they’ll be able to auto generate bibliography for author. This is very much like the LibraryThing author pages.

So, now that we have library with pages for books and authors, we need to organize data. Aaron was awfully funny here - he had librarians arguing - but what subjects should we use? Which classification scheme do we use? We’re going to have to think about this! Aaron says quite simply - there is no need to argue - it’s only we can use them all!! I love it - very Everything is Miscellaneous - we can organize things in any way we want on the web - we aren’t limited by the physical world!!

There is also a sort of FRBR where you can link books together.

So now we have an online library - how do we keep it updated? Each page (book, author, etc) is editable - it’s a wiki!! In addition to that, you can easily edit the templates for your own need or make fixes to bugs you find in the templates that the Open Library is using.

The Future

In the future, they want to provide scan on demand - for $20 or $30 they’ll go get a scanned copy of the book. Then the PDF is put online with a bookplate saying that you paid for that book to be digitized. Now, the PDF is available to everyone!!

Aaron’s dream is to have a web of books online - all the information about the book - all the people who reviewed it, all the libraries that have it - all the places you can buy it - all in one place - so that everyone can find any book and find out how to access the information it holds.

In order to fulfull Aaron’s dream, we have to share. “We want your data” - share your MARC data with the project (something that a few people at the conference did as a gift to Brewster for his keynote). If this is to be a open-source project you need to share. Also, as an open-source project, they need all the help they can get - so chip in!

Questions & Answers

Q: Can we scan on demand now?

A: Scan on demand is not available now - but it should be done in the next couple weeks - we’ll see

Q: Will we get a copy of the items to put in our catalogs if we pay for it to be scanned?

A: The idea is that the book will scanned then a URL will be provided that can be put in the 856 field in your catalog.

Q: What about books that are only published online?

A: Yes - any and all books - get as much in there as possible

Q: Is there an API?

A: They are planning an API - so that you can get any book page in the format they need

Q: Where are you getting cover art?

A: LibraryThing - user scanned covers, Publishers give covers and we got a dump of covers from Amazon. We want to let libraries use them so we got as many covers as possible.

Q: Plans for Internationalization?

A: It should be translatable in the future

More Info

Demo: demo.openlibrary.org

This article (subscription required) discusses the potential friction between Open Library and WorldCat. Will the success of the former spell doom for the latter? How will librarians respond to the invitation to send records to one or the other, or both? [via LISNews]

Find more press about Open Library.

Conclusions

There were no negatives out of this guy!!! The project sounds so much better than I had even realized from reading articles and blog posts. I love it - this is amazing and I can’t wait to see more!

Technorati Tags: code4lib, code4lib2008, open library, code4libcon2008

In Andrew Nagy’s presentation From Idea to Open Source, he took us through the process of creating VuFind, an open-source OPAC replacement/Library portal.

At Villanova, they wanted to develop a portal for library patrons that would let people search the catalog, the article databases and digital library all in one - and keep it separate from the ILS. The goal was one single interface for all library resources in order to minimize the learning curve associated with having many different interfaces.

After doing some asking around, they quickly found that many other academic libraries were having the same problem - so the question became - why don’t we do it together? Why not make this an open-source project so that others can participate and benefit from the work of others?

The Goal

At Villanova, they wanted to build a system that would work with any ILS (including Koha & Evergreen - which Andrew called “our open source cousins”) and needs to work on a variety of platforms (Linux, Windows, etc).

The goal was not to replace the ILS, keep the ILS to do what it does best - but change the web app our patrons use so that it better meets their needs and expectations. VuFind uses the ILS to pull live holdings data from and either harvest bib data (if the ILS doesn’t provide direct database access) or query existing index (mostly used on the open-source ILSes which provide a way to let you in to search directly).

By having this top layer in addition to your ILS, you can easily change ILSes in the future without disrupting your patrons or changing the way they’re used to working. All this, just by separating the OPAC from the ILS.

Making it Open Source

The next step is to take this open source and share it - Villanova is not the marketplace to sell/support software. Andrew made a call to the audience to help build a collaborative community around VuFind so that this project can take off and be successful. Since other institutions are interested in it it would be a shame for Villanova to keep it to themselves - this is why open source is the next logical stop for the project.

In order to do this decisions have to be made, the right tools need to chosen. Some options were Sourceforge and Google Code. Right now, the VuFind team chose Sourceforge - they don’t find that it has all of the tools they need, but it was a good first step in making the project shareable.

The future vision includes having a local SVN or CVS and using a tool like JIRA, TRAC, Bugzilla, etc. These options lead to true freedom, but require a hosting institution.

Positives of Open-sourcing

• collaborative code sharing
• idea sharing
• university gets national attention (good for the university - and shows the directors that it’s worth spending time on)

Negatives of Open-sourcing

• mailing list support - requires time that you may not have
• facilitate communication - also takes time
• possibility of people not have things unanswered due to time constraints
• time involved with marketing - getting the word out (the true success of an open-source project is word of mouth) - requires traveling and schmoozing
• project switching is expensive (we all have other jobs - jumping from our primary roles to assist in VuFind is time-consuming & thus expensive)

Where VuFind is now

Most importantly, we need easy ways to install the software. Everyone knows about the famous Wordpress 1 minute install - this should be the goal. The product requires easy install and integration, strong user interface and strong functionality before it will be widely adopted (I’d argue that the interface is pretty strong already - just a few more tweaks and it’s there).

When open-sourcing a project you need a roadmap for organization, to keep the process agile and to communicate with the community so they know what you’re doing from time to time. The start to this is the VuFind site and Sourceforge, but as Andrew said, not everything needed can be found in Sourceforge.

Conclusions

I’ve seen Andrew talk a few times about VuFind and I think this was the best of all of the talks I saw. It showed me how I can help, it showed me that there is a plan and a pretty mapped out one for VuFind. I see this as a viable option for librarians looking for a way to to integrate searching of all of their collections in one easy to use, clean, interface.

Technorati Tags: vufind, code4lib, code4lib2008, code4libcon2008

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 aspects of their lives. This evolution from a print to digital information environment is forcing all those involved in bibliographic control for information access and retrieval to rethink traditional practices and procedures – even to rethink the concept of journals and issues! How does digital article-by-article publishing impact library acquisitions and cataloging as well as processing by traditional abstracting and indexing services? How can user-generated be leveraged to enrich bibliographic services? Can librarians and content providers collaborate in the creation and sharing of bibliographic data? What new forms of bibliographic control are emerging? And what opportunities does the future hold for the traditional players in bibliographic control?

The event takes place on the 28th of March and if you register on or before March 8th, you get a discount.

Technorati Tags: NFAIS

Are you attending Code4Lib this year? If you are - I encourage you to attend Koha Camp.

Technorati Tags: code4lib, koha

There is a pretty awesome post on the BusinessWeek Blogspotting blog. First, a description from the blog:

In Blogspotting Senior Writer Stephen Baker and Associate Editor Heather Green take a look at how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society. Whether its blogs or wikis, data crunching or data targeting, technology’s advances are reshaping the world that we live in.

Now, the post:

If one profession appeared endangered by the digital age, it was the librarian. But only at first glance. In the age we’re entering, as Steve Rubel notes, the challenge will not be finding limited information in finite realms, but instead in unearthing relevant info in near limitless mountains of data. Google, of course, does this with algorithms.

But humans—call them librarians, or curators—will have plenty of work too. They’ll not only help find info, but also oversee the machines overseeing the flow, security and complex layers of access to certain data.

I love reading things like this on non-librarian blogs.

A little bit of trivia for you from a photo on Flickr. I honestly can’t tell if this is a joke or if the person is serious - but if it’s real, this is kind of funny and very sad.

book rental?
Originally uploaded by Nick Triantafillou

It reads:

was just thinking. my sister does -alot- of reading, and spends like $1000 a year on just books alone. most of them she reads just once then never looks at again. is there any kind of like…video rental store but for books? would make things alot cheaper, plus once one person has read one the next person can get enjoyment from it etc

There will be an interesting discussion later this week on Blending Libraries and IT Organizations:

As technology and data become increasingly intertwined, many small liberal-arts colleges are combining their IT organizations and libraries to better serve students and faculty members. Xavier University, in Cincinnati, has embraced that model wholeheartedly (The Chronicle, January 18). It is constructing a new building to house the new organization, has scrapped the position of chief librarian, and has reduced the number of books in its library. Xavier is determined to make the new organization work, but some colleges have seen such mergers collapse because of cultural clashes between librarians and technology workers. Will more colleges adopt a blended organization? What are the keys to a successful marriage between the units? How do the roles of librarians and technology workers change?

I haven’t read the article yet - but I will before the 31st (which is when the chat will begin). This sounds like an interesting talk - although I’m not sure what they mean by “blending” IT & Library orgs - which is why I have to read the article

I don’t where to begin with this. I have just read several different blogs/emails/releases all about this amazing leap for the open source ILS & other open source library tools.

Let’s start with Roy:

So anyway, here’s the skinny: IndexData, WebFeat, and CARE Affiliates have partnered to create a service they’ve dubbed OpenTranslators. In a nutshell, this service makes any of the some 10,000 databases for which WebFeat has developed search connections available to be searched through SRU or Z39.50. In [one] stroke, they have made all of these sources available for searching by any application that can work with one of these protocols.

Next, Sebastian:

I don’t mind saying that this solution also addresses one of my deep, long-term beefs with the present metasearch market. Traditionally, database gateways have been hidden behind closely held proprietary APIs, and generally each vendor has painstakingly developed their own set of gateways. This practice has set the bar of entry into the market very high and has effectively stifled competition. It has also meant that resources that could have otherwise been expended on innovation and better user experiences have instead been wasted on redundant database connector development. Our interest is in developing new, exciting applications, and supporting others who are coming up with cool stuff and new services.

And lastly, the press release:

OpenTranslators will allow libraries to use the federated search interface of their choice to access over 10,000 databases using SRU/SRW/Z39.50. The databases consist of: licensed databases, free databases, catalogs, Z39.50, Telnet and proprietary databases. Libraries that already have a Z39.50 client in their OPAC will be able to connect to, not only library catalogs, but also thousands of additional databases. Those libraries that are building or already using an open source federated search tool will now be able to expand the world of information that can be accessed. Finally, for those institutions/organizations building new mashup clients, this will allow them to access and use vast amounts of additional content.

This is such a big step for libraries and open source! At least - I think it is This is certainly something I will be keeping an eye on.

[update] It seems that I (and many others) may have jumped the gun on excitement. Check out some of the valid questions made by Sol at the Federated Search blog. I will be doing a lot of reading on this in the following week and see if I can come to understand it all just a bit better. [/update]

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’s raining.* Nor did he seem likely to hunt around for an ISBN library for Ruby. After all, what he was doing worked.

So I made a quick, very stupid API, ie. http://www.librarything.com/isbncheck.php?isbn=0765344629

Technorati Tags: librarything, isbn

@ crema
Originally uploaded by aaron schmidt

I recently remembered my Yelp membership and started using it more. What I never thought to use it for was reviewing libraries!! I found this picture via Tame the Web and was happy and surprised to find out that it was on door to a library!!

I’m off to review as many libraries as I can before I go to sleep

Technorati Tags: yelp, libraries

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.

I taught a class on Thurs on the 2.0 Office. At the end I had some extra time so I showed some fun social tools that you can find professional uses for. One of these tools was Flickr. Well, it turns out (thanks David for pointing it out) that the Library of Congress has come up with a pretty awesome way to use Flickr.

The project is beginning somewhat modestly, but we hope to learn a lot from it. Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.

This is a great idea!! I love it!

Technorati Tags: flickr, library of congress

Thanks to Judith for pointing out Kathy’s editorial from the most recent issue of CIL.

“In the library world, many processes are still done the way they were years ago. The old adage ‘because we’ve always done it that way’ still holds sway, and entangled layers of bureaucracy can make real change incredibly slow, if no impossible. But as I preach in keynotes and workshops while I’m wearing my other hat, as editor of the Marketing Library Services newsletter, what you’ve ‘always done’ doesn’t cut it anymore. You’ve all heard that sermon before, but hearing it doesn’t really help. What you need is a place to start. How should you change? What should you change? What do people want you to do differently?

“That’s why I chose the theme Finding Out What People Want From Library Technology for this issue. It’s perfect for January; the month of changing and renewing and starting fresh. And I have the only logical answer about where to start the process. Start with your patrons. Your collections and services are all for them, so update them to match patron wants and needs.

“But what do these users want and need? Even more important, what do nonusers want and need that you’re not offering? You could read other people’s research, you could make assumptions, or you could guess. Or you could do the only sensible thing—just ask them!

(emphasis added by me).

I’m shocked by how few of us actually ask our patrons/web visitors what they want. I’ve also seen that when one method of asking doesn’t work (survey, poll, etc) others are just thrown to the wayside - just because your patrons don’t answer your survey doesn’t mean they don’t have an opinion - it means they don’t have the time to fill out your survey - so come up with another way to gather information about their needs/wants.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would soon be the chair of the SLA-IT Blogging section - well - it’s that time. I’ve posted my hello post and I’m ready to roll!!

Technorati Tags: blogging, sla, special libraries association

The first issue of the Code4Lib Journal has been released and the TOC looks pretty enticing - now I just have to find time to read some of these articles.

• Editorial Introduction "” Issue 1
• Beyond OPAC 2.0: Library Catalog as Versatile Discovery Platform
• Facet-based search and navigation with LCSH: Problems and opportunities
• The Rutgers Workflow Management System: Migrating a Digital Object Management Utility to Open Source
• Communicat: The Next Generation Catalog That Almost Was"¦
• Connecting the Real to the Representational: Historical Demographic Data in the Town of Pullman, 1880-1940
• BOOK REVIEW: The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber
• COLUMN: 700 Dollars and a Dream : Take a Chance on Koha, There's Very Little to Lose

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 have to leave for the party now - so you’ll all have to read his post yourself.

Of COURSE folksonomy is less exact than LCSH– that isn’t the point of it. Controlled Vocabulary is amazing for precision purposes, but if you don’t KNOW about the terms it’s not that helpful. Tagging, by contrast, allows users to determine what about the document is important to THEM, and note it that way. Remember them? The people we’re supposed to be serving?

And commenter Infosciphi, thanks for adding to my uncontrollable giggles:

I may be oversimplifying and perhaps exaggerating, since I have never met the man, but having read much of M. Gorman’s commentary, I have begun to view him like I would an adult with developmental problems. Sure he has the age & career of the adult, but his thought processes and reasoning seem to indicate some sort of mental retardation.

Okay - I’ve been fighting with Drupal for months! Now there is finally some help in sight!

As the name implies, ‘DRUPAL4LIB‘ is for those interested in Drupal, a popular open-source CMS, as it relates to libraries and librarians. The idea is to have a forum to exchange ideas and advice, share experiences, and maybe even collaborate on a couple of projects that highlight the use of Drupal in a library context.

Via LISNews.

Technorati Tags: drupal, drupal4lib

Don’t miss this free opportunity hosted by PALINET:

Koha Camp is a unique first opportunity for systems librarians, library software developers and designers to come together for an open source experience with Koha Library Integrated System.

This one-day workshop, limited to 25 participants, is a place where teams of software developers and librarians will join to explore the open source community and to solve real-world problems. Staff members from LibLime, the library software solutions company that developed Koha, will attend the workshop to work with participants.

By the end of the workshop you will be able to: communicate with other Koha users worldwide, install Koha, understand and navigate the source code tree, create and customize Koha templates, modules, scripts, and utilities, send your improvements as patches to the Koha community for inclusion in the next version.

Koha Camp is free, and will be held at PALINET, in Philadelphia, on January 11, 2008, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM ET. Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

Technorati Tags: koha, palinet, liblime

Found via Beyond the Job:

A new series of free online OPAL (www.opal-online.org) events is about to get underway. As the series name implies, these "Casual Conversations" will be one-hour informal conversations with librarians. Everyone in the world is welcome to participate. There is no need to register. Just show up online, listen, text chat, and talk if you want.

Watch for more information about these upcoming Casual Conversations:

Thursday, Dec. 6, 2007: Meredith Farkas
Friday, Jan. 18, 2008: Curtis Rogers
Friday, Feb. 8, 2008: Lori Bell
Friday, Feb. 15, 2008: Michelle Boule
Friday, March 28, 2008: Marshall Breeding
Friday, April 11, 2008: Jenny Levine
Friday, May 16, 2008: Stephen Abram
Friday, June 6, 2008: Michael Stephens

Learn more at Beyond the Job or on the OPAL Calendar.

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 we decided at Princeton Seminary as to whether or not to catalog blogs as serials or integrating resources (of course, both come under the umbrella of “continuing resources” in AACR2).

• Even though blogs are websites (which are usually considered integrating resources) they have a distinct structure. We felt that blogs were most like serials.
• We decided that the most important parts of a blog are its posts.
• The posts do remain discrete. They are not integrated into the whole. So, the blog posts act like discrete issues of a serial.
• Each blog post has what’s called a permalink. It is a permanent link to the post.
• Also, like serials, blog posts have chronology and some have numbering. (My blog hosting software, TypePad, does not number blog posts, but Nicole’s does.) In fact, reverse chronology is one of the distinctive characteristics of a blog.
• If you check the CONSER Cataloging Manual, you’ll see it’s possible to have a serial with chronology, but no numbering. I’ve only seen one of these in the last five years, but I’m not cataloging serials on a daily basis.
• Even the comments left on blog posts have permanent links, and so remain discrete.
• I don’t think there are any good arguments for cataloging a blog as an integrating resource. It’s true that the sidebar information, for example, a blogroll, does change and those changes are integrated into the whole. But the sidebar information is really peripheral. The posts are the most important part of the blog.

Technorati Tags: cataloging, blogs