I'm rocking the cataloging! :) I know, it sounds silly. Who knew?

I got my results for my second paper in this class, the one on subject headings, and I did far better than I ever expected (an HD). I had no idea how I'd do, but it was actually rather fun, and not frustratingly challenging. Am I a cataloger in the making? I suppose it depends on how I do on this next task, actually assigning Dewey Decimal numbers.

Even though I've done well in this class so far, I have to say, I still question how necessary it is for a school librarian to have to know all of these skills. After having interviewed several librarians during my study visits, no one emphasized any need to use cataloging skills. They all said it was fully or mostly automated. When it wasn't automated, they had to look the information in a database and then just copied it over. I haven't met any librarians who actually assign subject headings or Dewey Decimal numbers themselves. Sure, I suppose it is good to have those skills when you run into a situation where you have a rare resource. I also suppose that it is good to have these skills so you can manipulate your catalog to make improvements, clean up the data, or cater the catalog to serve your own library's purposes. However, this is not a big part of being a librarian is it? Was it really necessary to put all of this energy and thought into developing this skill? Besides, I'm afraid this skill will go rusty if not regularly used. I'm sure that by the time I actually do need to catalog something or write a subject heading, I'll have forgotten how to do it!

I just completed the second assignment for ETL505. This module was quite hefty. While the tasks were interesting and honestly, a little fun, one can second guess their work an endless number of times. We had to look at five hypothetical resources and assign SCIS subject headings to them. I thought some of the tasks were easy, actually. However, so many people asked questions on the forum, that it caused me to doubt my decisions. I didn't change much of my work based on what I read in the modules, as I felt I could justify my decisions with clauses from the SCISSHL Guidelines or SCISSHL. However, part of me is just not sure I did it all right. This was meant to be a practical exercise, not a research paper. In a way, that makes this so much easier... but yet it didn't! I suppose the bright side is that I did better than I expected on assignment 1, which leaves me a lot of flexibility on these next two assignments.

I still wonder, however, how practical having cataloging skills is. I've interviewed several librarians for my study visits in ETL507, and none of them seem to require the skills of creating subject headings. It seems the systems they order their books from automatically come with cataloging details pre-loaded (e.g. Follett provides the data with the resources). The only reason I can really think of, is that it is good to understand how cataloging and standards within them work.

I recently noticed some discrepancy in the catalog at my local library. Some of the subject headings clearly were based on SCIS (they were coded scisshl), while others must be based on the Library of Congress (I'm not familiar with it, but it is probably the case). I saw magnets and magnetism both in the catalog, but they didn't refer to each other. I think they were both in the system because some resources were probably purchased from a US institution which provided LOC headings, while others were purchased from an Australian institution which supplied SCIS data. I suppose if I were looking to "clean up" the catalog, knowing about these standards would reveal the problems in the catalog, and the solution would clearly be to adhere to one standard (and include references to other relevant terms)--likely a problem of international libraries that purchase their resources from all over the world, but not so much a problem for domestic ones. But of course, only library nerds (or maybe tech nerds) would ever pick up on such problems.

Module 5 has been entirely about subject access to resources. I’ll have to admit that there is a lot of minutiae to get bogged down in, and working closely in subject heading taxonomies can be... taxing. At times it can get downright mind-numbing. It seems to take a certain kind of personality or brain to be willing to work in this type of environment.

I do recognize the value of having a standard controlled vocabulary for subject headings. I learned this when I went into my local school’s OPAC to discover that we use a combination of subject headings--I notice some comes from SCIS, while others seem to follow a different system. There was no cross referencing, and variations of the same heading were used (e.g. magnets and magnetism) which could really leave resources unnoticed. Even more interesting to me was that we had some resources with zero subject headings. Hmmm... A little house cleaning needed perhaps?

In lesson activities, we have practiced assigning subject headings to practice resources. I actually had a bit of fun with this because I was doing them right. Maybe I have the kind of mind that is suited to such structure and organization to do work like this after all!

Anyway, in the end, I am most fascinated by the last bit of reading I have done in this module, which has been mostly about natural language searching. I walk away with two memorable topics.

 The module was suggesting other ways librarians have been using the OPAC and keyword searching, taking advantage of the “notes” section for other local needs. My mind began to get excited at the possibilities (not kidding!). I made note that I could use the notes section in the OPAC to identify which resources might be useful for certain concepts we often use in elementary teaching, such as learner profile characteristics (e.g. open minded or communicator) and reading comprehension concepts (e.g. schema, inferencing, mental images). I also like the suggestions from the module notes, such as labeling the resources used for certain projects so they can be pulled easily in the future, labeling reading ability or level, and including other useful information like pictures, summaries and reviews. It makes me think of how I love searching and looking up resources on Amazon.com, because their site is so inclusive of information. Now if only we can get user reviews on our library OPAC...

 Folksonomies: I love it. I absolutely love organizing my information (links, blog entries, pictures), but I absolutely hate that I can never remember the keywords that I used before, so I end up with so many variations of the same word. My delicious account is dead and buried because it is so poorly organized with excessive tags that have only one link. Personally, I need a system that helps me organize this better, and I had no idea that all this time, I’ve been struggling with a well-known management issue of folksonomies vs. controlled vocabulary, thus exemplifying the value of controlled vocabulary. Who knew!?

I guess all I had to do was make a little personal connection to the material I’m reading, and it all sort of makes sense.