Category Archives: Serials

Some things read this week, 8 – 14 April 2007

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Sunday, 8 Apr 2007

Vickery, B. C. “Ontologies.” Journal of Information Science 23 (4) 1997: 277-286.

Re-read for Representation and Organization. Originally read 10 Feb 07. Week 5 of RO got moved to Week 13.

This is a good overview of ontologies and the rise of the concept within knowledge engineering and information sicence.

Paglia, Camille. Break, blow, burn. 2005. Read:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”

Sunday – Monday, 8 – 9 Apr 2007

Velluci, Sherry L. “Bibliographic relationships.” In: Weihs, Jean, ed. The Principles and future of AACR: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR, Toronto, Canada, Oct. 23-25, 1997: 105-146.

An excellent article that looks at the history and current status of thought on bibliographic relationships, both theoretical and empirical. The first section—Introduction; Background and Context—provides a short, but excellent, historical summary from Panizzi to Svenonius. The second section provides assorted breakdowns of types of bibliographic relationships. In this section, the author covers the three seminal works on bibliographic relationships—Tillett’s 1987 dissertation, Smiraglia’s 1992 dissertation, and Velluci’s 1997 Bibliographic relationships in music catalogs—amongst others. The third section, entitled User Needs: Navigating the Relationship Universe, is perhaps the widest ranging. It covers the dual function provided by linkages of relationships in the catalog, past and current linkage systems, link types and associated relationships, relationships of importance to users, user studies, the IFLA FRBR study, and the relationships important to authority record users. The fourth section covers methods for improving the expression of bibliographic relationships in an online environment. This section looks at both MARC and newer catalog environments, and considers the local versus global bibliographic universe. The final section is a one-page statement of “General Principles for Bibliographic Relationships in Catalogs.”

Throughout this article, Vellucci consistently points out the impact of, and the interlocked nature of, the descriptive cataloging rules and the structure and design of the catalog.

Highly recommended.

Monday – Wednesday, 9 – 11 Apr 2007

Weiss, Ron, et. al. “HyPursuit: A hierarchical network search engine that exploits content-link hypertext clustering.” Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Hypertext, Washington, DC, March 1996

This one was a bit beyond me in some ways, but it was cited in Broughton, V. “Structural, linguistic and mathematical elements in indexing languages and search engines: Implications for the use of index languages in electronic and non-LIS environments.” Read 2 April.

Tuesday – Thursday, 10 – 12 Apr 2007

Chew Chiat Naun. “FRBR principles applied to a local online journal finding aid.” Library Resources & Technical Services 51 (2), April 2007: 134-145.

This rather long article (by LRTS standards) is interesting as a post hoc analysis of a system that us folks at UIUC use pretty much daily, the ORR. It looks at the challenges to, and the problems that arose during, the creation of a database-driven, alphabetical list of journal resources.

While it could prove useful for most anyone interested in electronic resources, A-Z lists, FRBR and/or cataloging, I highly suggest it to all of you at UIUC who have used the ORR.

Thursday – Friday, 12 – 13 Apr 2007

Cruse, D. Alan. “Hyponymy and its varieties.” In Green, Bean and Myaeng, eds. The Semantics of relationships: An interdisciplinary perspective. Information Science and Knowledge Management series, v. 3. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002.

Hyponymy is the most pervasive structuring relationship, occurring “across the widest range of grammatical categories and content domains” (3). The article provides several definitions of a logical, collocational, and componential nature while working towards a prototype-theoretical characterization, with the result being that, so far, there exists no “fully satisfactory characterization of hyponymy” (12).

Simple hyponymy (is-A) is differentiated from the more discriminating form (is-a-kind-of), called taxonymy by Cruse. Three modes of subdividing categories are also explicated: the natural kind mode, the nominal kind mode, and the functional mode.

I found this article fairly difficult. It is written by “a lexical semanticist with a ‘cognitive linguistic’ bias” (3), and seems to assume a fair amount of prior knowledge. It is accessible, but may require a bit of work.

Recommended.

Friday – Saturday, 13 – 14 Apr 2007

Crawford, Walt. Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large 7 (5), May 2007.

Saturday, 14 Apr 2007

Fellbaum, Christiane. “On the semantics of troponymy.” In Green, Bean and Myaeng, eds. The Semantics of relationships: An interdisciplinary perspective. Information Science and Knowledge Management series, v. 3. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002.

Provides an interesting and very accessible look at the hyponymy relation amongst verbs, known as troponymy. Demonstrates why while related this is a different than simply being hyponymy, and that it is not a semantically homogeneous relationship. Differentiates three kinds of troponymy: manner, function, and result.

Definitely recommended.

Pribbenow, Simone. (2002) “Merynomic relationships: From classical mereology to complex part-whole relations.” In Green, Bean and Myaeng, eds. The Semantics of relationships: An interdisciplinary perspective. Information Science and Knowledge Management series, v. 3. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002.

Re-read for my RO project. Originally read 19 March. Looks at partonomic relations, particularly in human conceptual and perceptual domains. Discusses the formal theory of mereology and its extensions, focusing on where it fails to capture our common sense notion of parts. Finishes with a discussion of the Constructive Classification of Gerstl and Pribbenow, looking in detail at three kinds of relations in conceptual part-whole relations.

While there is a small amount of logic in it, the article is pretty understandable without it.

Recommended, especially as a critique of Classical Extensional Mereology and its (serious) limitations.

I think I’ll go ahead and post this although there are still several hours left in the day. I need to start thinking about cleaning up for a birthday party later.

These “Some things read…” posts may get a bit skimpy for the next couple of weeks. While I will be doing a fair amount of reading, it will be primarily re-reading as I finish up my projects for the semester. As much as there is still left to be read that I haven’t gotten to yet—whether I am already in possession or it is an untraced reference—there is no time for that, and a line has to be drawn once in a while.

A crazy mishmash of life

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Sickness and death

Been having odd sick-like things going on for a couple months now. Went to the doc last week. Sinus x-rays showed an infection and I’m a third of the way through 20 days of antibiotics. My electrolytes were also off and I had to have them retested. Go back Monday for a follow-up.

I need to call the pest control dude back. Maybe it’s the cold snap, but I have had a couple ants the last couple days. I have about 3 more weeks to get a free touch-up spray. It’s stressful enough right now with the semester’s end rapidly approaching without needing to kill more ants. “Stay outside, you little bastards!”

End of the semester

Speaking of the end of the semester … I’m OK, but really need to get productive quickly! I’ve been reading a lot as you can see, but now it’s time to do something with what I’ve read and to actually research some (i.e., visit and play with) some terminology services-type projects. I’ve been entering many of my readings in Zotero, too, so I can do my bibliography.

My project for Representation and Organization is probably going to be an annotated bibliography. Kathryn’s left it up to me to produce something useful for the class on my topic, relationships, although she suggested a few things including the bibliography. I am going to structure it around Bean & Green’s 4-way grouping from the introduction to Relationships in the organization of knowledge:

  1. Bibliographic relationships between units of recorded knowledge
  2. Intratextual and intertextual relationships, including those based on text structure, citation relationships, and hypertext links
  3. Subject relationships in thesauri and other classificatory structures
  4. Relevance relationships (vii)

I will, of course, expand on these (non-mutually exclusive) categories and try to include at least one good article on each topic. Many topics will have several good or even great ones. And, if you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that I’ve even gone back and read some of the early classic articles.

Allen really liked my first paper for Ontologies and now I just need to do a bit of expansion and try to add a couple sentences here and there on some points he said I’d get nailed for if it were a conference paper. Our initial limit was 3 single-spaced pages and now I have 1-3 more to “play” with. Of course, I’m supposed to explain the notion of hierarchies, my choice of methodology (chose the right one, but need to say why), and also what I mean by “fundamental category.” I love how he said that “I need to do something (about “fundamental category”), that it’ll be hopeless, and that I won’t be satisfied.” Truer words of advice from a philosopher were never spoken. In 1-3 sentences I need to stave off criticism from those who think they know what they are and that I don’t, and criticism from those who think no one knows what they are. Certainly a simple task, eh? ;)

I really had no idea what to expect from Allen when I went in to talk to him last Sunday since I had never written an actual paper for him before, but it was delightful. We chatted for a good while about a fair few things and it did my heart good. Those memories are mine, though.

I need to get on this paper, though, as I present it to class on Tuesday the 17th. I’ll post it here at some point. I’m even considering posting both versions, but I want to have the expanded version written before I post the original.

Assistantships

I just realized that my thesaurus assistantship is over May 15th, and I verified that they have no money to pay me (hourly) after that. At least I didn’t get let go like several other folks a month or two back. That means I will not completely finish my first pass through FireTalk, although possibly all Top Terms except TT00 General. The problem is, I’m still waiting for node labels (maybe next week) and it will really need a 2nd pass. ::sigh:: “‘ferris wheel rescue’, ‘ferris wheel rescue’, ‘ferris wheel rescue’…”

I think I’m set for Fall, though. I scored another assistantship in Rapid (monographic) Cataloging and kept my Serials gig. Sweet! I’ll get to sit at my own desk all week, and get some great monographic copy cataloging experience. I’ll certainly see a vastly wider range of subjects, class nos, and some other MARC fields than I do now. My only concern is that if some adjustments aren’t made it’ll be 60% total, and those extra few hours/week make a big difference.

My serials gig is through the summer, but I need to find some way to make up the $$ from the Fire Service gig. Cause it only adds up to rent and utilities for 3 months. Else it’ll be a very boring summer as I basically sit in my house and it ramen.

Blogging, or not so much

See the next post…

Future classes

This summer I’ll be taking a class on Topic Maps with Patrick Durusau via LEEP. This Fall, who knows? Registration opens Monday and we don’t have all the classes listed yet! Now this is certainly abnormal for us, but it sucks nonetheless.

I am taking Bibliography with one of our amazing emeritus professors, Don Krummel. After that, hmmm? There really aren’t many decent courses being offered in my opinion. But one should keep in mind that I’ll have 74 semester hours of LIS credit by the time Fall semester starts. Maybe it is about time to move on. ;)

There are a couple that might be interesting in light of my previous socio-technological work, but they are with someone I don’t think I’d take any class from based on what I’ve heard from many of the PhD students.

Julia Flanders (who is amazing!) will be teaching Electronic Publishing via LEEP again. While interesting, I had a look at last year’s syllabus and I don’t know. Kind of peripheral to my main interests.

An analysis of contemporary electronic publishing from the perspective of the production process, emphasizing the role of information processing standards and the concept of documents as knowledge representation systems. Specific topics will include the organization of digital document production, tools and techniques, technical strategies, business strategies, and policy issues. Particular attention will be given to the use of key XML-related standards in the production process, and to the general role of data standards in supporting the development of a high-performance electronic publishing industry. As a vehicle for presenting a coordinated selection of fundamental issues, we will focus on the development and use of the Open eBook Publication Structure, a new industry specification for the content, structure, and presentation of “electronic books”. Students may approach the material from a variety of perspectives. Final projects will be individualized to student’s interests and backgrounds and may be either analytical research papers or technical projects designing and implementing portions of publishing systems (From GSLIS Course Catalog).

Dave Dubin will be teaching Foundations of Information Processing in Lib & Info Science, which will include Python programming. Allen Renear highly suggested I take this after hearing of the other classes I have taken and my professional plans. He’s right; I need to do this. But it’s LEEP and I broadcast this class for Dave once and had a hard time keeping up when in the same room with him even. That boy can pack an English sentence like none I’ve ever known!

Covers the common data and document processing constructs and programming concepts used in library and information science. The history, strengths and weaknesses of the techniques are evaluated in the context of our discipline. These constructs and techniques form the basis of applications in areas such as bibliographic records management, full text management and multimedia. No prior programming background is assumed (From GSLIS Course Catalog).

More important to my current goals are the independent studies/practica that I’m trying to put together. I want to do some work with “authority control,” both traditional (AACR, MARC, LC) and newer, non-traditional forms like embedded gazetteers, term lists, etc. They will probably have to be separate, but who knows? I’m drafting a letter to ask for a meeting to discuss possibilities with our head of cataloging but am waiting on a couple feedback responses first. Quite possibly something could come of this that would shape my CAS project. It’d be nice to do some real work and learning, and benefit the library and our patrons at the same time.

I thought I had the authority control thing sewn up when I got a CETRC Mentor, but seeing as I never heard from them I seem to need to find a different route. And speaking of never hearing from….

ALA and its offshoots

Almost 2 months ago, I wrote about ALA membership processing being broken. I called them a couple of days after that and was assured that everything was right with the world. The lady I spoke with really was very pleasant. She assured me that, “No, I did not owe any more $$ for ACRL and that I really was no longer a member of ACRL, and that surely LITA knew I was a member because they have exactly the same info as she does.” She suggested that maybe I hadn’t heard from them yet as their journal is quarterly and, well, Nov. to Feb. When I asked whether I should have at least received a welcome email or such she was a bit perplexed but, nonetheless, “All is right with the world.”

Well, damn it ALA! All is not right with the world. I still get ACRL publications. I have yet to receive any thing—journal, email, “Fuck off but thanks for the $$”—except for a kindly welcome from a member in my post comments. As I said in my previous post:

I voted for the dues increase ALA. I expect you to actually fix some of the broken parts with it. Starting with membership services might be a good place. That seems like such a basic concept for a membership organization, especially one whose purpose really isn’t to serve their members but where their members work. It seems to me that asking people to pony up large sums of money to be a member of something that actually supports their employers—truly one heck of a concept—would particularly make the organization pay attention to the “small” matter of membership.

I said a lot more, too, and I stand by every word of it. There are other games in town and as I figure out exactly where I want to put my limited time and energy professionally ALA is at the bottom of the list. I also doubt that they could do much to improve the situation for me at this point. I’ll probably stay a member of ALCTS next year, but after that when I am no longer a student and depending on where my 1st job takes me … who knows?

ALA, you are improving in a few small ways and I am truly glad for that. But you still truly suck in some very overarching ways that are far more important. So keep putting money into Second Life because that is far more important than even recognizing that someone is a member of part of your organization. Yeah, seems like the right priority to me. In the meantime you can find me at ASIST and NASIG.

That is all I’m willing to say because I don’t want to find myself in a situation like someone else I know who swore “Never again ALA…” and ended up taking a job there a few months later. See, my ethical sensibilities would have a real hard time with that.

That’s all for now as I have another post to finish so I can concentrate on school work.

NASIG

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This evening I finally joined NASIG. There is also a distinct possibility that I will be attending the NASIG 22nd Annual Conference in Louisville, KY in early June. So if anyone out there is going please let me know.

I wish I had known I’d be going to this late last year when there was a possibility of getting some money to go like my friend Jenny once did. But I would have had to join at the same time I was renewing ALA and ASIST. And while NASIG is cheap for students, that was not happening. Oh well.

On another note. While my thesaural work sometimes drives me nuts, primarily due to the less-than-capable tools I have to use, any thesaurus that includes the term phrase and concept, “ferris wheel rescue,” is a pretty damn cool thesaurus, in my book!

I hereby declare Birthday Month has begun

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Just as I was about to head out the door and try and catch another bus, which I just noticed went by only 5 minutes late, I got an IM from Karla saying all classes at UIUC had been cancelled!

I verified it on the University website and I IM’d another friend who had made it in to work. She said they were about to be sent home, probably. Unsure whether we will get paid for any or all of the day, but at this point, “Whatever!”

Wishes do sometimes come true! I got my wish for a February storm (preferably not ice) and it is even big enough to close campus; well after most anything else was closed.

I see I just got a comment from Liz on my previous post about winter weather ruining her March birthdays so maybe I should explain.

I am not actually a fan of winter either. I grew up in the north suburbs of St. Louis County (MO) until the summer of my 15th year and then lived in the far, far, far west ‘burbs of Chicago until the day after I turned 19 and went into the Army.

As a kid, winter was OK sometimes but I could take it or leave it. The Army was the real problem. It spent 20 years out in the winter weather, standing around for 20-40 minutes at a time for no sane reason (formations), practice “camping”, shoveling so a walkway could become icy death when it was more sensible to slog through the 2-3 inches of snow, etc. In other words, lots of time in the winter weather on anything but my own terms. I came to despise winter.

I also do not snow ski in any form, I do not snowmobile, ice fish, or anything else outdoorsy that needs winter conditions.

But after “retiring” from the Army in 1998, returning to the Midwest and trying to piece my life together as I slowly and painfully began to come out an immensely deep depression and somewhere along the time I started the concept of Birthday Month to help me focus on more positive things, I also realized that I am a child of the American Midwest who happened to have a birthday in February. The middle of winter! So I learned to convince myself that winter—at least February winter—really isn’t so bad. I decided to actually like whatever the winter weather gods of February threw at me; sometimes it manifests itself only in bare toleration, but at least I don’t stress about it. I even decided that it was patently unfair if we did not get a major February storm.

Thus began my wish each February for a major winter storm in celebration of Birthday Month. While not exactly good at it usually, I guess this is an example of “making lemonade.”

“Approaching normality, in …”

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As part of my continuing education in the organization of information—focusing on classificatory structures—I have made a major transition over the break.

My hourly work on the FireTalk Thesaurus at the IFSI Library becomes a 25% graduate assistantship on Tuesday. Along with my 25% assistantship in serials cataloging at the main library, this is all the work I can handle while also focusing on classroom work. This means that I have formally left my job with “Team Awesome” (Instructional Technology Division, GSLIS).

While this is an important—and desired—transition for me, it is also very bittersweet. I have greatly enjoyed my 2 and a 1/2 years with “Team Awesome,” and I will miss them greatly. More importantly, I will miss the very special patron group comprised of our distance education (LEEP) students and instructors. It has been a distinct pleasure and honor to serve this group. I have met, learned from, and been befriended by such an amazing and diverse group of intelligent and caring proto-librarians, librarians, and library educators during my time working for and with these folks.

So why did I leave? Because a good portion of the reason to stay and do another 40 hours of classwork was to also get some experience(s) in the organization of information as I focus in on what I believe is the kind of work I want to do in my new career. Seeing as I have found those opportunities it was time to leave the job that, although enjoyable and rewarding, does not.

Yesterday I turned in all of my keys to various offices in GSLIS, Miss E removed my admin privileges from Moodle, I cleaned out my storage drawer in the LEEP office, and I even removed my spare water bottle from the fridge in User Services. I have also requested that all of my privileges be removed from the system we are transitioning from, and that I be removed from several internal listservs and mailing lists.

It will be very odd to finally be a “normal” student. [Stop laughing, danggit! I know you are because everyone else has so far when I have said this. I just replied, "Well, as normal as the rest of you!" No snappy comebacks yet from the other not-so-normal students.] I am looking forward to it, though.

Basically my whole time at GSLIS I have had a vastly different experience of our educational tools and environment due to having “privileges” that 98% of our students don’t have. These privileges meant that my view of, and access to, course web pages, bulletin boards, etc. was very different than most others. Of course, the power this gave me was to be—and was—only used for good. I will miss having access to a few bits and pieces as they were prime sources of important information that I did not get elsewhere. All in all, though, I am looking forward to being a “normal” student or, at least, as “normal” as any of us in the program here.

To all the wonderful students, staff and faculty with whom I have had the privilege to interact in the course of my duties as a member of “Team Awesome” (and User Services) over the last couple of years, I’d like to pass on some of the thoughts I relayed to Miss E, Jill, Matt and Martin this morning.

Thank you all for giving me the room I needed to grow as I put a very difficult part of my life behind me. I wish you all the best.

With all my love and respect,

Mark

It may not be as easy as Arthur makes it out to be, but nonetheless I shall try.

A cup of tea would restore my normality.

So now for that cup of tea. And then back to the paper on mapping thesauri.

Continuing education: classroom vs. experience

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When I applied for my 2nd LIS degree program—CAS—one the things I had in mind was the opportunity to gain more and differing experiences. It was not simply a ploy to get more classroom time.

There are multiple ways to become educated and I wanted more of several, but especially the “big two.” Somehow since then, I keep seeming to temporarily forget the experiental part of my education.

It seems I have inadvertently taken care of that for myself. I have a 25% GA-ship as the Serials Cataloging GA, which I sincerely adore so far. I definitely hope to keep this job for the remainder of my time here; unless they want to employ me doing something even more exciting.

I’ve taken on some extra hourly work helping with the new Tech Services web pages. These pages are badly needed and is only a couple hours/wk for a limited time period. Just need to get busy on it.

I’m down to broadcasting one LEEP class a week now. That leaves 7.5 hours/wk more that I “could” make up in ITD. Matt says there is some Webby stuff that could be done, from home even. That might be nice seeing how with the way the semester started I never did get used to coming in any more than the minimum hours required for my broadcasts.

I have just joined an LSTA grant-funded project at the IFSI: “In Memory of Our Heroes: Developing a Digital Image Collection of Illinois Firefighter Line of Duty Deaths (IFLODD)” [scroll down]. For now, I will be working a few hours/wk, primarily on their thesaurus, FireTalk. It needs some basic clean-up work, along with some serious expansion to handle the line of duty deaths topic. After I get trained I’ll be able to do much of it from “home,” also.

Beginning next semester, it will morph into a 25% GA-ship (most likely) and will include a few other duties as the project moves into its 2nd phase. My job will still supposedly consist mostly of cataloging and thesaurus work. I hope so, as the other, while “good for me,” is not stuff I care much to do.

I now seem to have the experiential locked up for the rest of my time here. This doesn’t mean that the right small opportunity can’t be embraced, but that basically I’ve got the main roads mapped out.

I managed to catch up with my advisor to let her know about the newest job update. She agrees that it is a good move for me. Instead of just doing more theoretical thesaurus work, I’ll be able to work on a production thesaurus and also learn how it is then linked with the catalog and this digital library project. More “bridge” preparation for me. She is definitely seeing me as a “bridge worker,” too.

She also asked me to help with a presentation she was asked to give in a few weeks to Dr. Weech’s Global Perspectives in LIS class. She wants me to pull a few of my slides on internationalization from my “Free the Authorities!” presentation I gave last week. I believe it’ll be on the morning of Halloween.

Kathryn and I joked that I wouldn’t really have to do anything extra but pull those few slides and talk about them. But we really both know better. I could do that, possibly. But that was a small part of my presentation and was only addressed at a fairly superficial level. Also, there were good deep questions that I was unable to answer. So am I going to do a bit more before speaking to a class on international librarianship?

These are the sorts of things I need to be doing, as stressful as they may be. It’s only a matter of time before I’m down to two jobs that are exactly the sorts of experiential learning that I was hoping for when I decided to stay for this degree. And the fact that there are so many linkings between these experiences and my intellectual interests is so sweet!

For some higher level discussion of LIS education, see this and the things Jennifer Macaulay, of Life As I Know It, points to. I have seen these pieces, and others in the past, that I would love to engage with. I somehow don’t seem to have anything to add. But I know that cannot be right. I mean, in essence, I’m getting 2 MSLIS in a row. I should have much to contribute to a conversation on LIS education. I think my conundrum is that I don’t have much to add in this medium. A nice long conversation, some essay length “discussions” back and forth, and so on. The best I could say in a reasonable length blog post is that it is a very complicated issue. *Sigh* Oh well, I generally agree with these folks. The practical is, well, practical. And where the hell is my theory (and history) and intellectual rigor?

Updates coming…

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I am trying to be busier and productive now that I’m a little rested from last week. I am trying to prioritize, and trying not to feel guilty about “owing” various folks here something or other.

I’ve been busy and want to mention some of these things here in more detail:

The Wailin’ Jennys on Wed.

Siva on Thursday

Friday the 13th (I love them!)

Chicago

Ani DiFranco

Ace

Two days of “rest”

Refocused busy time, again

I’ve already started on Ani post. I have some notes from Siva’s talk for a post. I have photos on flickr; not of Siva or Ani though….

But I also have other things to do and other priorities. I end one class on Tuesday afternoon. And as much as I love it and would like to continue it in other directions, I need a freakin’ break and I need to start attending my other class.

For Pauline’s last class, I need to finish my Common Ex. C write-up and turn it in. I also need to prep for leading discussion on the Calhoun Report. That is the easy one of the two, even if the common exercise is technically further along. It has been a few weeks since I looked at the exercise. As for Calhoun, I have written and spoke about this at least 3 times each now and have read lots of commentary covering the spectrum on it. My views have, in fact, moderated much since I first read and wrote about it. I still think that despite the good that is in it, it is an abomination and went a long way to effectively shutting down productive discussion on its and related topics of concern in the cataloging and classification worlds of libraries. [Steve, our discussion from summer LEEP oncampus would be vastly different now. I see some good now, a lot even. But....]

The Wailin’ Jennys were excellent. I got no good photos though. I did get all 3 to sign the liner notes of my 40 days cd.

Siva was good, but I was exhausted [there will be more on Siva]. Besides the exhaustion building up to Thursday, I also woke up at 4 AM Thurs. morning. Yippee! I followed Siva with 2 classes. I gave my “Free the Authorities!” presentation in the last of the two. It started out quite well despite the situation. I did start flagging after a bit, particularly after a few questions and discussions. But I held up reasonably OK. I was proud of it (my performance?) at the beginning….

After class Pauline said something very positive to me. Daunting in a way, but very nice. On Tuesday she had asked me if I was applying for a possible job, because she said if I wasn’t then she was going to twist my arm until I did (paraphrased). I sure wish I could believe in myself like she does.

I’m not sure how driving to Chicago and back in a day and a half is “rest.” But I had a good time and it was as relaxing as it could be. So I am somewhat refreshed.

3rd load of clothes is in the dryer. I may have to go in to GSLIS to look at my thesaurus for Common Ex C. I found all my stuff, but printouts do not a thesaurus make.

OK. Off to do other things. I’ll be working on more details as I can.

Oh, BTW. I’m going to a meeting about that job tomorrow. More in the future, but it is one I hope to do beginning next semester, while hopefully staying in serials cataloging also. So, I’m also studying a 32-page LSTA grant application and finding myself wishing I had the figures and the attachments. I’m asking for a complete copy tomorrow at our meeting.

Where do you go little bird
When it snows, when it snows
When the world turns to sleep
Do you know, do you know
Is there something in the wind
Breathes a chill in your heart and life in your wings
Does it whisper ‘start again’
Start again

The Wailin’ Jennys. “Arlington.” 40 Days.

Peace.


Hey, it’s my alma mater (one, anyway)

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Today while I was finishing up some copy-cataloging of 2 issues of Patria, a journal about José Martí‘s writings, I was given a present. [Editorial aside: I consider it a wonderful world when a former nuclear missile site-based Cold Warrior can help make writings about a Cuban "revolutionary" available.)

Seems we have a patron interested in some junior college materials. I was given several stacks of materials (catalogs, bulletins, Dean's reports,...) and told "we" had told the patron we would have them ready by next Saturday.

They all have call numbers and some are bound. Most have very minimal (and inaccurate) bib records but no holdings or item records.

At first, I wasn't even sure if they were all from the same "entity." But thankfully, the City Colleges of Chicago have a decent history on their website. By the way, City Colleges of Chicago, Overseas Division awarded me my Associates Degree.

The materials range from 1915 to 1974. They also appear to be all we have. Or the rest is hidden very well; even better than these were, wherever they were. I could even donate a few catalogs from the mid-1980's. I wonder if the patron is interested in them?

The 1st thing I did was to make myself a document that I could manipulate in various ways that listed everything I had. I initially did it by call number, but have arranged it by date for here (and removed a few bits). Blank lines between titles are to show me a minor (often very minor) title change. Dates in [] are what is on the item as part of the call number. I also put a couple notes in to show myself some missing “issues.” While the document isn’t perfect, I think it’ll help me concentrate on what I have and help get it entered correctly. Oh, and my titles are not the titles proper, but more vague transcriptions in the order they are on the documents themselves. All these caveats aside, here’s what I’m expectantly dealing with when I go back to work on Monday:

Group 1

1. A Circular of Information concerning Crane Junior College April 1915 (Title from cover) [1914/15]
2. A Circular of Information concerning Crane Junior College September 1918 (Title from cover) [1918/19]
3. A Circular of Information concerning Crane Junior College September 1920 (Title from cover) [1920/21]
4. A Circular of Information concerning Crane Junior College September 1921 (Title from cover) [1921/22]
5. A Circular of Information concerning Crane Junior College September 1922 (Title from cover) [1922/23]

6. Bulletin of Crane Junior College September 1924 (Title from cover) [1924/25]
7. Bulletin of Crane Junior College September 1925 (Title from cover) [1925/26]
8. Bulletin of Crane Junior College June 1926 [1926/27]
9. Bulletin of Crane Junior College March 1927 [1927/28]
10. Bulletin of Crane Junior College September 1929 [1929/30]

Group 2

1. Catalog of Crane Junior College (Municipal College of Chicago), December 1930
2. Catalog of Crane Junior College (City College of Chicago), January 1932

Group 3

Annual Reports of the Dean: Crane Junior College: 1930-1932 (Title from cover)

Group 4 [Bound]

1. Announcement of the Chicago Christian High School and Junior College 1931-1932
2. The Chicago Junior College: Supplementary Bulletin 1932-1933
3. The Chicago Junior College: Catalog for 1933-1934
4. The Chicago Christian College (Formerly The Chicago Junior College): Catalog for 1934-1935
[These are sort of questionable still. Whoever pulled these went as far as suggesting they may need to be disbound. I'm not convinced that's true yet, though.]

Group 5

1. Bound 1935/36-1944/45
a. Bulletin of Chicago Junior Colleges, September 1935 (cover)
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcements, 1935-1936 (t.p.)
b. Bulletin of Chicago Junior Colleges, 1936-1937
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcement, 1936-1937 (t.p.)
c. Bulletin of Chicago Junior Colleges, 1937-1938
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcement, 1937-1938 (t.p.)
d. Bulletin of Chicago Junior Colleges, 1938-1939
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcement, 1938-1939 (t.p.)
e. Bulletin of Chicago Junior Colleges, 1939-1940
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcement, 1939-1940 (t.p.)
f. Bulletin of Chicago Junior Colleges, 1940-1941
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcement, 1940-1941 (t.p.)
g. Bulletin of Chicago Junior Colleges, 1941-1942
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcement, 1941-1942 (t.p.)
h. Bulletin of Chicago Junior College, 1942-1943
Chicago Junior Colleges: Announcement, 1942-1943 (t.p.)

i. Bulletin of the Chicago Junior College, 1943-1944
The Chicago Junior College: Announcement, 1943-1944 (t.p.)
j. Bulletin of the Chicago Junior College, 1944-1945
The Chicago Junior College: Announcement, 1944-1945 (t.p.)

2. Bound 1945/46-1953/54
a. Bulletin of the Chicago Junior College, 1945-1946
The Chicago Junior College: Announcement, 1945-1946 (t.p.)

b. Bulletin of the Chicago City Junior College, 1946-1947
The Chicago City Junior College: Announcement, 1946-1947 (t.p.)

c. The Chicago City Junior College Bulletin, 1947-1948
The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1947-1948 (t.p.)
d. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1948-1949 (t.p.)
e. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1949-1950 (t.p.)
f. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1950-1951 (t.p.)
g. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1951-1952 (t.p.)
h. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1952-1953 (t.p.)
i. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1953-1954 (t.p.)

3. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1954-1955 (t.p.)
4. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1955-1956 (t.p.)
5. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1956-1957 (t.p.)
6. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1957-1958 (t.p.)
7. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1958-1959 (t.p.)
8. The Chicago City Junior College: Bulletin, 1959-1960 (t.p.)

Group 6

1. The Chicago City Junior College Catalogue 1961-1962
missing 1962-1963
2. The Chicago City Junior College Catalogue 1963-1964
3. Chicago City Junior College 1964-1965 Catalog
missing 1965-1966
4. Chicago City College 1966-1967 Catalog
5. Chicago City College 1967-1968 Catalog
6. Chicago City College Catalog 68-69
7. Chicago City College Catalog 69-70
8. City Colleges of Chicago Catalog 70-71
9. City Colleges of Chicago Catalog 71-72
missing 72-73
10. City Colleges of Chicago 73-74 [Not a catalog]
11. Wright College Catalog 73-74

It appears that in ’73-74, or possibly ’72-73, all of the campuses got their own catalogs. Item #10 is only the text in the front of all college catalogs about matriculation, fees, etc. that apply across all entities of the system. The actual catalog part has been removed, and the Wright College Catalog is the only example we have of one of the then newly separate catalogs.

I’m really enjoying this job so far!

FRBR complexities

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FRBR is a fairly complex concept. In some cases, that is a complete understatement! [Short version from LOC. Long version from IFLA (pdf).]

Much work has been done to date, but it has been mostly restricted to prolific authors and composers and works with many expressions. This is important, as this is where FRBR is most useful. A single original monograph that is published in only one edition and one printing by an author who never writes another publshed work, nor is adapted, transformed, abridged, etc., is not going to be impacted by FRBR in any significant way.

More recently, folks are starting to look at other areas of importance to the FRBR model. In that vein, I recently read the following two articles:

Delsey, Tom. “Modeling Subject Access: Extending the FRBR and FRANAR Conceptual Models.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 39(3/4): 2005, pp. 49-61. doi: 10.1300/J104v39n03_04

Jones, Ed. “The FRBR Model as Applied to Continuing Resources.” Library Resources & Technical Services 49(4): October 2005, 227-242.

I recommend both of these articles if you have a basic understanding of FRBR (and if not, check out the “short version” above).

The Delsey article seems very well reasoned, but it relies heavily on the indecs model. I am not familiar enough with this model to decide if it should serve as a proper model to build a subject model within FRBR from. [There should be a less than and greater than sign around "indecs," like it is a tag or something, but WordPress is refusing to encode the less than sign and even removes the "in" following it when I put it in as either a numeric or named entity. I sure hope Dante reserved a special level of Hell for anyone naming their organization or project like a tag.]

The Jones article spends a good deal of effort to highlight the issues with continuing resources under the FRBR model. The first issue is that there are currently two concepts of work at play in continuing resources (content-based and title-based). Jones does a good job showing how we got to this point historically. He also demonstrates issues with “(2) the hierarchies used for expressing bibliographic resources; (3) the level of abstraction at which bibliographic resources are described; and (4) the varying techniques for expressing relationships among bibliographic resources” (228).

Check them out, you might learn something.

Organizations, what is it to be?

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As some of you “know” [as in I've mentioned it before], I am currently a member of the following professional organizations (along with accompanying student chapters of ALA, ACRL, ASIS&T):

American Library Association
Association of College and Research Libraries
Association for Library Collections & Technical Services
American Society for Information Science & Technology
Illinois Library Association
Philosophy of Science Association

My ALA and associated divisions, along with my ASIS&T, memberships are all due for renewal late Oct/early Nov.

As a student, I save quite a bit but this is still a chunk of change. My issue, though, is are these the organizations I should belong to?

I’ve been to an ALA Annual (Chicago 1995), an ACRL conference (Minneapolis 1995) and attended an ALCTS CETRC meeting during ALA Annual. I am going to ASIS&T in early Nov.

But. There are several more organizations that I need to consider based on my interests and professional aspirations:

North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG)
Library & Information Technology Association (LITA)
International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO)
The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing (SHARP)

I have no doubt that there are others that I am not even aware of or am forgetting.

NASIG has a student rate of $25. I ought to consider them as I am a serials cataloger.

LITA has a student rate of $25 also and I ought to consider them for many reasons. Can you say MARBI for starters?

ISKO does not appear to have a student rate and is 60 Euros or approx. $76+/year. That would be my most expensive membership by far, if you count ALA Divisions separate from ALA itself.

SHARP is $20 for students but does not include a subscription to their journal, Book History. If you want the journal you pay the full $55. Now SHARP is somewhat peripheral to my primary interests, but I’ve met several members of this organization and I love them and their work. Some of them were at the European Modernism and the Information Society and/or the Library History Seminar XI that I assisted with.

As for my current organizations:

I need to stay in ALCTS for many reasons. Besides, their student rate is $15. $15 people! Of course, you have to be a member of ALA first, but as long as I’m a student it isn’t too prohibitive.

ILA is my state library association. I forget what it cost, but it wasn’t bad. I will not be able to make their conference this Oct. since I’m going to ASIS&T a few weeks later, but I think this can’t hurt.

I’m attending my first ASIS&T conference in early Oct. This one was $40 as a student, plus an extra $12 to join 2 additional SIGs. I’ll have to see, but I’m guessing this one is a keeper since it addresses so many of my varied interests. I also much prefer smaller organizations and conferences.

This leaves ACRL. Hmmm? Yes, I intend to stay in an academic setting. But what am I getting from this extremely large division of ALA? Don’t get me wrong; I want to belong. I have also really enjoyed my time helping to start the first and only ACRL student chapter at UIUC; ACRL@UIUC [Thanks Rudy for getting the ball rolling!].

But they have no student rate, it costs $35 as a student. That’s $10 more than a student membership in ALA even. I personally get little value from C&RL News, and while I sometimes get something out of College & Research Libraries, I more often than not just find articles that irk me enough to comment on them here.

I may just have to swap LITA for ACRL this year and see how that goes. I’l hold off on ISKO for a bit after talking with my advisor, but I’ll keep an eye on the hopefully budding North American chapter.

SHARP will have to wait for now, too, due to finances. NASIG, maybe? Jenny, I know you told me something once before but feel free to remind me what you may have said.

Anyone else have comments on NASIG? Or on any others of these organizations? Ones I forgot? Feel free to debate why I should stay in ACRL vs. joining LITA. And please don’t suggest both, because along with ALCTS I cannot afford ALA and 3 divisions—even as a student.