I have created a Codecademy project (with a lot of help in corrections and improvements from Esther Arens!) that builds a short script to read a raw MARC record and display it in a more readable format. Try it here:…
Cataloguing coding
I am not a trained programmer, coding is not part of my job description, and I have little direct access to cataloguing and metadata databases at work outside of normal catalogue editing and talking to the systems team, but I…
Sparql recipes for bibliographic data
One of the difficulties in searching RDF data is knowing what the data looks like. For instance, finding a book by its title means knowing something about what how a dataset has recorded the relationship between a book and its…
Customizing Classification Web with Greasemonkey
Classification Web is ace, but there are a couple of things about the interface that annoy me and, in one colleague’s case, seriously put him off using it, in particular: The opening of a new tab/window when you click on…
RDA as a closed standard
Resource Description and Access (RDA), the new bibliographic standard to replace AACR2, was released in 2010 on the web as a closed standard sitting behind a paywall. This really worries me. I strongly believe it should be an open standard.…
In Our Time booklist
I have written a script which takes an unstructured reading list on the BBC’s In Our Time website, searches the British National Bibliography (BNB) using bibliographica for the books on the list, and returns structured metadata for the records it…
ISKO-UK linked data day
On 14 September I went to the ISKO-UK one day conference on Linked Data: the Future of Knowledge Organisation on the Web. For me, this followed on from a previous Talis session on Linked Data and Libraries I attended at…
New submission for the Urban Dictionary?
I am considering submitting the following entry to the Urban Dictionary: 1. Had their authority record updated by the Library of Congress. Euphemism. Died. Hey, where’s Michael? Dude! Didn’t you hear? He’s had his authority record updated by the Library…
On depressing contents notes
Perhaps the most depressing contents note I’ve come across for a while: ” … disc 5. Loss of a parent in adult life, loss of a partner or spouse and depression & helplessness (57 min.) — disc 6. Anger, aggression…
More Cataloger’s Desktop comments
The Library of Congress’s Cataloging Distribution Service is doing a survey on the development of its Cataloger’s Desktop, which they are planning to overhaul. They seem keen to rework it for the web rather than replicating the CD product it…