One of my favourite shops is Solutions - Your Organized Living Store in Toronto. I love browsing the shelves and seeing all the cool containers and organizational systems and gagetry. I am always sad to leave the store without purchasing anything because the is no room in my luggage-too bad.
The truth is though I have a dirty little secret. I am not an organized person. I often start organizing, my house or classroom, gather up loose unsorted items, sort them, design a system for housing them (binders, file folders, containers etc., get bored quit before I've finished, leave it till the clutter is to much, then start all over again. The half complete remnants of various systems of organization are plain to see in my spice drawer, book shelves and closets. Having a library to organize was both a good and bad thing. Many things to organize, and many possible means of organizing them was both a challenge and a blessing. Having staff was fantastic. Knowing that other people were going to using the space meant I could not leave jobs half finished and stuff all over the place. I was able to take on some projects and see them through.
Now I just need Solutions to open a Vancouver branch and a staff to come and take on my house.
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Librarything
I started cataloging my classroom library using http://www.librarything.com/, a social networking book related site. I think this has real potential for finding more book recommendations. You can tag your books, find other people have the same taste as you, find out the name of that book that you can remember the plot of etc. It even imports LOC cataloging information (though no MARC records). I am going to enjoy it I think! (and I wonder why people think I am a book nerd).
I have just found out that one of my friends has cataloged her 1000 plus YA titles using librarything and has the list printed out for inventory purposes. (at least I am not the only one)
Here is what the homepage says:
I have just found out that one of my friends has cataloged her 1000 plus YA titles using librarything and has the list printed out for inventory purposes. (at least I am not the only one)
Here is what the homepage says:
CHECK IT OUT
- Take the tour.
- Sign up. It's more fun than the tour.
- See what bloggers and the media say about LibraryThing.
WHAT’S GOOD?
- Join the world’s largest book club.
- Catalog your books from Amazon, the Library of Congress and 690 other world libraries. Import from anywhere.
- Find people with eerily similar tastes.
- Find new books to read.
- Free Early Reviewer books from publishers and authors
- Enter 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life).
- Available in many languages:
(others)
Social book marking and folksonomy
Question to ponder: "Sharing resources with
others and identifying them with tags or, as we in the library world call them,
subject keywords is highlighted in [www.delicious.com]. How important would consistent,
controlled vocabulary need to be in this kind of social networking? How would
that work in our library collections?
Social bookmarking is something that is relatively new to me, and I have yet to use it to it's full potential. I have up till recently used the sites Delicous and also Diigo to organize and annotate websites for my own organizational purposes, not for sharing or for any social purposes. I have this week started to use a Delicious account to collect links for my students to use in researching a historical figure for a biography/ timeline project. I was able to have students find my links and use them to start researching their assigned historical figure, I was able to follow students Delicious feeds and see what they have found. I was able to search "biographies" and "biography" and came up with a good number of sites (132 pages worth) that had not come either through the Webpath express search (which brought up a large number of individual biographies- all from biography.com) I had tried through the library catalog or through a simple google search. So far so good. I like it. Unlike some other responses I have seen on this topic I did not come across any inappropriate sites tagged with those tags either.
Alireza Noruzi, in Folksonomies: (Un)Controlled Vocabulary? states that "Index terms
should be checked for accuracy and acceptability in reference tools, such as dictionaries,
encyclopedias, thesauri and classification schemes (ISO 1985)." Now we know that the 13 year old students in my class are not going to be checking their tags in a reference book unless they are doing so in class with the teacher. If they are tagging links for their own use they will tag things that suits their own needs like "socials project" or something similar just as I have done of my own links in my Diigo account.
On the surface it seems like having a lack of systematization in the tagging language, especially if it were done in the library collection would be a problem. I see two arguements for such a system, perhaps as an add on to traditional subject heading categorization. The first is that students are far more likely to choose tags that are logical to students and these may be the types of search terms that other students are more likely to use. It could even help to collocate existing items in the collection. Secondly it seems to me that the tags will tend towards a mean of the most logical useful and pertinent tags. The more people tag a site, the more useful
the suggestions offered by the website will become. Additional users can create different tags for previously tagged sites (or correctly spelled tags) over time. People will, when given a list of possible tags, will tend to choose the more applicable ones. Sites that are not good quality will not get retagged, and will not have as many tags. The collection will be improved over time in an organic manner.
Consistent and controlled vocabulary would not be essential because the natural language used by students would be searchable in addition to any subject heading created by the cataloger when the item was first added to the catalog. In a library collection, if students could tag the entries for books, in addition to just writing reviews or creating resource lists, this may prove of benefit to other students, in addition to teachers and the librarian, especially in terms of collocation and keeping track of which resources are proving useful for which assignments and projects, especially those used in the library that are not being checked out.Both digital and concrete collections may then be better utilized by students and teachers alike.
Social bookmarking is something that is relatively new to me, and I have yet to use it to it's full potential. I have up till recently used the sites Delicous and also Diigo to organize and annotate websites for my own organizational purposes, not for sharing or for any social purposes. I have this week started to use a Delicious account to collect links for my students to use in researching a historical figure for a biography/ timeline project. I was able to have students find my links and use them to start researching their assigned historical figure, I was able to follow students Delicious feeds and see what they have found. I was able to search "biographies" and "biography" and came up with a good number of sites (132 pages worth) that had not come either through the Webpath express search (which brought up a large number of individual biographies- all from biography.com) I had tried through the library catalog or through a simple google search. So far so good. I like it. Unlike some other responses I have seen on this topic I did not come across any inappropriate sites tagged with those tags either.
Alireza Noruzi, in Folksonomies: (Un)Controlled Vocabulary? states that "Index terms
should be checked for accuracy and acceptability in reference tools, such as dictionaries,
encyclopedias, thesauri and classification schemes (ISO 1985)." Now we know that the 13 year old students in my class are not going to be checking their tags in a reference book unless they are doing so in class with the teacher. If they are tagging links for their own use they will tag things that suits their own needs like "socials project" or something similar just as I have done of my own links in my Diigo account.
On the surface it seems like having a lack of systematization in the tagging language, especially if it were done in the library collection would be a problem. I see two arguements for such a system, perhaps as an add on to traditional subject heading categorization. The first is that students are far more likely to choose tags that are logical to students and these may be the types of search terms that other students are more likely to use. It could even help to collocate existing items in the collection. Secondly it seems to me that the tags will tend towards a mean of the most logical useful and pertinent tags. The more people tag a site, the more useful
the suggestions offered by the website will become. Additional users can create different tags for previously tagged sites (or correctly spelled tags) over time. People will, when given a list of possible tags, will tend to choose the more applicable ones. Sites that are not good quality will not get retagged, and will not have as many tags. The collection will be improved over time in an organic manner.
Consistent and controlled vocabulary would not be essential because the natural language used by students would be searchable in addition to any subject heading created by the cataloger when the item was first added to the catalog. In a library collection, if students could tag the entries for books, in addition to just writing reviews or creating resource lists, this may prove of benefit to other students, in addition to teachers and the librarian, especially in terms of collocation and keeping track of which resources are proving useful for which assignments and projects, especially those used in the library that are not being checked out.Both digital and concrete collections may then be better utilized by students and teachers alike.
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Access Points
One of the things that I like most about our OPAC, Destiny, is that you can search both for library resources and web resources using the same access points:
Keyword, Title, Author, Subject, and Series
They appear in this order as well. It makes you think that the Main Entry, based largely on authors name, is already a non-starter. Many people default to the keyword search and do not even bother to click the author, title, or subject buttons. Including me.
Keyword, Title, Author, Subject, and Series
They appear in this order as well. It makes you think that the Main Entry, based largely on authors name, is already a non-starter. Many people default to the keyword search and do not even bother to click the author, title, or subject buttons. Including me.
Why I am glad I am a teacher not a cataloger
I have been working with MARC 21 coding for weeks and am going nuts. Luckily the records I am creating are unofficial as I don't feel that the ideals of standardization are not in good hands with me. I find this new language very perplexing. Looking at examples, I do find that I can understand what existing records say, but in trying to create my own! There seems to be a lot of repetition especially with things like author statement and statement of responsibility, and several title fields. Imagine knowing what all 999 tags represent along with innumerable sub-field codes? I tried to create a chart for myself at first, and then found http://www.itsmarc.com/crs/Bib1468.htm a directory of all the tags, but am finding the explanations very technical.
I wrote in our Module 6 discussion board
" I remember back when I was the temporary librarian for my school, all new librarians in the district were given a few days proD by the district librarian on how to manage the library and use the Destiny system. We were told that all cataloging for the elementary schools would be done centrally, and that middle and secondary schools would be cataloging their own purchases. Armed with my district credit card I went out and bought books. The majority of the time I was able to use records from other libraries in the district, or import records through the Follett software, all you had to do was type in the ISBN and it searched records at schools all over North America. You can even look at the records to choose the one you feel is the most complete. On the odd occasion that I could find/import no existing record I entered new resources into Destiny using the “Add title” feature. This allows you to enter records either using the “MARC editor” or “Easy Editor” buttons both of which allow you to add records easily with prompts, without needing to know the MARC fields. Are all library systems so user friendly? As a consequence I added several things to the catalog without having any understanding of what MARC records were."----A clear example of a fool and her credit card gone wild.
Here is a MARC record I created (using Word) for A short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.
020 $a0385660049$c$23.00$
040 $SandilandsImaginativeCataloging$
041 $eng$
100 $aBryson, Bill$d1951$
240 $aA short history of nearly everything$leng$f2003$
250 $aAnchor edition published 2004$
260 $aCanada$bAnchor Canada$c2004$
300 ## $a554 p.$c22cm$
504 $aIncludes bibliographic references and index$
520 $aOne of the world’s most beloved writers takes his most challenging trip yet, through some of the toughest questions that scientists of all kinds have been trying to answer for years-sometimes for centuries. On this intellectual odyssey Bill Bryson puts his insatiable curiosity to use as he apprentices himself to the great scientific minds of today, and of history. In the course of his entertaining and revealing quest, Bryson asks not only “what” and “how”, but, more importantly “why”. Are the oceans getting saltier over time or less salty? How do earthquakes happen? What is a black home? And how on earth did we ever figure out things like that? Here is science like you never learned it at school-lucid, relevant, entertaining, and often very funny.$
521 1 $agrade 8 to adult$
650 #0 $aScience-Popular Works$
650 #0 $aScience-History$
Here is the MARC record (without the 000-019 and 9XX fields) I got from the VPL catalog:
020$a0767908171$
020$a0385660049 (pbk.)$
020$a0385660030 :$c$39.95$
040$aCaOONL$beng$cCaOONL$dCaBVa$
0550$aAG195$bB79 2003$
0820$a001/.09$221$
092$a500 B91s$
1001$aBryson, Bill$
24512$aA short history of nearly everything /$cBill Bryson.$
260$aToronto :$bDoubleday Canada,$cc2003.$
300$aix, 544 p. ;$c24 cm.$
504$aIncludes bibliographical references and index.$
593$aAlso: Anchor pbk. ed., 2004.$
593$aAlso: New York : Broadway Books, 2004.$
594$a20030528 dcj / 20041014 rc (020, 593) / 20041230 ba (020, 2nd 593)$
6500$aPhysics$
650$aCosmology$
650$aLife$xOrigin$
6500$aEarth sciences$
6500$aCulture$xOrigin$
650$aPrehistoric peoples$
6500$aHuman beings$xOrigin$
6510$aEarth$xOrigin$
Now as I have gone on to modules 7 and 8 I realize that copy cataloging is what I was doing (though not well). Creating records from scratch is very time consuming, and giving rank amateurs access to the catalog may have led to some very strangely cataloging items in our collection. Sorry Eleana.
All this boils down to a vote for central cataloging, freeing TLs up to teach information literacy skills, work with students to match them with the right books and all the other parts of the job that inspired me to take the teacher librarian diploma in the first place. No career change for me.
I wrote in our Module 6 discussion board
" I remember back when I was the temporary librarian for my school, all new librarians in the district were given a few days proD by the district librarian on how to manage the library and use the Destiny system. We were told that all cataloging for the elementary schools would be done centrally, and that middle and secondary schools would be cataloging their own purchases. Armed with my district credit card I went out and bought books. The majority of the time I was able to use records from other libraries in the district, or import records through the Follett software, all you had to do was type in the ISBN and it searched records at schools all over North America. You can even look at the records to choose the one you feel is the most complete. On the odd occasion that I could find/import no existing record I entered new resources into Destiny using the “Add title” feature. This allows you to enter records either using the “MARC editor” or “Easy Editor” buttons both of which allow you to add records easily with prompts, without needing to know the MARC fields. Are all library systems so user friendly? As a consequence I added several things to the catalog without having any understanding of what MARC records were."----A clear example of a fool and her credit card gone wild.
Here is a MARC record I created (using Word) for A short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.
020 $a0385660049$c$23.00$
040 $SandilandsImaginativeCataloging$
041 $eng$
100 $aBryson, Bill$d1951$
240 $aA short history of nearly everything$leng$f2003$
250 $aAnchor edition published 2004$
260 $aCanada$bAnchor Canada$c2004$
300 ## $a554 p.$c22cm$
504 $aIncludes bibliographic references and index$
520 $aOne of the world’s most beloved writers takes his most challenging trip yet, through some of the toughest questions that scientists of all kinds have been trying to answer for years-sometimes for centuries. On this intellectual odyssey Bill Bryson puts his insatiable curiosity to use as he apprentices himself to the great scientific minds of today, and of history. In the course of his entertaining and revealing quest, Bryson asks not only “what” and “how”, but, more importantly “why”. Are the oceans getting saltier over time or less salty? How do earthquakes happen? What is a black home? And how on earth did we ever figure out things like that? Here is science like you never learned it at school-lucid, relevant, entertaining, and often very funny.$
521 1 $agrade 8 to adult$
650 #0 $aScience-Popular Works$
650 #0 $aScience-History$
Here is the MARC record (without the 000-019 and 9XX fields) I got from the VPL catalog:
020$a0767908171$
020$a0385660049 (pbk.)$
020$a0385660030 :$c$39.95$
040$aCaOONL$beng$cCaOONL$dCaBVa$
0550$aAG195$bB79 2003$
0820$a001/.09$221$
092$a500 B91s$
1001$aBryson, Bill$
24512$aA short history of nearly everything /$cBill Bryson.$
260$aToronto :$bDoubleday Canada,$cc2003.$
300$aix, 544 p. ;$c24 cm.$
504$aIncludes bibliographical references and index.$
593$aAlso: Anchor pbk. ed., 2004.$
593$aAlso: New York : Broadway Books, 2004.$
594$a20030528 dcj / 20041014 rc (020, 593) / 20041230 ba (020, 2nd 593)$
6500$aPhysics$
650$aCosmology$
650$aLife$xOrigin$
6500$aEarth sciences$
6500$aCulture$xOrigin$
650$aPrehistoric peoples$
6500$aHuman beings$xOrigin$
6510$aEarth$xOrigin$
Now as I have gone on to modules 7 and 8 I realize that copy cataloging is what I was doing (though not well). Creating records from scratch is very time consuming, and giving rank amateurs access to the catalog may have led to some very strangely cataloging items in our collection. Sorry Eleana.
All this boils down to a vote for central cataloging, freeing TLs up to teach information literacy skills, work with students to match them with the right books and all the other parts of the job that inspired me to take the teacher librarian diploma in the first place. No career change for me.
Monday, 1 October 2012
Say no to Google?!?!
So I have been learning more about how search engines work. I may actually rethink some of my old assumptions. I used to use a PowerPoint with my students. It is published here:
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dgg4jtdb_2f752w3gg&autoStart=true
This is what I said 2 years ago about search engines:
"They find sites that are the most popular or in which the search term is most often repeated. THEY DO NOT GIVE YOU THE “BEST” SITES, OR THE MOST ACCURATE AND RELIABLE SITES.
Companies pay web designers called “Search Engine Optimizers” to write their websites so that they will show up at the top of Google’s search results list."
I used to ask students to imagine a scientist working for a small university, who succeeds in finding a cure for cancer, and a pharmaceutical giant with money to pay the SEO. I then asked them to imagine whose page would rank higher of the search engines search results page.
Inevitably the students thought that the 'evil big pharmaceutical company' with its vested interest in treatment not cure with money for SEOs would rank at the top of the list.
I have been biased because of cynicism and distrust of large corporations.
So I watched a bunch of Google's webmaster tools videos about SEO and related topics. I am much clearer on how SEOs relate to Google and how much Google is doing to make sure the average Joe website creator is able to use these tools to improve their own websites. I also finally learned what PageRanking is. I may continue to direct students to Webpath Express through our library's OPAC, but I may not totally harsh on student googling either.
In any case I do need to continue to encourage students to look past the first page of search results, and to actually read the text provided with the link before clicking. Students need to google well. (So do I)
In my personal life a I am a Google and especially Wikipedia addict. No where else can I find out about the actor who is guest starring on this weeks episode of Doctor Who (or something similar).
I am wondering were we are as librarians on using Wikipedia as a resource. When I used to TOC I noticed many teacher assignments specifically forbade the use of Wikipedia period. Where are we on that now?
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