Month: August 2014

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On a shelf of old mysterious problems, I found four cardboard boxes of catalog cards. These were the shelf list and catalog for the sound recordings (on records and audio cassettes) in our media collection. I blew the dust off of the cards and packed them neatly into drawers in a nearby card catalog cabinet, which houses cards for similar collections.

Those cards poking up out of the right drawer are “see also” cards, like this one:

They are housed in plastic sleeves that make them stand up above the other cards.

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Epistle to white Christians / Fred D. Wentzel. (OCLC #1039631)

When cataloging, we look for the title on its preferred source of information (RDA) or chief source (AACR2) which for books is the title page. A cover or spine title may not be the authoritative title in the first place, but may also lose letters when damaged. Though the spine title on this volume is technically different from the one on the title page, I chose not to add it in a 246 18.

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Otsuchi : moving forward from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami : a photo essay of a small town in Japan / Meiji Gakuin University Volunteer Center ; editing and design, Cody Rapley. (OCLC #889095202)

Most call numbers in Library of Congress Classification follow a pretty standard pattern: 1-3 capital letters, a number (possibly with a decimal part), one or two cutters, and sometimes a year. One exception is in call numbers for books about events like earthquakes, where the class number also includes a year for the occurrence (in addition to the year that might be in the “item number” part of the call number). For example, HV599 is for general works about earthquakes, but HV600 is for works about specific earthquakes by date, then subarranged by place, A-Z, and by author, A-Z.

This title about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, so the first cutter is for Tōhoku, the region where that earthquake took place. The second cutter is for the main entry, which in this case is the title. This forms the call number:

HV600 2011 .T64 ǂb O87 2014
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From Aristotle to Schrödinger : the curiosity of physics / Antonis Modinos. (OCLC #867822764)

I didn’t spot the popular copy for this book on my first search because I did a personal name search for the author’s first and last name:

    pn: antonis and pn: modinos

Unfortunately, pn: indexes relatively few fields, all for access points:

    100/a,b,c,d,j,q,u
    700/a,b,c,d,j,q,u

I didn’t find the record, because the author’s name authority has been established only with his first initial:

    Modinos, A., ǂd 1938-

(details confirmed on distributor web sites).

A broader index for author names is au: which indexes the same fields as above, but many more as well, including 245ǂc (which would include the full form as transcribed in the statement of responsibility) but more unusual ones too, including:

  • 505ǂr – Statement of responsibility in a formatted contents note
  • 508ǂa – Creation/production credits note
  • 511ǂa – Participant or performer note
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Reports … [microform]. (OCLC #40340781)

This set of microfiche came to my attention via a packet of printouts (circa 2005) detailing seven different problems with its (original) cataloging record, including:

  • typos
  • wrong number of fiche
  • lack of analytical title access points
  • sharing a call number with unrelated fiche

The cover page email ended with “UGH, sounds liked you’d rather I forget this, right?” (I guess it was in fact forgotten!)

I brought the set down to my desk and examined it briefly with a lightbox app and a 10x loupe (just strong enough to read the title pages) and managed to sort out all of its problems. It still shares a call number with another title, but have similar topics they appear to have been published as a set (numbering is continuous).

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Air conservation; … report. (OCLC #21667681)

This volume was found in one branch, stamped for another, and sent to me because its barcode was not in the catalog. We have two additional copies of the title in storage, so the selector chose not to keep this duplicate.

(Discarded!)

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Til verket med Hallingdal Kraftlag [sound recording]. (OCLC #40099250)

This looks amazing. (I found them on YouTube!)  Unfortunately, we no longer collect audiocassettes.

(Discarded!)

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Trial in a goldfish bowl [videorecording] / produced by ATS/CLE State Bar of Wisconsin in cooperation with Media-Law Renations [i.e. Relations] Committee of the State Bar of Wisconsin. (OCLC #43042952)

When we bought this title in 1985, it consisted of 5 U-matic videocassettes and a manual. The video is a mock trial (based on an actual case) in which a boy was injured in a farm machinery accident. It was designed as a teaching aid for journalism students learning to report on trials. We no longer have the cassettes (or a way to play them in the library), and though the manual (likely) contains the full script of the tapes, it is not as useful for its intended purpose.

(Discarded!)

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Commonwealth of Kentucky : report no. 7 (in two volumes) : University of Kentucky / Division of Education Studies, Griffenhagen and Associates. (OCLC #38058844)

This title was on the problem shelf as an envelope containing the contents of two disbound volumes (now just a stack of paper). We already have an intact copy in special collections, and a microfilm copy for which we created the OCLC master record – my suspicion is that the copy I have in hand is the one that was filmed! The selector did not want to add it back to the collection as an additional print copy, as it is now in such poor condition.

(Discarded!)

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Genomic XML viewer.

Based on the demo that ran when I (against my better judgment) put this mysterious CD into my workstation, the LabBook Genomic XML Viewer looked like some pretty sweet software in 2001-2002. Unfortunately, the download button does nothing, and LabBook.com (which “powered” the software) is now a parked GoDaddy page (registrant in Hyderabad).

(Discarded!)