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Whenever I consult OCLC’s When to Input a New Record documentation (which is bookmarked as “NEW RECORD?” on my browser) I hear in my head the Mario Party voice, triumphantly shouting “New record!”

(Is that just me?)

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The Troublesome Catalogers and Magical Metadata Fairies had an interesting discussion on Facebook recently: how should we encode that an ebook is open access, so that patrons can limit their search to open access materials only?

I have a few thoughts on this:

  • I am not in the habit of doing this for our open access books, but it might make sense to put it in MARC 506 (Restrictions on Access Note), like:
    • 506 0_ ǂa Open access.
    • Note that the first indicator zero means “no restrictions”.
  • Should this go in the bib or elsewhere? If a library had access to multiple copies, some open access and some not (this does happen), it might make more sense to attach this as a note or license to the particular holding/portfolio under the bib.
  • Once you’ve decided how to encode this, there’s the added step of configuring the OPAC/discovery layer to allow limiting in this way.
  • Is this a common search for patrons to want to do in the library catalog? If so, why? For the academic purpose of just knowing which titles are open access? or for some practical reason concerning their own access? Our patrons should be able to access any of our ebook titles from off campus; they may have to login through a proxy though. In an in-person discussion, somebody mentioned the idea of reference librarians (particularly in public health) identifying resources that they could send to community members more broadly, which seems like a good use case. Any others?

Any other thoughts?

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The death train : a personal account of a holocaust survivor / Luba Krugman Gurdus. (OCLC #4825260)

While cataloging a gift book from a large collection, one of our catalogers spotted a letter tucked into one volume; it was written to the book’s author, from Menachem Begin, who was Prime Minister of Israel during the book’s publication. I alerted our Special Collections selector in case they’d like to add this to our collections!

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Un catecismo para los negocios : respuestas de la enseñanza católica a los dilemas éticos de la empresa / Andrew V. Abela, Joseph E. Capizzi ; traducción, Francisco J. Lara. (OCLC #956991214)

While MARC 020 $a is for the ISBN for the particular item you are cataloging:

020 __ ǂa 9780813228877 (electronic bk.)

you can include more ISBNs in 020 $z (“Canceled/invalid ISBN”). This subfield is often used to include the ISBN of a different version of the title, such as an eISBN in a record for the print.

020 __ ǂz 9780813228860 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Today I found the ISBN for the (original) English version of this title in the record for its translation into Spanish:

020 __ ǂz 9780813228846

this was included in a $z because though it was structurally valid (correct number of digits, check digit matched), it was an invalid application, being for a different resource.

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The Brown Betty cookbook [electronic resource] : modern vintage desserts and stories from Philadelphia’s best bakery / Linda Hinton Brown and Norrinda Brown Hayat ; photography by Alison Conklin. (OCLC #843126922)

Is it good or bad timing that so many cookbooks (including this one) were just removed from our DDA discovery record profile? (How many short term loans might we have had this weekend?)

Happy Thanksgiving!

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The Yellow River / by Irene P. Freeley. (OCLC #83798544)

Very funny, Florida State University cataloger from 1983.

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[Liḳrat Shabat ṿe-Yom ṭov] = Likrat Shabbat : worship, study, and song : for Sabbath and festival services and for the home / compiled and translated by Sidney Greenberg ; edited by Jonathan D. Levine. (OCLC #9057683)

Not all administrative metadata we know about the piece ends up in the bib record, or even stays with the piece. (We removed the tape and the post-it during cataloging of this gift to the library.)

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한국 문화 어떻게 가르칠 것 인가 : 이론 과 실제 / 이 성희 지음. (OCLC #961941940)

I found copy in OCLC for a very similar book to this one, but with some differences: same title, author, publisher, and publication date; different pagination, ISBN, and parallel title. A different edition?

My Korean language skills are minimal (I know the alphabet and some words) but I can match strings in the record against those on the cover and title page. I spotted a word that seemed specific to my edition (in the circle on the top left, in orange lettering on the cover), but what did it mean?

Google Translate has handwriting input for Korean which works well, suggesting the correct letters/blocks, even if your handwriting isn’t the greatest. My extra word translated as “revision”, so I was able to quickly derive a new record for this new edition.