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November 2011

Tips in Threes -- Do Nothing Edition

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 - 12:57 pm e — jhennelly

This month's tips have two things in common. First, they all address recommendations that arose from last year's U.S. RDA Test. Second and, depending on your perspective, more importantly, none of the tips really require you to do anything. They are just there for you to chose. Certainly one could argue that pointing out something that does really require any thoughtful action does not constitute a "tip." But these are all new features to RDA Toolkit, ones that users specifically requested.

Tester Interview -- North Carolina State University

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 - 10:09 am e — jhennelly

North Carolina State University is a land grant university, and its libraries serve a population of more than 34,000 students and 8,000 faculty and staff. The cataloging staff does both original and copy cataloging. They do not create authority records. All of their 18-member staff participated in the U.S. RDA Test. NCSU uses SirsiDynix's Unicorn ILS. Christee Pascale, Assistant Head of Metadata and Cataloging, answered our questions for NCSU.

Chris Oliver Chosen to Copy Edit RDA

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 - 1:30 pm e — jhennelly

ALA Publishing, acting on behalf of the Co-Publishers of RDA: Resource Description and Access and under the direction of the Committee of Principals, is pleased to announce the selection of Chris Oliver as Copy Editor for improving the readability of RDA.

Tester Interview -- Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 - 11:26 am e — jhennelly

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh was established in 1895 and serves the citizens of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. This public library does both original and copy cataloging as well as authority work. The cataloging staff consists of 4 full-time and 1 half-time professional catalogers. All the full-time staffers participated in the RDA test. Carnegie Library uses the Millennium ILS from Innovative Interfaces. Charles Herrold supplied the responses to our questions.

Reports from the JSC Conference last week.

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 - 10:55 am e — jhennelly

Last Week the Joint Steering Committee for the development of RDA: Resource Description and Access (JSC) met in Glasgow, Scotland with a long list of issues to cover. You can review the agenda here, and you can get a quick update on JSC rulings and decisions from John Attig's blog. Mr. Attig, the Authority Control Librarian at Pennsylvania State University, serves as the ALA representative to the JSC.

Tester Interview -- Emory University

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 - 9:46 am e — jhennelly

Emory University was one of 10 academic libraries that participated in the U.S. RDA Test. The university library engages in both original and copy cataloging and does authority work as well. The cataloging staff consists of 32 people, 20% of whom participated in the RDA test. During the test Emory used the Symphony ILS from SirsiDynix. Armin Siedlecki, head of cataloging at Emory's Pitts Theology Library, answered our questions.