Understanding....

This has been a tough section to understand:  Subject Headings.  There are other things in life that I do not understand very well.  Here are a few:

(1)          Frilly headbands on nearly-bald female babies  

(2)          Pet clothing

(3)          17,000 sequels to The Land Before Time

(4)          Why audience members have to clap so much on Wheel of Fortune

So, I didn’t do….as bad as I thought I would on the first “Digging” assignment.  I missed small parts of all, but especially the Thomas Jefferson assignment. 

It seems with Subject Headings that I just barely get it wrong on most of them.  Of course, that still makes them wrong. 

I almost feel like I need to be psychic to get the right Subject Headings.  Take for example the following subject for a book:  

“Card playing San Francisco Giant fans in the Northeast Himalayas who wear nose rings on every other Sunday of the month of July in even-numbered years.”

Now, I understand that this is a bit of a sarcastic example to use, but bear with me.  What’s the most important thing to look up?  Nose rings?  Card playing, which would be under “games”?  San Francisco Giants fans?  The Himalayas?  July in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018?  I think the main part would be card playing because the rest of the adjectives are describing the people who play cards and when they play. 

Here’s my guess….

Card games--…….

And that’s as far as I got.  Any ideas?

Since this is my final blog for this 6120 class, I will say that I have really learned a lot.  I can now look in a library and understand the Sears and the LOC, even though when I asked my local public library which one they used the most, they looked at me with a blank look. 

This class has definitely been challenging.  But, that’s not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

Dewey

Dewey.

No, wait....Not him.

Nope.  Not that one either.

This one.

Melvil and his Decimal System.

As you know from my previous posts, my first real period of time with this system was from Tomes and Talismans.  (Yes, there are many more episodes out there. Disturbing.)

While reading Chapter 5 about the Dewey Decimal system, it brought back memories of some of my favorite books when I was a developing reader.  I enjoyed presidential history, including a book that I ordered from a Scholastic book fair in 1^st grade that had all of the presidents through Ronald Reagan, who was still in his 2^nd term.    I  loved all of Matt Christopher’s sports books, including The Kid Who Only Hit Homers and Catcher with a Glass Arm.  I also enjoyed reading and re-reading Judy Blume’s The Pain and the Great One, as well as Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  I only read the first Boxcar Children book by Gertrude Chandler Warner, but it was my first real chapter book that I could follow along.  I have no idea why I didn’t try to read the rest of the series.

As for the text in Kaplan about the DDC, it was a bit confusing at first.  I have been using the DDC for so long that I took it for granted.  I know how to look up a book in a database, find the number on the end of the aisles, and then find the book on the shelves.  I hadn’t really thought about where the numbers came from until I read Chapter 5.  I knew there must be some reasoning behind the numbers.  I just hadn’t had to think about it since I was in secondary school.  Now, I know what the numbers mean. 

The Constant

My all-time favorite television shows in descending order:

(793) Tomes and Talismans.

Please don't watch past the first minute. You just need to witness the acting.  Truly terrible.  And why is that guy wearing a thin, multi-colored headband?  Looks like he should be in "Xanadu."

(543) Mrs. Cabobbles Caboose

Yes, thank you 5th grader teacher for forcing us to watch this show.  What better way to show our patriotism than in this episode.  Truly, truly terrible show....but especially bad when you are in 5th grade.

 (542) Full House
This final curtain call should have happened after the first episode aired.

 (2) Saved by the Bell.

So many memories.  Tough episode with Kelly and Zack breaking up.  A momentous day on Monday after it first aired.  Everyone was talking about it.

(1) Lost.

I miss Lost.  It was a creative show that, despite some flaws and some mishaps that are bound to happen, I thoroughly enjoyed.  I loved the characters, especially Ben Linus and Desmond.  My favorite episode was "The Constant."

I thought of this episode while reading in Kaplan’s Catalog it!. In Area 7 about notes to add to a MARC, it said that “display constants” are codes “given to the computer so that it will automatically display a word or phrase when the record is retrieved from the OPAC….(and) it saves us lots of time typing.”  I’m not sure I understand constants, but anything that helps to make the library system just a little easier, I’m all for it.  Plus, this passage gives me the opportunity to link to my favorite show.  

Other thoughts for month 3 in LIBS 6120.  I feel comfortable with blocks now, and I’m starting to feel better about MARC.  All of those dollar signs and “a’s”, “b’s” and “x’s” really threw me off until I got a closer look and was able to really see that it’s just plugging the block information into the MARC.  It’s not nearly as confusing as I thought it was going to be, especially since a lot of the bewildering items are usually not utilized in school libraries.  But, it’s still good to know that I can come back to my Kaplan for answers in the future.

Also, Berenstain Bears?  Ber-en-STAIN?  For my entire literary life, I also said Ber-en-steen!  When I was filling out my MARC for the graded practice using Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat, I noticed the discrepancy.  In shock, I showed my wife and mother-in-law and they also had always said Ber-en-steen.  Maybe that is the correct way to say it.  I do know that Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed was my favorite book of the series when I was a little guy.

Ramblings for February

                Let’s say you’re sitting at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon, munching a bowl of Funyuns, catching up on old Webster reruns and wondering what in the heck happened to Crystal Clear Pepsi.  When you shift your position on the couch, a crisis forms in your mind.  You wonder why you hadn’t thought of it before.

You need to add some new headings to the LCSH.

You know you need to.  You feel the urge. 

You click off Webster just before he did something new that was wrong, and head to The Google to find out how. 

There it is.  Your suggestions  for adding or changing headlines must be submitted via the….wait for it…. Subject Authority Component of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging through a Subject Authority Proposal.  Yep.  The good ol’ SACPCCSAP.  I find this quite entertaining to find a form for this with a name this long. 

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Other things for the month:  I’m finally starting to get it.  AACR.  If I had to, I could be given a book and I could do a darn good job at making a block record of it.  A few of the books I practiced with:  Jerry Spinelli’s Smiles to Go, Jeff Pearlman (one of my favorite writers and bloggers) ‘s The Bad Guys Won!, and The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s highly enjoyable piece of cinema.  I do feel that I’m ready to move on to the MARC, though it is intimidating, at least according to the Catalog It! book that is used for the class.  Numbers, dollar signs, pound signs—it almost looks like an Archie comic character using colorful language (Mr. Weatherbee, perhaps?  Jughead could really tick him off sometimes.  Or maybe it’s Mr. Lodge? He really couldn’t stand Archie, but he still put up with him dating his daughter….and sometimes dating Betty openly.  Bizarre.)

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And on a side note….I’m totally pumped about Radiohead’s new album.  I won’t be able to get it for a while because of financial constraints due to some car repairs, but that will make it even more worth the wait.

Simple

Man, I remember when I thought the only thing that mattered in a library was the Dewey Decimal System.  I look up a book, find the numbers on the end of the shelves, look, and BOOM.  It's there.  Problem solved.  Life is good. 


Wow, was I ever wrong!  ISBD, pages, illustrations, reprints, different publishers, paperbacks, the 8 levels of ISBD.  Wait.....levels.  Wasn't there a story or something.....hmmmm.....written by....Dante?....was that his name?.... about several levels of hell that was later made into a slightly mediocre, but rather interesting film with Robin Williams?  Anyway, learning about the ISBD listing has been a bit taxing, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  So far, I've practiced with one of my favorite writers, Bill Simmons, and his excellent tome The Book of Basketball.  I've been reading his columns for many, many years on ESPN.com, so I'm used to his style and perspective.  My beautiful wife bought it for me when it came out in 2009, and at 715 pages, it took me quite a while to get through it. But, I thoroughly devoured it.  I tried Jerry Spinelli's Smiles to Go, but I'm stuck on it and can't figure out where to go with it, since it's a Scholastic paperback print, and it's different than the first edition. 

Learning, learning, learning about this new frontier.  I hope I get the hang of it, so I can be a librarian one day and work at a library....especially one that the Old Spice guy talks about here.

Tomes and Talismans

Sometimes, things of this world come together and make a small cosmic explosion felt all the way to Alderaan.  These cosmic explosions must include the following:  the “internets”, lots of free time by “internets” users utilizing “the Google”, and a nostalgic urge to find out things from our past.  One of these cosmic events occurred yesterday. 

I have started a Library Science graduate studies class called “Cataloging and Classification” at Middle Tennessee State University.  This class will be, according to the class syllabus, “simplified procedures for cataloging books and non-print materials, cataloging routines, and filing.”  Whenever I mention to my friends what class I am taking, they all raise an eyebrow and respond with a sarcastic word:  “riveting”.  But, to me, this is a major step toward my dream job.  My dream job is to be a middle school librarian, presumably at the high-poverty school where I currently teach 8^th grade language arts.  My goal for the future, if there are actually any librarian jobs left (the future’s not looking so rosy), is to be the first male librarian in my county and to hopefully be a positive role model for young adults. 

            However, when I read the syllabus and saw acronyms such as MARC, FRBR, and AACR2, I had no idea what these meant and I immediately thought they sounded like Star Wars characters like R2D2. I am familiar with the ISBD because of previous Library Science classes, and I am also now familiar with RFID, since the Linebaugh Public Library system in the last year recently switched over to it.  The Dewey Decimal System?  My knowledge of it began in elementary school where I had a librarian who didn’t like to read (yes, you read that right). 

Now, you are wondering, “C’mon, Seadorf, when does this cosmic explosion come in?” Right here, actually.  That librarian would show us these completely terrible videos about some kids riding around in a mobile library van and aliens taking over the world in the future and how the Dewey Decimal system could stop the destruction of the world—or something like that.  That’s all I could remember.  Lo and behold, the powers of the Google.  “Tomes and Talismans” was the name of the series that was produced by Mississippi Public Broadcasting.  

(Scroll ahead to 0:30.  It's 7:36, but you may only be able to stand about 2 minutes.  It's a train wreck)

We hated it then, but I can’t help but laugh at it now.  But, I think, I actually did learn the basics of Mr. Dewey’s system.  Therefore, my journey into “Cataloging and Classification” begins….and a whole lot of library raps to come.