A bit of frustration

Good cataloging can only come from accurate processing, labeling, and handling of materials. That’s all I’m saying, but it does show the sort of day I’m having in cleaning up other people’s messes.

Search vs. browse, or downloading vs. broadcasting

HERE’S TO RADIO IN THE 21ST CENTURY: A Librarian’s Perspective

I listen to audio all day long. Whether it’s the digital files my library creates or its collection of over 1 million recordings in all sorts of formats; WAV and MP3 files, and my ever expanding collection of CDs and iTunes, both my apartment and my workstation (and computers) are filled with them. I could start with John Adams’s Chamber Symphony, and in a year, never make it all the way through my classical section to James Conlon’s recording of Alexander Zemlinsky’s two-act opera Der Traumgörge. The same is true of a number of other genres as well: folk, jazz, musical theatre, soundtracks…everything, well, except contemporary pop or hip-hop. As a music major, I started to collect classical recordings to build a basic music library, sort of an audio encyclopedia. Why would I do that now that I can subscribe for $20.00 a year to Naxos’s subscription service where I can stream every piece of classical music they own and license from their online? Sure there are pieces they don’t have, and hundreds of unique performances I crave. But as an encyclopedia Naxos does pretty well. (Alexander Street Press has a similar service through their Classical Music Library, Smithsonian Global Sound, and African American Song).

As a librarian and a music cataloger, searching is what I do best. I can write metadata with the best of them; I tag my Gmail with multiple subjects for efficient retrieval; and can devise complex search strings using keyword or Boolean (limiting my searches by date, language, format, etc.) operators. But what do I enjoy most about going into a library, bookstore, or record store? BROWSING. Whether it’s finding a book that I’ve heard of, but have never seen in person before, or impulsively buying the complete set of DVDs from a television series long since canceled, some joys can not be calculated or quantified so easily. Computer searching requires precise logic, but we can let our imaginations wander and take us to unknown lands when we browse. The audio equivalent of browsing is listening to radio.

I no longer think of the standard radio itself as the only (or even the predominant) means to receive programming. Through the web, via satellite radio, and yes, through their AM/FM band on your car’s stereo, one can receive opinions you’ve never thought of, discover music you’ve never heard before (even re-discover a piece you thought you knew), and hear other people’s stories through music and voice. (OK, internet radio is still sort of stuck in search mode, buried beneath the avalanche of Internet content which only a search engine can penetrate). Why do I forsake my own collection to listen to a medium that’s constantly changing? I don’t often know, but I keep doing it, just like my grandfather did. In a way to tune into radio is like throwing open a window, rather than rummaging through your attic. You may know what you have, but without radio (in all its modern forms), you’ll never know what you’re missing.

Jay Weitz’s “Music Coding and Tagging”

Got the first of my nine annotations for my cataloging internship done–eight to go!

Weitz, Jay. Music Coding and Tagging: MARC 21 Content Designation for Scores and Sound Recordings, 2nd ed. Belle Plaine, Minn.: Soldier Creek Press, 2001.

Weitz’s Music Coding and Tagging is an extremely useful reference tool for music catalogers. This second edition, written over a decade after the first, updates the first edition by incorporating changes made since format integration, new Library of Congress Rule Interpretations, new Music Cataloging Decisions, and often, clarifications made by Jay Weitz himself in the course of his work at the Online Computer Library Center in Dublin, Ohio. It begins with a brief synopsis of the development of music cataloging practices within the library community and with the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR), and the Machine Readable Cataloging format (MARC). It covers standard practice for cataloging scores and sound recordings within the MARC 21 communications format, particularly standard practice by the Library of Congress. Also, it gives best practice for interpreting the rules for fixed field elements, control fields, and variable fields. There are three useful appendixes: the first covers obsolete and pre-AACR2 fields (which one might uncover as they are editing older catalog copy), the second defines the differences between OCLC and RLIN formats for MARC, and the third includes many helpful full record examples of scores and sound recordings in both OCLC and RLIN formats.

He also appropriately notes which fields are mandatory, and which are optional. Several fields (or subfields, such as those in field 007) that are not needed by libraries, are marked for archival use only. Most helpful for sound recordings catalogers are the extended discussion of the importance of standard numbers and publishers numbers issued by record labels. Field 007 describes the physical characteristics of an item (in coded form, vs. the descriptive version done in field 300, subfields a-c), and he talks at length about what the options are for each subfield. Those unfamiliar with physical formats of audiovisual materials will find elucidation in this area of the text.

One of the other sources for the book was Weitz’s own Q & A column, published in the periodical, Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) Newsletter. The breadth and depth of his knowledge related to music and audiovisual cataloging serves him well, in giving examples that relate to everything from scores and commercial recordings to unpublished/archival manuscripts and sound recordings. The book is meant to be a complement to existing cataloging manuals and standards, such as AACR, 2nd edition, 2002 revision. It uses examples for illustrative purposes, even though “cataloging by example is a practice generally frowned upon…, because it falsely suggests that the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of cataloging can be safely ignored.” Still, it is very helpful in cases that are out of the ordinary.

I will use this manual in the course of my internship often as a quick reminder as to what one of a field’s subfield or indicator means, or to understand the applicability of a content designator. Part of why it’s so useful is that it is not as terse as MARC 21 Bibliographic Formats or OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards. A comparison to biblical interpretation might be appropriate here, for the manuals mean what they say, but they often do not say what they mean. Why should we trust one cataloger’s judgment? One need not in theory, but Weitz always clearly states the rationale and context of each decision and clarification he makes.