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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Libology Blog
Established July 2006
ISSN: 1946-1852
by Rick Mason
Category Archives: Classification
Weeding… or Mowing?
The Urbana Free Library in Urbana, Illinois, just conducted a major weeding project. Those of us who work in libraries understand that proper weeding is critical. A collection that isn’t weeded well becomes clogged up with irrelevant and unnecessary volumes, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Classification, Ethics, Libraries
1 Comment
OCLC Questions
Jonathan Rochkind at Bibliographic Wilderness weighs in on the OCLC issue, and ultimately asks a lot of significant questions that don’t have easy answers. We all need to be asking significant questions, not only of OCLC, SkyRiver, and III, but … Continue reading
Posted in Cataloging, Classification, Ethics, Groups, History, ILL, ILS, Libraries, OCLC, Online Databases, Online Services
Tagged Cataloging, Ethics, III, Jonathan Rochkind, Libraries, OCLC, Online Services, SkyRiver
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Chickens in the Library
So, what would you do if live chickens were released in your library? Is this covered in your organization’s disaster plan? If you need to examine another library’s response, review this Shelf Check comic for the following procedure: Alert the … Continue reading
Posted in Cataloging, Classification, Humor, Libraries, News
Tagged Chicken, Disaster/Accident, Humor, Libraries, News
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Non Words
What would you call a collection of non words? That question occurs to me with the news that Oxford University Press has a vault containing millions of “non words” notated on 4″ x 6″ cards. These are the words that … Continue reading
Posted in Archival, Classification, Definitions, History, Language
Tagged Classification, dictionary, English languages, Language, Linguistics, OED, Oxford English Dictionary, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Thoughts on Names
A blog post by Patrick McKenzie titled Falsehoods Programmers Believe about Names is a great reminder of the increasing complexity surrounding computer software and personal names. It is presented as a list, and most likely will contain some thought-provoking “rules” … Continue reading
Posted in Classification, Definitions, ILS, Libraries, Online Databases, Software, Translation, Web Design
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The Importance of Taking Breaks
Most people are viewing this with an eye towards the Dewey Decimal System, but what I see is the importance of taking regular breaks: found on The Cataloguing Librarian
Posted in Books, Classification, Humor, Libraries, Video
Tagged Books, breaks, circulation, Dewey Decimal Classification, Humor, Libraries, shelving, stress, Video
1 Comment
NASA Needs A Library Solution (But So Do Libraries)
In a merging of two of my great interests, NASA has issued a Request For Information (ROI) on how best to “analyze and catalog notes from spaceflight pioneer Wernher von Braun into an electronic, searchable database or other system.“ At … Continue reading
Posted in Archival, Classification, Government, History, Libraries, Library 2.0, News, Online Databases, Software, Space, Web Design, Wiki
Tagged library technology, library tools, NASA, pdf, Wernher von Braun
1 Comment
Neutral Pleasure, Medium Arousal
In its continuing examination of library blogs, HotStuff 2.0 has added a visualization of emotional content. Here is the current visualization for Libology: How to read the information, from HotStuff’s description: The overall scatter of words in the ANEW list … Continue reading
Posted in Blogs, Classification, Libraries, Library 2.0, Statistics
Tagged emotional content, HotStuff, INFP, Libology, Myers-Briggs, visualization, Walt Crawford
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A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods is a great resource if you have information you need to present visually, but don’t know the best way to express it. Simply go to the site and let your mouse hover over the … Continue reading
Posted in Classification, Web Design
Tagged periodic table, style vs. substance, visualization, visualization methods
2 Comments
Free Drinks Tomorrow
Karen Coyle writes about the Library of Congress and their follow-up to the lcsh.info shuttering last fall. In LC discovers infinity, she points out that at ALA Midwinter they not only stated that they recognized the value of the service, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Cataloging, Classification, Libraries, Library 2.0, Online Services
Tagged Congress, Karen Coyle, lcsh.info, Library of Congress, Library of Congress Subject Headings
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LibraryThing and Authors
LibraryThing has implemented the start of a solution for the problem of distinguishing authors with the same names. This has been a challenge for libraries since the beginning of cataloging. The accepted solution thus far has been Authority Records. I … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Cataloging, Classification, Language, Libraries, Library 2.0
Tagged Authority, disambiguation, elegant solution, LibraryThing, Wikipedia
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A Useful Amplification
A Useful Amplification of Records That Are Unavoidably Needed Anyway is an essay by Brett Bonfield which, dare I phrase it this way, usefully amplifies several of the major web-based entities which are intertwined with libraries. These include (but aren’t … Continue reading
Posted in Cataloging, Classification, Definitions, Libraries, OCLC, Online Databases, Online Services, OPAC, Search, WebSearch
Tagged Amazon, Brett Bonfield, Libraries, LibraryThing, OCLC, web-based entities;, Worldcat
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Lakes and Rivers
Lorcan Demsey has a post on metadata that does a great job of illustrating two types of data collections by describing them as lakes and rivers. The idea did not originate with him; rather he encountered it via OCLC’s Eric … Continue reading
Posted in Cataloging, Classification, Definitions, History, Libraries, OCLC
Tagged analog, Eric Hellman, Heraclitus, lakes, Lorcan Demsey, rivers, Rivers Lorcan Demsey
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Classify
Classify is a new service from OCLC which returns class numbers (Dewey, LC, and National Library of Medicine) assigned to books in WorldCat. This could be a good way to use the “wisdom of the crowd” when you are not … Continue reading
Posted in Cataloging, Classification, Libraries, Library 2.0, OCLC, Online Services, Search
Tagged Classify, DDC, Dewey, Dewey Decimal Classification, Dewey LC, DeweyBrowser, LC, Library of Congress Classification, Lorcan Dempsey, National Library of Medicine, OCLC
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Open Shelves Classification
Tim Spalding of LibraryThing has started a new ambitious project: develop a new shelf classification system that would eliminate the baggage of the 100+ year-old systems many libraries have in place, as well as create a system free from the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Classification, Groups, Libraries
Tagged Classification, Dewey Decimal Classification, LibraryThing, Open Shelves Classification, Tim Spalding, year-old systems
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