Metadata interest group meeting at ALA Midwinter

I'm the chair of the Networked Resources and Metadata Interest Group (a.k.a. NRMIG) and we are having a meeting at the upcoming ALA Midwinter meeting. Our secretary, Louise Ratliff of UCLA, organized an excellent panel of speakers. Details follow:

Date: Sunday, January 21, 2007
Time: 8:00-9:30 discussion; 9:30-10:00 business meeting
Location: Washington Convention Center Room 310

At the NRMIG meeting during ALA Midwinter in January, we will devote 90 minutes of our time to a managed discussion of issues related to metadata creation and management. Four fine colleagues have volunteered to speak for about 15 minutes each about topics of their choice. After each person’s comments there will be 5-10 minutes for discussion. The last 30 minutes of our 2-hour block will be devoted to a business meeting. Please join me in welcoming our four panel discussion participants.


Michael Esman
Head of Cataloging/Indexing
National Agricultural Library

The use of a citation database as the source of metadata for the National Agricultural Library institutional repository. The talk focuses on the difficulty of using author created metadata, the article and metadata submission process established by NAL, metadata mapping issues, and options for improving metadata quality.


Diane Hillmann
Research Librarian
Cornell University

Metadata management and updating in institutional environments: problems and potential solutions. Describing what I see as the "Metadata Management Layer" that any institution pushing content should be thinking about.


Jody Perkins
Metadata Librarian
Miami University Libraries

Project planning and management/work flow issues with an emphasis on what makes metadata creation different than traditional cataloging. Observations regarding the impact of "politics" on digital library projects.


Suzanne Pilsk
Librarian, Metadata Specialist
Smithsonian Institution Libraries

The importance of getting the right literature to the right people in the right format for them to use. This would focus on the taxonomic literature that is old but still constantly needed by researchers world wide.

Searching WorldCat with a barcode scanner.

Last week, on a hunch, I used my desktop barcode scanner to search for titles in Worldcat. Much to my delight, it worked--sort of.

Here are the details: As a cataloger, I use the Connexion client to search for MARC catalog copy for the books I am cataloging. The search I use most often is an ISBN search in the Command Line Search box. Normally, I do this by finding the ISBN on the book (usually on the back cover or the verso of the title page) and typing in the number by hand. This is slow and tedious, but much more specific than searches by author, title, or other criteria.

Recently, I browsed OCLC's Technical Bulletin 253 on ISBN and OCLC Number Changes. A few things stood out. First of all, ISBNs changed to 13 digits on January 1st, 2007. These 13-digit ISBNs have been assigned by publishers for months, but OCLC had catalogers record them in the 024 field (standard number) rather than the 020 field (ISBN). After the official switch, OCLC has been slowly converting these 024s into 020s, hence some 13-digit numbers are indexed and searchable as ISBNs. Second, these 13-digit ISBNs are identical to EANs (formally known as International Article Numbers) which is the same number encoded in the barcode.

So, to retrieve a book with a 13-digit ISBN, all you have to do is pull up the Command Line Search and swipe your barcode. This is, as Napolean Dynamite would say, "Sweeet." It saves me a lot of typing.

Unfortunatley, all is not perfect. Not all books have a 13 digit ISBN, and not all of the books with EANs in the 024 have been converted. Message to OCLC: Please automate the conversion of as many books as possible, so I don't have to type as much.