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I am woefully behind in progressing through the James Patterson Master Class on writing. It is not because it is a bad class (my thoughts so far here and here) but because I have so many other things going on it is hard for me to make the time to watch the videos. A few weeks ago I got an email inviting me to submit a writing sample to be critiqued by Patterson himself and even though I did not take advantage of the opportunity, having no fictional work in progress, I thought it was a pretty cool thing and felt a bit bad that I did not have any fiction in progress to submit and see just what kind of feedback was on offer.
Today in my email I received a message that my friends are eligible for a $15 discount off the price of a Master Class, any Master Class it seems. So if you are interested in taking Patterson’s fiction class or trying out any of the other classes on offer, if you sign up by midnight PST on September 8th, enter the code PTS86W.
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There is a great article called Silence in the Library that you all might be interested in reading. It is written by an archivist and discusses the issue of naming that those who catalog materials must deal with. Before I went to library school I could honestly say I never once thought about how materials were cataloged, that someone had to figure out what subject headings and keywords and other metadata to add to them. And then when I did think about it I wondered, really, how hard could it be?
I am not a cataloger, but I had the pain and pleasure of finding out just how important these folks are in more ways than you can imagine. Because we all know that naming is important and it bumps into issues like privilege and race and class all the time. Library cataloging is not immune to any of the issues. Catalogers struggle with it every day. Not only do they have to figure out what to call materials so you, the library patron can actually find and borrow them, but they also very often consider the implications of how materials are named. Librarians at the reference desk often get all the glory when they help a patron find something, but those behind the scenes catalogers are owed a great deal of credit for creating the metadata that allows that reference librarian to help you.
Anyway, the article is great and delves into a bit of the issues and implications of naming and how librarians have the opportunity to be silent radicals. Give it a read and you will have a new appreciation for librarians and archivists.
Good luck with your class, and congrats on getting that writing invitation!!
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Thanks Jess!
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Great article…I love my libraries and have a whole lot of respect for those who manage them day in and day out!
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cirtnecce, glad you enjoyed the article!
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I will have to check out that article on ‘naming’. Since switching to WMS I have had to learn the art of copy cataloging and I have a new and very deep respect for people who do original cataloging. Just updating records is a huge challenge sometimes–what an idiosyncratic sort of work and so detail oriented. It is amazing how much I have learned and I realize just how little I really know. Needless to say it has been an education for me–and sometimes when talking to coworkers about some minutiae of classification or understanding call numbers or analyzing a books subjects I catch myself saying ‘how interesting’ then laugh and shake my head and think, ‘really’? Some of it is so esoteric that who really thinks about these things! But you do appreciate catalogers–I agree!
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Danielle, I think you will like the article, it is really interesting. Heh, I know what you mean about finding the minutiae of classification interesting. When RDA was announced I did a webinar for non-catalogers and got so excited about it. I have not the right kind of mindset to actually be interested in doing any cataloging but I do so appreciate those who do. Even copy cataloging has its challenges so I admire you ability to do it!
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That library article was interesting! I imagine the same kinds of issues come up in book indexing, something I’ve sometimes thought would be fun to learn (and potentially useful for an editor).
At my job, we recently went through a process to tidy up and standardize our metadata categories, and it was not easy! We had to make sure all the topics our content covers were somehow included in the keywords we chose, and we had to think about how users might look for the content. We didn’t have to consider the political implications of our work, but it was plenty complicated without that!
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Teresa, yes, there are similar issues in indexing too. I used to think I would love indexing until I took a class on it in library school! While it was fascinating I learned pretty fast that it is not something I enjoy doing!
Ooh, sounds like you got a taste of cataloging and database indexing at your job! You might not have had to consider everything librarians do but you got to dip in a toe. Definitely not easy work 🙂
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Enjoyed that article, though I must say I don’t quite understand her point about archives not needing cataloguing, about their being free somehow. It’s true that traditional archives have tended not to use library cataloguing practices but my experience is that that has often been to the detriment of people being about to find the archives. I am though out of touch with all this now so I may be speaking about a different world.
I love cataloguing because you can have wonderful discussions about naming/labelling that do involve you in politics, philosophy, ethics, history etc. You can tear your hair out but what fun. (BTW Library of Congress used to have headings like “Doctors” and “Women as doctors”, etc. The history of library cataloguing can contain the history of culture!)
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whisperinggums, yes, that was kind of strange since it is my understanding that a good many archives are cataloging their materials for online search and discovery and placing at least some of their materials online. Maybe her archive isn’t doing that? I suspected you might be one of those geeky cataloging types 😉 You are right though about the discussions and the history. We touched on some of the history in an indexing class I took in library school. Fascinating!
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Exactly … Re archives. And my understanding from some archive conferences I’ve been to is that they are starting to look at librarianship for techniques/principles.
Yes, I do have a bit of cataloguing geek in me … It’s not extreme but I admit to some!
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