Tag: library newsletters

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Beginning Cataloguing News 9

Welcome to Beginning Cataloguing News 9, with image of desk at window overlooking autumn vine.

Our newsletter went out to subscribers today.

CONTENTS

CATALOGUING CAREERS – Harriet Hopkins, Awen Cultural Trust.

TYPO TIPOFF

Do you need to manouvre the oeuvres on your catalogue after several upgrades? With thanks to @zemkat’s tweet on “uvres” for prompting me to have a look for its occurrences on WorldCat.

BEGINNINGS BOOKSHELVES

Metadata Must-read – RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee, Decriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (RDA Edition), 2021, https://bsc.rbms.info/DCRMR.

Bodies in the Library – Charity Blackstock, Dewey Death, London: William Heinemann, 1956.

A hiatus in receipt of galleys for new library-set crime novels coincides neatly with requests from 3 readers for recommendations of classic bodies in the library.

Tidy Reading – The latest APDO Newsletter is out, and I was pleased to see my interview with Sarah Gregg highlighted in its regular “Blog Posts You’ll Love” section. This month, minimalist Chris Lovett came along to the APDO Book Club, and fellow book club organiser Nicola Austin and I have a post on the APDO blog in which Nicola poses five questions to him: https://www.apdo.co.uk/discovery-of-less-chris-lovett.

BEGINNING CATALOGUING LISTINGS

New Publication – Nicola Austin and Anne Welsh (2021). ‘Discovery of Less: Interview with Chris Lovett’, APDO Blog, 12 November, https://www.apdo.co.uk/discovery-of-less-chris-lovett.

Cataloguer Catch-up – highlights from our social media this month.

Seminars – Thanks to the generosity of seminar attendees last year (our first year), we are able to offer this year’s seminars on a “pay what you can” basis. This means that if you can’t afford CPD at the moment, you can come for free – no questions asked. If you can afford to pay £6 or £12, we’ll use your money to pay for next year’s seminars, and so on and so forth into the future. Some seminars will be recorded and available for one month after the event – please check individual pages for details.

[RECORDING OF] 1pm, 19 October: Cataloguing Matters – Anne Welsh, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/general-seminar-september.

1pm, 17 November: Training Matters – Harriet Hopkins (Awen Cultural Trust) and Amy Staniforth in conversation with Anne Welsh, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/seminar-november.

1pm, 3 December: Provenance Puzzles – Yvonne Lewis, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/december-seminar-provenance-puzzles.

1pm, 26 January: Metadata Is Mainstream – Alan Vaughan Hughes (Cardiff University), https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/january-seminar-metadata-is-mainstream.

1pm, 9 February: Medieval Colours – Sara Charles (Teaching Manuscripts), https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/february-seminar-medieval-colours.

1pm, 1 March: MARC Data for Theatre – Tom Spencer (Codurance), https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/march-seminar-marc-data-for-theatre.

Also Booking – Beginning Bibliography, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/beginning-bibliography.

Cataloguing Office Hour

Cataloguing Quandary? Launched at the request of clients who need to be able to book fixed-price very bespoke training, whether it’s a question about AACR2, RDA, DCRM or about the business of cataloguing (advocacy, training opportunities, career development) or, if you’re just looking for a confidential sounding board for your work project(s), the Cataloguing Office Hour aims to provide a low-cost, easy-to-access consultancy service: https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/anne-welsh-office-hour

Our next newsletter will go out in December. You can sign up here: http://tinyletter.com/beginningcataloguing.

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Beginning Cataloguing News 8

BEGINNING CATALOGUING NEWS WELCOME ... to the eighth issue of Beginning Cataloguing News. Image: "Why do I want to know about Cataloguing? It's the power I crave"

Our newsletter went out to subscribers today.

CONTENTS

BEGINNINGS BOOKSHELVES

Metadata Must-read – Marshall Breeding, ‘2021 Library Systems Report: Advancing Library Technologies in Challenging Times’, American Libraries 3 May 2021, https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2021/05/03/2021-library-systems-report.

Bodies in the Library – Rex Pickett, The Archivist, Ashland, Oregon: Blackstone Publishing, November 2021.

Tidy Reading – One of the things that kept me busy over the summer was being appointed, along with Nicola Austin (Life of Libra), as co-organiser of the APDO Book Club. We’ve managed to book some great authors to come along to our meetings, the first being Sarah Gregg, who spoke to us about her books Find Your Flow (New York: Rock Point, 2020) and Choose Happy (New York: Rock Point, 2021).

BEGINNING CATALOGUING LISTINGS

New Publications – Sarah Howley, Anne Welsh and Nicola Austin (2021). ‘APDO Book Club Reads 2021’, APDO Blog, 4 August 2021, https://www.apdo.co.uk/apdo-book-club-reads-2021.

Anne Welsh (2021). ‘Find Your Flow and Choose Happy: Interview with Sarah Gregg’, APDO Blog, 8 September, https://www.apdo.co.uk/find-your-flow-and-choose-happy-interview-with-sarah-gregg.

Stella Wisdom with input from Ash Green, Cheryl Tipp and Marion Tessier (2021). ‘Making Games in the Wood with Twine’, Digital Scholarship Blog, 17 May, https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2021/05/making-games-in-the-woods-with-twine.html.

Cataloguer Catch-up – highlights from our social media this month.

Seminars – Thanks to the generosity of seminar attendees last year (our first year), we are able to offer this year’s seminars on a “pay what you can” basis. This means that if you can’t afford CPD at the moment, you can come for free – no questions asked. If you can afford to pay £6 or £12, we’ll use your money to pay for next year’s seminars, and so on and so forth into the future. Some seminars will be recorded and available for one month after the event – please check individual pages for details.

1pm, 19 October: Cataloguing Matters – Anne Welsh, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/general-seminar-september.

1pm, 17 November: Training Matters – Harriet Hopkins (Awen Cultural Trust) and Amy Staniforth in conversation with Anne Welsh, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/seminar-november.

1pm, 3 December: Provenance Puzzles – Yvonne Lewis, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/december-seminar-provenance-puzzles.

1pm, 26 January: Metadata Is Mainstream – Alan Vaughan Hughes (Cardiff University), https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/january-seminar-metadata-is-mainstream.

1pm, 9 February: Medieval Colours – Sara Charles (Teaching Manuscripts), https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/february-seminar-medieval-colours.

1pm, 1 March: MARC Data for Theatre – Tom Spencer (Codurance), https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/march-seminar-marc-data-for-theatre.

Course – Beginning Bibliography, https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/p/beginning-bibliography.

Our next newsletter will go out in November, and will feature Harriet Hopkins in a welcome return of our popular Cataloguing Careers feature, which is only available to newsletter subscribers. You can sign up here: http://tinyletter.com/beginningcataloguing.

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Beginning Cataloguing Monthly 7

WELCOME to the seventh issue of Beginning Cataloguing Monthly

This month’s Beginning Cataloguing Monthly has just been sent to subscribers.

CONTENTS

BEGINNINGS BOOKSHELVES

Metadata Must-read – Chela Scott Weber, Martha O’Hara Conway, Nicholas Martin, Gioia Stevens and Brigitte C. Kamsler, Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections, Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research, 2021, https://www.oclc.org/research/publications/2021/oclcresearch- total-cost-of-stewardship.html.

Bodies in the Library – Holly Danvers, Murder at the Lakeside Library, London: Crooked Lane, July 2021.

Tidy Reading – a link to Sarah Howley’s ‘Recommendations from the APDO Bookclub Bookshelf’ on the APDO Blog; this month’s book club read, Death and Decluttering (McGovern Books, 2020), and my own favourite, Orsola de Castro’s Loved Clothes Last (Penguin Life, 2021), which I offered as  a prize in Tidy Beginnings’s first ever giveaway, timed to coincide with APDO’s Spring Clearing Week campaign.

BEGINNING CATALOGUING LISTINGS

New Publications – Helen O’Neill, Anne Welsh, David A. Smith, Glenn Roe and Melissa Terras, ‘Text Mining Mill: Computationally Detecting Influence in the Writings of John Stuart Mill from Library records’, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, online ahead of print 27 February 2021, https://academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/llc/fqab010/6153976; and open access at https://melissaterras.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/textminingmill_oneill_roe_smith_welsh_terras.pdf.

Anne Welsh, ‘Book Review: McLeish, Simon (2020, ed.) Resource Discovery for the Twenty-First Century Library. London: Facet. xxxii, 203 p. ISBN 9781783301386′, Catalogue & Index 202, 2021: 57-58, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.cilip.org.uk/resource/collection/CC45A47F-BE48-4BA1-B6D4-25BF10F1BC41/C&I_202.pdf.

Cataloguer Catch-up – highlights from our social media this month.

Seminars – Gustavo Grandal Montero on ‘Documentation or Artwork?’ and Ash Green on Creative Digital Experiments with Collections. Current seminars open for booking: https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/courses/category/seminars.

Courses – Beginning Bibliography; Beginning Cataloguing Rare Books; Masterclasses with Concetta La Spada. See all current asynchronous courses at https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/courses/category/asynchronous.

If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up here.

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Beginning Cataloguing Monthly 6

This month’s Beginning Cataloguing Monthly has just been sent to subscribers.

CONTENTS

BEGINNINGS BOOKSHELVES

Metadata Must-read – Shawne D. Miksa, ‘Cataloging Principles and Objectives: History and Development’, Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, published online 22 February 2021, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2021.1883173.

Bodies in the Library – Eva Gates, By Book or By Crook, Berkley Books, 2015; also mentioned: Allie Morgan, Librarian: A Memoir (Ebury, 2021).

Tidy Reading – the books covered by the APDO Book Club: James Clear, Atomic Habits, London: Random House, 2018; Lisa Jewell, The House We Grew Up In, Cornerstone, 2014; Beth Kempton, Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year, London: Piatkus, 2019; Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein, Joy At Work, London, Pan Macmillan, 2020; Christian Van Nieuwerburgh, An Introduction to Coaching Skills, 3rd edition, Sage, 2020.

METADATA MUDDLE – Last chance to enter the current competition.

BEGINNING CATALOGUING LISTINGS

Cataloguer Catch-up – highlights from our social media this month.

Seminars – Helen Williams on ‘From Cataloguer to Manager’ (with 50% off code for BCM subscribers); Jacqui Grainger on ‘Unpacking My Library’ (with 50% off code for BCM subscribers). See all current seminars at https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/courses/category/seminars.

Courses – Beginning Bibliography; Beginning Cataloguing Rare Books; Masterclasses with Concetta La Spada. See all current asynchronous courses at https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/courses/category/asynchronous.

CALL FOR SPEAKERS – Inviting subscribers to propose a seminar for September – December 2021, February-August 2022. Last chance to apply.

The next issue will go out in mid-March. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up here.

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Beginning Cataloguing Monthly 5

Beginning Cataloguing Issue 5

Just sent January’s Beginning Cataloguing Monthly to subscribers.

CONTENTS

CATALOGUING GAREERS – Natasha Aburrow-Jones

BEGINNINGS BOOKSHELVES

Metadata Must-read – Greta Bahnemann, Michael Carroll, Paul Clough, Mario Einaudi, Chatham Ewing, Jeff Mixter, Jason Roy, Holly Tomren, Bruce Washburn, and Elliot Williams, Transforming Metadata into Linked Data to Improve Digital Collection Discoverability: A CONTENTdm Pilot Project. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research, 2021, https://doi.org/10.25333/fzcv-0851.

Associate’s Choice – Yvonne Lewis reviews three books she read over the festive season.

Bodies in the Library – M.E. Hilliard, The Unkindness of Ravens, London: Crooked Lane, April 2021.

METADATA MUDDLE – The challenges of an artist’s book.

BEGINNING CATALOGUING LISTINGS

Publications – Articles written since the December’s BCM.

Cataloguer Catch-up – highlights from our social media this month.

Seminars – Dr Katharine Schopflin on Organisational Information (with 50% off code for BCM subscribers); Dr Karen Limper-Herz on German Bookbinders in 18th and 19th Century London; Helen Williams on the move From Cataloguer to Manager. (See all current seminars at https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/courses/category/seminars).

Courses – Beginning Bibliography; Beginning Cataloguing Rare Books; Masterclasses with Concetta La Spada. (See all current asynchronous courses at https://beginningcataloguing.teachable.com/courses/category/asynchronous).

CALL FOR SPEAKERS – Inviting subscribers to propose a seminar for September – December 2021, February-August 2022.

The next issue will go out just after Valentine’s Day. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up here.

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It Takes an Information Community to Raise a Business

With some people working from home, some wanting to leave face-to-face services with customers who are not compliant with social distancing rules, and some staring down the barrel of redundancy, there have possibly never been more information professionals contemplating self-employment. Here are some tips and resources from my experience this year setting up Beginning Cataloguing.

>>> Continue reading on ILI 365 >>>

With thanks to Marydee Ojala for commissioning this article, and featuring it as the top story on the ILI 365 website. Their latest newsletter includes an article on Google Trends by Marydee herself.

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Cataloguing Careers: Yvonne Lewis

Yvonne Lewis

The lead feature in Beginning Cataloguing Monthly is our series of interviews with people who work or have worked as cataloguers.

This month, we’re delighted to feature our Associate Yvonne Lewis, who is the speaker in our November General Seminar on The Unwritten Book.

Now the longest serving National Trust book curator, Yvonne started out as a graduate trainee at Lambeth Palace Library before completing her MA at UCL. When she started work as a cataloguer, the state of the art was 5″ x 3″ catalogue cards, and in her interview she describes the progress she’s seen, through old-style library management systems and retrospective conversion to the online resources with which we are familiar today.

Beginning Cataloguing Monthly is free, but distributed only to subscribers. If you’re not one yet, you can sign up here: http://tinyletter.com/beginningcataloguing.

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Any More for Any More?

Beginning Cataloguing Monthly ships today: sign up by lunchtime for your copy.

The first Beginning Cataloguing Monthly goes out by email later today, and when it’s gone, it’s gone – you won’t see this content anywhere else on our web offering and we’re deliberately not keeping a public backfile.

Alongside listings of our courses and recent publications, here’s a little teaser, in the form of the pictures we’ve used as section heads.

Intrigued? Sign up by lunchtime to receive the full newsletter this afternoon.

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Cataloguing Careers: Emma Booth

We’re really excited about our newsletter, Beginning Cataloguing Monthly, which we’re sending to subscribers next Tuesday and which features a range of exclusive content not available elsewhere on our website, blog, or social media.

The lead feature is our Cataloguing Careers series, in which each month we ask a different person 5 questions about their route into the profession. We are absolutely delighted to feature Emma Booth as our interviewee this month. As well as being E-Resources Metadata Specialist at the University of Manchester Library, Emma is the author of the National Acquisitions Group’s report Quality of Shelf-ready Metadata, which is our Metadata Must-read for September.

The Metadata Must-read is one of the Beginnings Bookshelves, which also consists of a Classic Cataloguer, an Associate’s Choice of leisure reading, and a Body in the Library – a new book selected from our project researching crime fiction set in libraries. It’s one that we received as an Advanced Reader Copy, so is different from those on the @bodiesinthelibrary Instagram.

Beginning Cataloguing Monthly also includes a Typo Tip-off and a Metadata Muddle, for which you can suggest solutions and possibly win a free place at one of our upcoming seminars.

All this alongside listings of our events and recent publications, and a newsletter loyalty freebie or discount.

Apart from the listings, all Beginning Cataloguing Monthly content is exclusive to newsletter subscribers. Sign up before Tuesday to receive the first issue.

Image: Emma Booth’s profile picture on Twitter and LinkedIn. Reproduced with permission.

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New Links for Old

Shelfie with small pot.

We’ve made an important change to the way we link to some online book sites.

While investigating best practice for creating our newsletter, which will launch next month, we decided to introduce affiliate links. There’s a straightforward article about how these work on The Guardian website. Essentially, each time someone clicks on an affiliate link, we make a few pence.

Don’t worry – we’re not going down the road of product placement, shoe-horning links to, I don’t know, fishtanks or phishfood ice-cream into our writing. Several major book sites to which we link anyway – Abe, Abe UK, Betterworld Books, Foyles and Waterstones – offer affiliate links, and so all we’ve done is convert those. (See our book publications page for examples). We’re also not stopping linking to places that don’t offer affiliate links. Facet, who publish books by both Katharine Schopflin and me, will always be the first place we link for those books, and we’re still linking to WorldCat and other library catalogues.

The only change, from our point of view, is that when we link to Abe or Betterworld, for example, we’ll use the affiliate links they offer.

From your point of view, you should be aware that affiliate links use cookies. You can opt out of this here.

We continue to support independent bookshops, ordering directly from them where we can. However, I find Abe helpful to find rare books and, indeed, bookshops that are new to me. The books pictured in today’s shelfie were all tracked down via them this summer, when I had to replace the collection of old books that is still locked down in my old office, while campus is closed for Covid-19. I have supported Betterworld Books since it first launched, with its regular donations of books to others. It’s my preferred way to dispose of unwanted collections of textbooks, knowing most will find good homes.

I’ve commissioned Andy Horton (BPP University), who wrote his Masters thesis on corporate book donation schemes, to write a Beginnings article on this topic. I’m also commissioning some pieces on indies. If you have a favourite independent bookshop, especially if it trades in second-hand or rare books, and would like to submit a piece to the blog, do get in touch via email to find out about how we commission and remunerate guest posts.

Anne's signature

If you have any concerns about our use of affiliate links, you can get in touch directly via info [at] beginningcataloguing.com

Addendum, 17 December 2020:

With the launch of bookshop.org in the UK, we have set up an affiliate “shop” at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/beginningcataloguing.

Read more about it at https://beginningcataloguing.com/about-beginnings/beginning-cataloguing-bookshop.

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