Lesson 5 - Accessing Data

Favorite nursery rhymes from Mother Goose illustrated by Scott Gustafson, 2007.

Students and teachers would access data from the above mentioned title by typing in the subject term "nursery rhymes" or "Mother Goose" or "Children's poetry." I do not think they would use "Scott Gustafson" unless they are familiar with other illustrated books of his. Many times students come to the library and they will ask for a book, usually by the title, or author, or series. Students also ask for books about a subject, so I would say that the bibliographic record for the above book is very useful for teachers and students. There is also a picture which is very helpful for younger students.

Connors, David. 2008. "A Ghost in the Catalog: The Gradual Obsolescence of the Main Entry". The Serials Librarian, 55:1, 85 - 97.

Although main entry had a time and place when it was useful, it is clear from reading Connor's article that many librarians are resistant to change, and that with the ever-growing "electronic environment," the main entry is no longer needed as Arlene Taylor in Wynar's Introduction to Cataloging and Classification states: "This [main entry] is an obsolete concept in online catalogs." Readers and searchers access material in a number of ways. At one point in history when everything was written down, I could see saving time, money, and energy and a lot of writing by using a main entry card. This reminds me of looking up a word in the dictionary and you find the word you are looking for and the entry says, see such and such a word--kind of like a merry-go-round. As important as main entry serving as the primary access point was at one time, it is now time to move on to a system that can access many points depending on the user, such as the current OPAC system--you do not need the main entry term to access a resource in the catalogue. OPAC searches the 1XX and the 7XX fields indiscriminately. I definitely see a need for an organized system of searching.

Checking out the various catalogues, such as school libraries and public libraries--Prince George and Vancouver--it is interesting to note the differences. The school libraries are short and to the point. There is so much more offered when searching in a public library. I wonder if the public library system has so much more money to spend than the school libraries. There is so many more links to check out when conducting a public library search. There were few discrepancies when searching out the same books at both sites; however, I really liked the public library format because it used pictures along with other useful links.

One important point that I learned in this lesson is that it is important to catalogue with as many details as you can and be as accurate as you can; it is too time-consuming to correct an entry later on down the road. If there is inaccurate information added to a catalogue entry, then others may copy the inaccurate info making a huge mess of the cataloguing system.