1. The Effective Use of e-Mail Lists and Other Projects to Improve Bibliographic Data Quality Cataloguing and Indexing Group Annual Conference Sheffield, England September 10, 2012 Ian Fairclough George Mason University

2. The Effective Use of e-Mail Lists and Other Projects to Improve Bibliographic Data Quality

3. Ian Fairclough ifairclo @gmu.edu

5. Jeffrey Bealls Dirty Database Test American Libraries Volume 22 Number 3 (March 1991) page 197

6. Jeffrey Bealls Dirty Database Test Beall emphasizes that this test is not scientific in nature

7. Jeffrey Bealls Dirty Database Test 1. Febuary _______ 2. Guatamala_______ 3. Misssion_______ 4. Goverment _______ 5. Fransisco_______

8. Jeffrey Bealls Dirty Database Test 6. Conditons _______ 7. Recieve_______ 8. Wensday_______ 9. Seperate_______ 10. Grammer _______

9. Typographical Errors in Library Databases Key article: Ballard, Terry (2008) 'Systematic Identification of Typographical Errors in Library Catalogs', Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 46: 1, 27 33 Key web site: Typographical Errors in Library Databases http://www.terryballard.org/typos/typoscomplete.htm l

10. LibTyposAlphabeticalPlus Aamer* Aand Aassis* Aasso* Aaway Abandonded

11. LibTyposAlphabeticalPlus Abbrevat* Ablert* Abnd* Abnormalitit* Abobe Abode Acroba

12. LibTyposAlphabeticalPlus … and approximately 8,000 more Compiled by Tina Gunther from activity on the LibTypos-L discussion group. To join our effort, Please go to http://groups.google.com/group/lib typos and sign up. http://groups.google.com/group/lib typos

13. TYPO OF THE DAY FOR LIBRARIANS http://librarytypos.blogspot.com/ Also posted to AUTOCAT (without graphics)

14. SAMPLE TYPO OF THE DAY POST MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2011 Buget* (for Budget*) Contributed by Carol Reid, New York State Library

15. SAMPLE TYPO OF THE DAY POST "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll go eat worms..." goes the dispirited children's ditty, and while worms aren't bugs, exactly, most people hold exactly the same morose viewpoint when it comes to eating them. Although, if you're on a budget, bugs just might fill the bill. Many insects, in fact, are not only edible, but highly nutritious, and commonly consumed throughout the world.

16. SAMPLE TYPO OF THE DAY POST Differential Grasshoppers, copulating, by Eric R. Eaton, Oct. 10, 2010, from Wikimedia Commons

17. Conclusion of Ballards 2008 Article In the first 24 days of October, 2006, the web page experienced more than 1,800 hits, averaging 77 per day. Visitors came from the United States and 39 other countries, representing every continent except Antarctica. The work that began 15 years ago has established itself as a permanent effort in the library world.

19. Listserv® Lists for Error Reporting DEWEYERROR LCCERROR PERSNAME-L SERIES-L NOTE: DEWEYERROR and LCCERROR do not have the suffix -L

20. DEWEYERROR Started October 27, 2004 Subscriptions to: LISTSERV @LISTSERV.KENT.EDU SUBSCRIBE DEWEYERROR

21. A RECENT POST TO DEWEYERROR Friday January 6, 2012 LCCN: 2010033097 Author: Phillips, Carl Title: Double Shadow Dewey number in record is 813.54. This is a book of poems, so the Dewey number should be 811.54. This message has also been submitted to LC. Barbara Thiesen (Bethel College)

23. LCCERROR Started November 17, 2010 Subscriptions to: LISTSERV @LISTSERV.KENT.EDU SUBSCRIBE LCCERROR

24. A Post to LCCERROR LCCN 2011006448 The lesson of Carl Schmitt, Expanded ed., is not complete yet, but has an 050 00 of JC263.S34 M44514 2011. This number is not correct; it should be JC263.S34 M44513 2011 to match its previous edition, LCCN 98023580. (LC has changed their call number.)

25. A Post to LCCERROR LCCN 2011006448 The lesson of Carl Schmitt, Expanded ed., is not complete yet, but has an 050 00 of JC263.S34 M44514 2011. This number is not correct; it should be JC263.S34 M44513 2011 to match its previous edition, LCCN 98023580. (LC has changed their call number.)

27. PERSNAME-L Started July 30, 2007 Address for subscription: LISTSERV @LISTS.OU.EDU (NOTE: @LISTS, not @LISTSERV) Subscribe PERSNAME-L

28. Example of a PERSNAME-L Post The author of Deprivation and freedom : a philosophical enquiry is differentiated as Hull, Richard J., Dr. Stephen Arnold Bibliographic Maintenance and Authority Control, The Bodleian Libraries, Oxford.

30. Persons named Joseph Seymour First Author, of: First troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, c2008 Second Author, of: Lenin & the vanguard party, 1997

31. Persons named Joseph Seymour First Name Authority Record As Originally Written 010 n 2008044954 040 DLC ǂb eng ǂc DLC 1001 Seymour, Joseph 670 Seymour, Joseph. First troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, c2008: ǂb t.p. (Joseph Seymour) cover p. 4 (Philadelphia native; US Army historian, Washington, D.C.)

32. Persons named Joseph Seymour First Name Authority Record Edited to Include Second Person 1001 Seymour, Joseph 670 [Author of First troop Philadelphia City Cavalry] 670 Seymour, Joseph. First troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, c2008: ǂb t.p. (Joseph Seymour) cover p. 4 (Philadelphia native; US Army historian, Washington, D.C.) [continued on next slide]

33. Persons named Joseph Seymour First Name Authority Record Edited to Include Second Person [continued from previous slide] 670 [Author of Lenin & the vanguard party] 670 Lenin & the vanguard party, 1997: ǂb p. 3 (Joseph Seymour; SL [Spartacist League]/U.S. Central Committee member)

34. Persons named Joseph Seymour Second Name Authority Record Created to Disambiguate First Author 010 no2012108857 040 ViFGM ǂb eng ǂc ViFGM 1001 Seymour, Joseph, ǂd 1968- 667 Formerly on undifferentiated name record: n 2008044954 670 The Pennsylvania Associators, 1747-1777, c2012: ǂb t.p. (Joseph Seymour) dust jacket (historian, US Army Center of Military History; lives in Baltimore) [continued on next slide]

35. Persons named Joseph Seymour Second Name Authority Record Created to Disambiguate First Author [continued from previous slide] 670 Phone call from author, Aug. 14, 2012 ǂb (b. 1968; unused middle name Alan) 670 Seymour, Joseph. First troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, c2008: ǂb t.p. (Joseph Seymour) cover p. 4 (Philadelphia native; US Army historian, Washington, D.C.)

36. Persons named Joseph Seymour First Name Authority Record After Disambiguation 010 n 2008044954 040 DLC ǂb eng ǂc DLC ǂd CU-A ǂd ViFGM 1001 Seymour, Joseph 670 Lenin & the vanguard party, 1997: ǂb p. 3 (Joseph Seymour; SL [Spartacist League]/U.S. Central Committee member)

37. Persons named Joseph Seymour First Name Authority Record As Originally Written 010 n 2008044954 040 DLC ǂb eng ǂc DLC 1001 Seymour, Joseph 670 Seymour, Joseph. First troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, c2008: ǂb t.p. (Joseph Seymour) cover p. 4 (Philadelphia native; US Army historian, Washington, D.C.)

39. Whats the Catch? Name Authority Records represent name headings Name Headings sometimes do not represent individuals on a one-to-one basis Headings and individuals can become confused PERSNAME-L can help undo confusion

40. PERSNAME-L I hate to do major work on records with only my library being the beneficiary. It can be time consuming to determine whether or not authority records are duplicates or not, and to spend this time is hard to justify if only my library has the information. Jason LeMay, Gwinnett County (Ga.) Public Library

41. PERSNAME-L I hate to do major work on records with only my library being the beneficiary. It can be time consuming to determine whether or not authority records are duplicates or not, and to spend this time is hard to justify if only my library has the information. Jason LeMay, Gwinnett County (Ga.) Public Library

42. A Negative Response [In response to a post on Autocat asking why people DONT read PERSNAME-L] I do feel that I'm doing some really good work that would come in handy to others, but, alas, I have been told explicitly that our mission is not to take extra time for the larger cataloging community. I just wish I could spend more time going back and fixing our own messes.

43. A Negative Response [In response to a post on Autocat asking why people DONT read PERSNAME-L] I do feel that I'm doing some really good work that would come in handy to others, but, alas, I have been told explicitly that our mission is not to take extra time for the larger cataloging community. I just wish I could spend more time going back and fixing our own messes.

44. A Positive Endorsement … this list strikes me as a far more efficient mechanism than waiting for LC or OCLC update reports. Anthony Franks (Library of Congress)

46. Disambiguation e-mails 1) Initial approach: Hello [Person], I am a librarian, working on your book [Title]. I also found your web page here Please respond to confirm the e-mail connection. I have a question for you. Sincerely - Ian

47. Disambiguation e-mails 2) Follow-up if no response received: I did not receive a response to the message below, and would be grateful to hear from you. Sincerely - Ian

48. Disambiguation e-mails 3) Request for information Thank you! I am working on improving the cataloging of your book by making it more likely that anyone looking for it under your name will not have to contend with other titles by namesakes of yours.

49. Disambiguation e-mails 3) Request for information (continued) We catalog librarians attempt to provide unique headings for each person represented in catalogs worldwide. Since other persons with your name are already extant, I want to create a distinct heading for you.

50. Disambiguation e-mails 3) Request for information (continued) To this end, please provide: your full name in direct order (including any unused names) as ordinarily written on its own, your surname (if you have more than one surname, all of them) the year of your birth

51. Disambiguation e-mails 3) Request for information (continued) To this end, please provide: the titles of any other books, videos, etc. which you have authored or edited, and which might appear in library catalogs. (Not articles in journals, since those aren't usually in such catalogs.)

52. Disambiguation e-mails 3) Request for information (continued) The work I do is part of an international project coordinated by the Library of Congress, the Name Authorities Cooperative Project, and will be copied by other librarians who find the record I prepare. Hence my concern to do the best possible job. Thanks again for your help. Sincerely - Ian

53. Disambiguation e-mails 4) Farewell Thank you, that enables me to complete my work. Best wishes for the success of your book - Ian

56. SERIES-L Started March 24, 2009 Address for subscription: listserv @po.missouri.edu Subscribe SERIES-L

57. SERIES-L Contribution: Public- Library Oriented The SARs shown below were contributed to the LCNAF over the past few weeks. You may wish to check your catalog to see if these new SARs should be added locally. In many cases the bibliographic records in OCLC gave only 490 0 series transcriptions, and these records have been modified to agree with the SARs listed below.

58. SERIES-L Contribution: Public- Library Oriented 100 Aaron, Rachel. $t Legend of Eli Monpress no2010158638 643 London $b Orbit 130 Age of dinosaurs (Mankato, Minn.) no2010158641 643 Mankato, MN $b Creative Education 100 Bertsch, Patty. $b Adventures of Delrick series no2010150338 643 Cincinnati, Ohio $b P. Bertsch 100 Bishop, Anne. $t Black jewels novel no2010158644 643 Prince Frederick, MD $b Recorded Books

59. SERIES-L Contribution: Academic- Library Oriented I'm working on sorting out locally the series Biblioteca de autores españoles. We have the mid-20th c. ed., published by Ediciones Atlas. This is the kind of series where a multi-volume monograph is issued as non-consecutive volumes of the larger series, which is classed together. It requires special handling to tell our users which volumes to select. Thus, works of Cervantes are v.1 and v.156 - for which one note in the holdings record reads: Shelved as v.1 and v.156, respectively, of the series Biblioteca de autores españoles. Another note give v.1-v.2 so that all will know we have both volumes. Not all members of the series are like this, thankfully, but a significant number are.

60. SERIES-L Contribution: Academic- Library Oriented Once I'm done - and it'll take a while :-) I plan to tell SERIES-L all the local notes we used in holdings records, so that readers (and those using the archives) can take advantage of this work if they so choose. I'm keeping this information in an Excel document. Meanwhile, if anyone has any stories to tell, particularly of pitfalls to avoid, I'd appreciate hearing from you - offlist preferably..

61. SERIES-L Contribution: Academic- Library Oriented (Follow-up message): Locally I've finished working on it and have an Excel file in which I kept notes. If anyone plans on doing work on this series, and wants my file, please write privately … In some cases my file contains contents notes from OCLC masters. The volume designator, "Tomo" should be abbreviated t. rather than v. in fields 440, 490 and 830, and my spreadsheet indicates what I found and cleaned up locally and in OCLC. Greater flexibility can be applied for call numbers. I also created new OCLC masters for some subsets of the voluminous works of Lope de Vega, rather than try to accommodate all of them in one local record.

63. WHY SO MANY DIFFERENT LISTS? Notification, not discussion, the purpose of these lists People are used to receiving notifications via dedicated lists – but not from numerous contributors Individual lists allow people to specialize in particular types of error

65. OTHER POSSIBLE PROJECTS CORPNAME-L

66. OTHER POSSIBLE PROJECTS Learning experience: Resources such as these need to be nursed along carefully, lest they turn into:

67. SILENCE-L

69. Envoi Please communicate about these and all concerns for error handling. Address for correspondence: ifairclo @gmu.edu Please write for information about participating in each of these projects – and setting up new ones!

70. Envoi Please communicate about these and all concerns for error handling. Address for correspondence: ifairclo @gmu.edu Please write for information about participating in each of these projects – and setting up new ones!