Cataloging and the Crescent City

Librarian Jared Ash descending the stairs of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art after the Convocation Reception at ARLIS/NA Conference 2017. Photo by William Blueher

«The ARLIS/NA Conference is the biggest conference of the year for art librarians, and the 45th annual event recently took place in New Orleans. It's always a great opportunity to hear about what our colleagues across the country (and beyond) are up to, and also a place for us to share some of the things that Watson Library has been working on throughout the year. At this conference, three of Watson's librarians—William Blueher, Tamara Fultz, and Jared Ash—presented at the conference, and we'll share a bit about what they presented on here.»

A slide from William Blueher's presentation, "DIY DH: Practical Approaches to Developing Data Tools"

William Blueher's presentation, "DIY DH: Practical Approaches to Developing Data Tools," focused on the development of a digital humanities tool (Met Pub Connections) that allows users to engage with the corpus of The Met's publications in a novel way. It provides users with an intuitive access point to this large set of data, producing a whole new way of looking at this material. Most remarkably of all, this tool was built in just over a semester by a single graduate assistant, Simen Kot, working one day a week (in consultation with two professional librarians), so the presentation looked at both how libraries can begin developing DH tools without large allocations of staff time and how the development of these tools can serve a pedagogic purpose as we help train emerging library professionals. The presentation was well received and elicited many questions from fellow conference-goers.

William Blueher presenting on Met Pub Connections. Photo by Sarah Osborne Bender

Tamara Fultz discussed the problem of the "perpetual backlog" of uncataloged books—common in many libraries—and how our library overcame it. Her presentation to the ARLIS Cataloging Section was a quick overview of the tactics Watson Library implemented to make our backlog disappear. There was actually nothing mysterious about it: we used a cataloging standard that required creating briefer records that still captured the core bibliographic elements. Several times a year these records will be further enhanced by using a cataloging service provided by Backstage Library Works. Along with other improvements we made to our cataloging workflow, we were able to eliminate our backlog altogether and ensure we do not create a new one.

Shelves where the backlog once was. Photo by Tamara Fultz

Jared Ash participated in a panel entitled "Hacks and Innovative Approaches to Cataloging Non-Roman Script Materials," in which he discussed Watson Library's successes in using Metadata Maker, an open-access, web-based record generator developed by librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in engaging volunteers, work-study students, and interns in cataloging Asian and Slavic language material for the library.

Have a foreign-language book on your shelf and trying to figure out what it is? Try a Google reverse image search of the cover, or the instant translation offered by the Google Translate mobile app, shown in this video clip from Jared Ash's presentation, "Бай-Бай бэклог! = Bye-bye Backlog! Hacks and Innovative Approaches to Cataloging Non-Roman Script Materials."

Jared also shared several other time-saving cataloging tricks and techniques, such as: using online transliteration engines and preprogrammed computer commands (macros); importing records from international library catalogs and other resources beyond WorldCat; and employing a text-capture feature within the Google Translate mobile app to reduce and expedite manual text entry.

Detail of a slide from Jared Ash's presentation showing how text can be captured, copied, and ultimately pasted into catalog records using the Google Translate app

Hopefully this has given you a small glimpse behind the veil of art librarianship and some of the many facets of the craft that we're working on throughout the year here at Watson Library. Also, congratulations to Watson's Associate Chief Librarian, Tony White, who was one of the winners of the 2017 Worldwide Books Award for Electronic Resources for his contribution to the online tutorial on Lynda.com, Information Literacy with Elsa Loftis.