by Louise Ratliff
Social Sciences and Map Cataloger, UCLA,
and Vice-Chair of MAGIRT
lratliff@library.ucla.edu
As Fall arrives and leaves have turned color and fallen, the world of breaking cataloging news is rather quiet. Here in California it is the trees which are falling (from drought), and everyone is awaiting El Niño, the rain to end all rains. I’ll be on the lookout for rainfall maps from NOAA!
Meanwhile, the cataloging and metadata world is proceeding with more work on linked data approaches to resource description. At the recent PCC Policy Committee Meeting (November 5-6, 2015), a document was issued by Philip Schreur about the Linked Data For Production (LD4P) report by a team from Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, the Library of Congress, Princeton and Stanford. http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PCC-LD4P.docx
As you may be aware, for the past few years LC has been developing a new communication format called BIBFRAME as a replacement for the MARC formats. The LD4P project will build upon BIBFRAME and other linked data (LD) applications to establish standards and work with the vendor community to change how we communicate and share data.
You will find a link to the complete report on the Program for Cooperative Cataloging home page (http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/). In the right-hand column under “Upcoming Meetings and Events,” download the “Agenda,” which contains links to several reports of interest: http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/documents/PoCo-Agenda-2015.doc
Tammy Wong, cataloger from the Geography and Maps Division of LC, sent me a brief description of the LC BIBFRAME project:
The Library of Congress is testing BIBFRAME for bibliographic description through a pilot project that began in August 2015. Forty Library of Congress catalogers, including three cartographic cataloging specialists participate in the Pilot, with instruction by four Library of Congress staff members in the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division (COIN). We are now creating dual cataloging records in both Voyager and BIBFRAME for every resource. We plan to discuss more in details in upcoming MAGIRT meetings in Boston in January.
The LC BIBFRAME Pilot will test bibliographic description in multiple formats and in multiple languages. Training for the Pilot participants consists of three modules, please find out details described at http://www.loc.gov/catworkshop/bibframe/.
LC G&M has been active in the social media realm as well. According to Min Zhang, Cataloging Team Leader, the Division has been expanding the use of some online tools. Check them out, there are some very cool resources shown here!
Places in the News” Online Website. 25 new geographic places were mounted on the Division’s online website that targets K-12 school teachers and their students, which ranged from political protests in Burkina Faso in Western Africa to a Magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the vicinity of Illapel, Chile. More than 525,000 hits were recorded. http://www.loc.gov/today/placesinthenews/
“Places in History” Online Website. Although no maps were added during the past year, this site still remained very popular with 108,000 map views. The Division plans to revitalize this site in FY2016. http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/placesinhistory/
Twitter account (“LOCMaps”): G&M tweeted 162 times to 9,589 followers. These tweets were viewed 510,862 times over the course of the year.
G&M started its Blog Worlds Revealed: Geography & Maps at the Library of Congress in Nov. 2015. http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/
The Geography and Map Division’s online website was visited 3.4 million times by 2.7 million unique visitors who viewed 10.7 million map images in FY2015. http://www.loc.gov/maps/collections/
From Worlds Revealed (accessed November 12, 2015):
One of the twelve sheets of Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map showing “America” for the first time. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Library of Congress.
Schedule of MAGIRT meetings at ALA Midwinter, Boston, MA, January 8-11, 2016
(See http://www.ala.org/magirt/2016-midwinter-schedule for latest updates.)
| Date | Time | Event | Location |
| Fri Jan 8 | 10:30am-noon | Round Table Coordinating Committee | WESTIN, Burroughs |
| Fri Jan 8 | Afternoon | Tour of the Leventhal Map Center | Boston Public Library |
| Fri Jan 8 | Evening | Dutch Treat Dinner | TBD |
| Sat Jan 9 | 8:30am-10am | Education Committee | BCEC-157C |
| Sat Jan 9 | 10:30am-11:30am | Online Presence Oversight Committee (OPOC) | BCEC-160C |
| Sat Jan 9 | 1:00p -2:30pm | GeoTech Committee and GIS Discussion Group | BCEC-208 |
| Sat Jan 9 | 3:00pm-4:00pm | Map Collection Management Discussion Group | BCEC-107C |
| Sun Jan 10 | 8:30am-10am | MAGIRT/ALCTS CaMMS Cataloging Cartographic Resources Interest Group | BCEC-153C |
| Sun Jan 10 | 10:30am-11:30am | Cataloging and Classification Committee (CCC) | BCEC-107C |
| Sun Jan 10 | 1:00pm-2:30pm | Executive Board & Membership Meeting I | BCEC-157C |
| Sun Jan 10 | 3:00pm-4:00pm | Executive Board & Membership Meeting II (continued) | BCEC-153C |
| Sun Jan 10 | 4:30pm-5:30pm | Program Planning Committee | WESTIN-Douglass |