ISBD, AACR, MARC, LMNOP ;D

And I thought ESL was full of acronyms! I think I've read them enough that I might actually be able to remember what they stand for now. This past month has been a whirlwind, but I have to say that I have enjoyed it. I love formatting bibliographic records!!! The punctuation, the spacing, the capitalization, and order of information is thrilling to me. Yes, not only do I really feel that way, but I am actually admitting it. I thrive on structure and formats. That must be the accountant in me. Now to get a handle on MARC.


MARC - MAchine Readable Cataloging. It doesn't look like it will be that hard to figure out; however, I have only just begun to really get into the meat of it (I am a slight bit behind in my reading). I may be overly simplifying it, but from what I can tell so far, it appears that it is just putting the bibliographic record (that I love creating) into some type of computer format. There's that word again - format. I love it! I hope I don't jinx myself, but it doesn't look like it's that hard. I think the biggest issue will be remembering the tags. I think, and I really hope, that I will enjoy this as much as creating the record to begin with! 

And so, the fun begins....

So, I've been in class for 2 weeks and it feels like 2 months. I've never taken an online class before, and now I have 2 classes at the same time. Talk about feeling overwhelmed! This is going to be a long semester, but I'll make it through.

I finally was able to get the books for this cataloging class. I've only read 2 chapters and am already amazed at how much I did not know. I worked in an elementary school as the library assistant for a few years. My mother is also a librarian and I have helped her for years. I know about the Dewey Decimal System and I know how to look up bibliographic information for new books that come into the library. How much more could there possibly be? Apparently a lot!

I've never considered the history of cataloging. I didn't think there was anything other than the DDS. I just assumed all the information that went into a bibliographic record was part of it. Boy was I wrong. The DDS is a classification system. There is a whole separate set of rules for cataloging. I've never heard of the AARC (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules). These are the rules that govern the description of items in card catalogs. Who knew?

I do have to say that the most exciting thing I have learned so far is the reason as to why only the first word and proper nouns in a title are capitalized in the bibliographic record of a book. I actually laughed out loud when I read this. Here I was thinking it was for some deep, meaningful reason, when it really was the most simple of reasons. So here it is: back in the day, it was just too difficult to constantly capitalize words when using a manual typewriter!