Today I participated in a Linked Data Unconference at ALA 2010 in Washington DC, which was remarkably successful. Organized by Corey Harper from NYU and ably moderated by Karen Coyle, about 50 of us held two sets of three hour-long, highly engaging breakout discussions with reports back to the larger group. I participated in a […]

I had hoped to write more about my teaching experience while it was happening, but as go so many good intentions, I couldn’t quite manage it. Part of this is because I forget, in between my ‘normal’ 5 year cycles of teaching, how much time it takes to do at all, much less do […]

… the more they stay the same.” How many times has each of us taken comfort in that phrase (and no, I’m not going to cite the French version or the source—it will just distract me from my main purpose!) I found the phrase ringing like a large bell right next to my head […]

During my professional life, I’ve agreed to teach graduate courses just about every five years. I joke that it takes that long for the memories to fade sufficiently for me to agree to try again. Mostly I’ve taught cataloging courses at Syracuse (my alma mater and the closest program to where I live), though […]

One of my favorite aphorisms is “Time flies, whether you’re having fun or not.” I’m not sure where I heard it, but for sure I’m not creative enough to make it up on my own. The truth of it has been reinforced by the realization that here it is the end of January, post-Boston […]

A few weeks ago I attended the opening of an amber exhibition at our wonderful Museum of the Earth which is only about 6 miles from my house. The exhibit had a little of everything: science, history, geography … and jewelry. I have to admit (and this will surprise no one who knows me) that […]

…in the RDA Ontologies. Do we? After all, they’re a big part of the ‘Access’ in Resource Description and Access (RDA). But they’re not particularly semantically meaningful, especially if you have the component parts available. An Access Point is just a structured string. For instance a ‘Publication Statement’ Access Point for “The Daytona daily news” […]

One of the most interesting programs at ALA Annual that I was involved with was the Linked Data grassroots program. Here’s the blurb:
From Legacy Data to Linked Data: Preparing Libraries for Web 3.0. “How can library cataloging data be transformed to function within ‘Web 3.0′ and be understood by non-library web applications? […]

ALA Annual in Chicago has been a blur—I did three presentations (which I hope to talk about and link to slides as time permits). But one issue has been rolling over in my mind ever since I blurted something about it at my first presentation on Friday of Annual, when I was last up on […]

Today I got a very disappointing note in my inbox, from the US National Libraries RDA Test Project. I guess I’d call it a “ding” letter, and I have to say it was more than a bit surprising. I had volunteered to help with the testing, not by creating records, mind you, but […]