Delicious, Not So Tasty ;)

I have experimented with delicious in the past when I was teaching at a high school but haven’t looked at it much for a while.  A few of my past colleagues were obsessed with this site and showed me some great stuff for my Socials and English classes.  What I remember from back then was all of tags and sorting of information, it gave me a headache and I didn’t continue using this site.

Going back to delicious now I searched for some of the topics that I am working on now I can see the need for consistency.  In keeping with the theme of fairy tales and fractured fairy tales, that is what I searched online.  A lot of the sites that I have explored in the past came up in my search.  However, there were also lots of other things that came up that didn’t have anything to do with what I was looking for.  I can see that being consistent with tagging be it on an online site like this one or in a database is an important thing, otherwise who knows what is being called what?  So to me delicious is not so tasty ;)
 

CIP, MARC Records, and Assignment 2

This has been a busy week with this weeks readings and assignment on CIP and comparing it to MARC records and working on Assignment 2.  Below I have posted my thoughts and post for week 7 finding that both CIP and Marc have their purposes and that if I had to create my own record I would use both to help in the process.
Working on Assignment 2 this week has been a delight thus far.  I'm enjoying my topic Fairy Tales and Fractured Fairy Tales.  I did a unit on this topic at the end of last year and can't wait to do it agin with my class this year.  I hope that I've picked a diverse enough collection.  I have DVD's, picture books, teacher resources, and websites.  I hope that by Wednesday everything comes together in a nice little package.

Week 7 Posting CIP and MARC Records

I used the VPL to look at the MARC records for my three books.  The three books that I chose were off of my book shelf and I will be using them in assignment three.  The three books are Peter Pan and Wendy, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Jack and the Beanstalk.

Peter Pan and Wendy by J.M. Barrie the Centenary Edition is the first book that I compared with the MARC records and fount hem to be quite comparable.  One thing that was missing from the MARC record that was found in the CIP inside the book was that all proceeds of the book went to Great Ormand Street Hospital. 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is the second book that I compared and like Pete Pan the records compared well, which is to be expected since they are from the same publishers and the same information is found in the CIP page of the book. I’m finding that more information could be given in the CIP documentation as the MARC records seem to have more data on them.

The last book that I looked at this week was Jack and the Beanstalk retold by Ann Keay Beneduce.  The only difference I found between the MARC record and the CIP record was the CIP had all of the different publication companies and cities while the MARC only stated New York and Philomel Books.  I can see the difficulties of placing all of the different publication citied and companies in a database record but should they not all be listed?

MARC Records, Kind of Like French!

This week we had another language to learn, MARC records, a common language in which to classify resources.  Below is my reflection on the activity for the week where we had to look at MARC records for resources provided in our course materials package and to attempt our own MARC record.

 

After looking at the MARC records from the examples in our course materials package and experimenting with a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales I feel a bit more confident with our upcoming assignment.  I found that putting together my own MARC record was a bit daunting but with more practice it will get easier.  As stated in some of my previous discussion posts I’m not the most tech savvy person and will be taking my time with Assignment 2.  

I used the Library of Congress, AMICUS, and the VPL sites to view the MARC records and try my fairy tales one on my own.  I’m going to use Fairy tales and Fractured Fairy Tales as the topic of my mini collection.  I found all of the sites useful and easy to navigate.  While looking at the records it’s like looking at a foreign language.  With this weeks readings and this activity at least I’m starting to understand what’s going on.  It’s kind of like learning French!

Cataloguing Process and Standards

For the regular everyday person you would more than likely never look at the expanded description or cataloging information for your favorite book.  Us TL's and future TL's must not be normal people because through this weeks readings and activities combined with the other work this term we have become a secret society with a secret language.  This week we have added access points to our new and ever expanding secret TL language.  As you can see I have tried to spice up what to the everyday person might think as boring (cataloging) to what is our own private language of cataloging and this weeks access points.  I personally found this weeks activity looking at 5 resources very valuable and it demonstrated all of the useful information that can be found on a library record.  I have also added my post from this weeks discussion for you all to look at as well.

For this activity I chose items from my home book and DVD collection.  I picked items that I have used or could possibly use in my classroom or library. I used the Vancouver Public Library to view a corresponding library record.

 3 DVD’s

Finding Nemo and Disney’s Earth (Extreme Environments) and Goonies (International Talk Like a Pirate Day).

The access points for these resources are:

Title, Call Number, Additional Contributors, Publisher, Series, Edition, ISBN, Language, Performers, Notes, Statement of Responsibility, Physical Description, and Library Identifier.

I found that the VPL provided a very good description through these access points for all of these resources.  From looking at the backs of the DVD’s and comparing the information given through the VPL  access points there is a clear description of the resources and what is to be expected before viewing the films themselves.

2 Novels

Holes and The Hobbit

The access points for these resources are:

Title, Author, Call Number, Publisher, Pages, Edition, ISBN, Language, Notes, Statement of Responsibility, Physical Description.

I found that the VPL provided a very good description through these access points for all of these resources.  From looking at the information found on the jacket of the books and comparing the access points documented on the VPL are very comparable and give a great description of the resources.

Cataloguing Introduction

I thought I would post my lesson post this week since it wasn't required to do so on the Vista site.  I still think the background information that we went over this week is important and should be discussed.  After all without organization especially as teachers where would we be.

After going through this weeks readings and activities like many of my fellow posters I agree that organization is the key to success in a classroom and library. Organization of resources through a common system creates order in a library. I find many of the resources that I use on my class online and have created my own organization system to keep order for easy access. Without order and organization with the amount resources at are fingertips we could be searching for a needle in a haystack and never find what we need to create meaningful lessons and activities for our students.

Metadata? DMOZ? What?

Wow, this weeks reading confused me a bit.  After slugging through the technical mumbo jumbo and figuring out metadata I now see thew importance for my classroom and possible future library.  I discovered that Google is not necessarily the best way to search the internet.  While conducting my polar bear research with Google, Yahoo, and DMOZ all brought up a different rankings of results.  It turns out that DMOZ brought back the best result and is something that I will use in the future.  What I learned this week, Google may be the most prevalently used search engine but is not necessarily the best one out there.

Access for All and Other Things

First I'm going to muse about the other things from this weeks lesson on the organization of resources within the library through acquisitions, cataloging and collection development.  I have been extremely to have had an amazing mentor who has let me over the years be involved in the workings of her library when I was tocing.  I spent five years helping her over long periods of time doing all three of the traditional technical services.  Even though I have only had a small TL contract I feel that I have a good understanding of technical services thanks to an amazing TL!  

This post is going to piggyback a bit on the last post in regards to access.  I believe that all students should have access to library resources and to a qualified TL. I am going to now post part of my reflection that I posted in the discussion for this week as it reflects my thought on the access and the library.

Housed in the library are all of the teaching resources, novel studies, and other class materials.  Teachers have access to these materials at all times and the TL has said that he is readily available to help out.  This school seems rich in access to materials, time, and space.  Cutbacks seem not to have affected this school but that is due to the high population of the school and that the entire school uses the TL and the library as prep.

In my previous school the TL was only a .20 position and it was held by the principal who had to teach library because of the small population (220 students) of the school.  The library was rarely used except for scheduled book checkout time.  Access to the library was limited and underused.  I can see as some of my other classmates has noted that underfunding and lack of training is hurting our libraries.  See inb both sides of the coin makes me grateful that I am now at a have school but sad for my former students and fellow colleagues that are at a have not school.