This experiment was conducted exactly a year ago, and they almost achieve their goal, so hopefully this time they will make it.

You can confirm your participation on their Facebook page, and read more about the experiment through this blog entry (in Spanish). And here is a presentation further explaining how to use hashtags (also in Spanish).

08\10\2010 – Mission accomplished, #biblioteca was among the top ten Trending topics on Twitter today!

Mañana un grupo de bibliotecarios y un entusiasta de las bibliotecas alrededor del mundo intentaran hacer que el hashtag #biblioteca sea uno de los “trending topics” (temas del momento) en Twitter. El evento se llevará a cabo el 10 de agosto 2010 y tendrá una duración de una hora (10-11am hora del este- EEUU).

Este experimento se llevó a cabo hace exactamente un año, y casi lograr su objetivo, así que espero que esta vez lo logren.

Puede confirmar su participación en su página de Facebook, y leer más sobre el experimento a través de esta entrada de blog. Y aquí hay una presentación que explica cómo utilizar hashtags.

08\10\2010 – ¡Misión cumplida, #biblioteca hoy se encontró entre los diez mejores “trending topics” en Twitter!

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Adding the hashtag #biblioteca originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on August 9, 2010.

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My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The collection of essays in Radical Cataloging cover a wide range of issue in the cataloging world, and it’s not the boring book most non-catalogers might assume it is – but be warned that unless you already understand LCSH, MARC, and the like you probably won’t understand much of what you’ll find here.

La colección de ensayos en “Radical Cataloging” cubren una amplia gama del mundo de la catalogación, y no es el libro aburrido que quienes no catalogan podría asumir que es – pero tenga en cuenta que a menos que ya sepa que es un LCSH, o un NAR, etc probablemente no entenderá mucho de lo que encontrara en este libro.

Here I read essays on Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and the many ways in which the fall short in describing the collections we catalog. There are essays on LCSH falling short for LGBT issues, music, and art. There’s an essays on Name Authority Records for American Indians, including a comparison on how these names are handled in the USA, Canada, Australian, and New Zealand.

Aquí he leído ensayos sobre la clasificación de la Biblioteca del Congreso (LCSH) y las muchas maneras en que se quedan cortas al querer describir correctamente muchos de los libros en nuestras colecciones. Hay ensayos sobre como LCSH queda corto para los temas gays, lesbicos y de transgenero, la música y el arte. Hay un ensayos sobre registros de autoridad de nombre manejando nombres de los indios americanos, incluyendo una comparación de cómo estos nombres se manejan en los EE.UU., Canadá, Australia y Nueva Zelanda.

I read about UPenn’s project in which they are creating records that use both LCSH and user added tags, and a project at Barnard College which collects and catalogs Zines.

He leído sobre el proyecto UPENN donde se están creando registros que utilizan LCSH y se permite que los usuario añadan más etiquetas, y un proyecto de Barnard College que recoge y catáloga “zines”.

A number of essays criticize the Library of Congress, and OCLC, often with lots of concrete examples to support their case. There are also a few essays that comment on new trends that wish to automate and/or outsource much of the work currently done by technical services departments.

Un número de ensayos critican la Biblioteca del Congreso y a OCLC, a menudo con una gran cantidad de ejemplos concretos. También hay algunos ensayos que comentan sobre las nuevas tendencias que desean automatizar y/o subcontratar gran parte del trabajo que actualmente se realiza por los departamentos de servicios técnicos.

And if you want a good laugh, make sure to read Christopher H. Walker’s essay “Rearranging the Deck of Chairs on the Titanic: A Drowning Cataloger’s Call to Stop Churning the Subject Headings”

Y si quieres reírse un buen rato, asegúrese de leer el ensayo de Christopher H. Walker ”Reorganizando las sillas de la  cubierta en el Titánic: El  llamado de un catalogador que se  ahoga, a dejar de revolver el sistema de calificación.”

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“Radical Cataloging: Essays at the Front”, edited by K. R. Roberto originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on October 6, 2009.

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The article in the Chronicle of Higher Education did not mention whether the collections involved in this project would only get student added labels or if these would be used alongside LCSH, nor did they mention any librarians, or more importantly, catalogers being involved with the development of this game. The project sounds a little like the PennTags system at UPenn, or the LOC Flickr account.

Flanagan eventually expects to release the game under an Open Source license so others may use it as well.

Con la ayuda financiera de la Fundación Nacional para las Humanidades, la profesora de humanidades digitales Mary Flanagan está desarrollando un juego que ayudará a añadir etiquetas a algunas de las colecciones de archivos de Dartmouth College. Flanagan supone que los estudiantes estarán interesados en el juego, el cual presenta al jugador una imagen para la cual tendrán que crear “etiquetas”, las cuales luego serán comparados con las “etiquetas” que otros jugadores han añadido (supongo que con la esperanza de aumentar su exactitud). Se espera que el juego ayude a reducir costos en la biblioteca.

El artículo del Chronicle of Higher Education no mencionó si las colecciones que participan en este proyecto sólo recibirán las etiquetas añadidas por estudiantes o si además utilizarán puntos de acceso de la Biblioteca del Congreso (LCSH), ni se menciona la participación de algún bibliotecarios, o más importante aún, la participación de catalogadores profesionales en el desarrollo del juego. El proyecto suena un poco como el sistema de PennTags en UPenn, o la cuenta de Flickr de la LOC.

Flanagan espera lanzar el juego bajo una licencia de código abierto para que otros también puedan usarlo.

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Labeling Library Archives at Dartmouth College originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on August 28, 2009.

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President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speak together sitting at a picnic table April 9, 2009, on the South Lawn of the White House. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.
El presidente Barack Obama y la Secretaria de Estado Hillary Rodham Clinton hablan, mientras sentado en una mesa de picnic en al jardín sur de la casa blanca, el 9 de Abril, 2009. Foto Oficial de la Casa Blanca por Pete Souza

I just saw an interesting blog entry at DigiZen listing all the places online where you can find information posted by the current White House administration. Thinking back to the last administration, I’m delighted that Obama is really trying to make government accessible to everyone, and using modern tools towards this goal. Below is a list of places where you can find the While House on the web.

• Facebook.com/WhiteHouse
• MySpace.com/WhiteHouse
• Twitter.com/WhiteHouse
• Flickr.com/WhiteHouse
• Vimeo.com/WhiteHouse
• YouTube.com/WhiteHouse
• iTunes (videos and podcasts)

Acabo de ver una entrada en el blog DigiZen listando todos los lugares donde podemos encontrar información sobre la presente administración en la Casa Blanca. Recordando la última administración, me encanta ver que Obama realmente está tratando de crear un gobierno más transparente y accesible, todo por medio de una variedad de herramientas modernas. Arriba está la lista de lugares donde puede encontrar contenido sobre la Casa Blanca.

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White House 2.0 originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on May 2, 2009.

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From the front page of the collection you can browse images by decade, as well as use the search box to find more specific images. Some of the options include searching for individual people, places, sports, cultures and events. The site also suggest we add “source:life” to searches to make sure the images we get are the ones from this collection.

While looking through some of the images, I’ve found that results show you a variety of images, but if you open an individual image, you’ll find tags related to the image, information as to where the photograph was taken, the date, and size of image (You have the option of two sizes for all images). When available, you are also given a few “related images.”

The images you’ll find are for the most part photographs, although there are a few posters, and pieces of art work as well. Currently the collections begins back in the 1860s, and reaches the 1970s. The plan is to eventually catch up with current times.

The collection is really great, so happy browsing!

Image: “Cats Blackie & Brownie catching squirts of milk during milking at Arch Badertscher’s dairy farm” by Nat Farbman.

Hace un par de semanas Google salio con otra impresionante colección. Esta vez se trata de la colección LIFE Photo Archive. Muchos de nosotros probablemente hemos vista algunas de las impactantes imágenes que han salido en la revista LIFE a través de las décadas. El comunicado de presa de Google explica que solo una pequeña parte de esta colección alguna vez se ha puesto a la disposición del público, pero ahora tendremos la oportunidad de una porción mucho más grande.

Desde la página principal de la colección podrá ojear por década, al igual que usar la caja de búsqueda para conducir una búsqueda más específica. Algunas de las opciones de búsqueda incluyen buscar por persona individual, lugares, deportes, cultura, y eventos. El sitio también nos sugiere que agreguemos “source:life” a nuestra búsqueda para asegurar que los resultados realmente sean parte de esta colección.

Mientras miraba algunas de las imágenes me he dado cuenta que los resultados nos muestran una variedad de imágenes, información sobre donde se tomo la foto, fecha, y el tamaño de la imagen (tendrá opción de dos tamaños diferentes). Cuando haya imágenes relacionadas con esta, también le serán disponibles.

Las imágenes que encontraran son en su mayoría fotografías, aunque también encontrara algunos afiches, y obras de arte. Actualmente la colección empieza en el año 1860 y llega hasta 1970. El plan es eventualmente ponerse al día con el presente.

Esta colección es realmente asombrosa, así es que a diviértete ojeándola!
Imagen “Cats Blackie & Brownie catching squirts of milk during milking at Arch Badertscher’s dairy farm” de Nat Farbman.

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LIFE Photo Archive originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on December 1, 2008.

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Some of the writings I saw were fairly short, being made up of no more than a paragraph or two, while others went on for much longer. Some comment on life changing events like the San Francisco earthquake, while others reminisce on some of life’s simples pleasures, such as getting a new kitten.

Currently there are close to 1,300 memoirs, and growing. The site allows you to contribute from their main page, and warn people that entries are edited for format issues, and will index as needed. Once an entry is up, it will not be modified again unless the creator specifically requests a change. Under the page giving teachers ideas of how to use this site in the classroom there is also a cautionary note reminding users to be careful about including personal information in their narrative.

While looking around the site I was very pleased to see that there is talk of expanding the project to into languages other than English. Currently there are proposals to gather memories in French, Polish, and Russian.

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Memory Archive originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on January 25, 2008.

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I started out being hesitant to go down the road that is making OPACs and other library related tools look more like Google, Amazon.com and the like, but the more I learn about what these new tools can achieve the more I’m growing to like them. One of the latest examples of these new initiatives is The Commons, the Library of Congress‘ (LOC) Flickr page. The collections’ subtitle perfectly summarizes this project, “Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world’s public photos collections.”

LOC has started out by making two collections available on Flickr, the first titled 1930s-40s in Color, and the second one is News in the 1910s. The idea behind this project is to make these collections available to much larger groups of people that those who can actually visit the LOC. Second the fact that users can add tags to these photos as they please means that they have more accessible than they had previously been. Library of Congress Subject Headings are very useful to people who know how to use them, but can be rather frustrating to those who don’t. For example LOC uses “cookery” while cataloging cookbooks. How many of us would have guesses this to begin with? Being this the case, having user provided tags in everyday language and spelling can help make material more accessible. The user provided tags on Flickr are doing just this for these two collections.

Both collections hold material for which that LOC has determined to have “no known copyright restrictions.” LOC defines this label in two ways; Material for which copyright has not been renewed, or material from the late 19th and 20th century for which there is no evidence of a copyright holder. (You can read more about LOCs copyright standards here.)

Image info here.

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The Commons originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on January 24, 2008.

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Similar to the recommendations on Amazon.com, LibraryThing allows users to see what other users have been reading, and if they liked it or no. The advantage of this system is that actual human beings (as opposed to algorithms) are providing the context and making connections. If you ever bought something on Amazon.com for a friend on a subject that does not interest you, the site will forever continue suggesting things on this subject. By contrast users of LibraryThing can actually help you choose related material that might interest you.

Sheehan also described this partnership as an addition that can make the OPAC “fun.” She found that she and others at the library could know be found “browsing” the catalog and spending long periods of time doing so. One interesting review can open up hundreds of possibilities and before long your list of “to read books” could make you wish you had more time to read.

In terms of implementations Sheehan said its been amazingly easy and the process was completed in a very short amount of time. Once up an running, each month the library provides LibraryThing with a list of all new additions by ISBN, which LibraryThing will then provide information for. Once a year the library gathers information on weeded books and LibraryThing is again notified of these changes.

The library’s catalog has not become part of LibraryThing, instead it gathers information available at the site. When opening the record of a particular book, in addition to the expected information you will also find suggestions for similar books, and a tag cloud of related subjects. Clicking on one of these tags will take you to more suggestions of material tagged with this category, as well as related categories. Here is an example of one of these records.

One issues that particularly caught my attention is that the Danbury library patrons are not necessarily the ones providing the rating and reviews (unless they happen to have an account with LibraryThing). I wonder how different these reviews and tag clouds might turn out if it were only the patrons providing input.

Kate Sheehan is the author behind the Loose Cannon Librarian blog.

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LibraryThing for Libraries originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on January 21, 2008.

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PennTags is a social bookmaking tool developed at UPenn which allows that university’s community to contribute to the library catalog by adding their own tags and comments. The system is integrated and works along side the information regularly found in a bibliographic record (bib. record). Tags added by patrons do not exclude traditional subject headings (usually LCSH – Library of Congress Subject Headings) added by a cataloger, but can serve as a complement to LCSH and may provide a more complex classification to the material.

When I say complex I mean to say that they can add several layers of nuance that LCSH cannot achieve because of their purpose. LCSH began in the USA’s Library of Congress whose main purpose is to make material in the Library of Congress accessible to Congress and others involved in government. They cannot pass judgment in how material is classified, and their strength lies in classifying material from the USA, as opposed to material about the rest of the world. LCSH also do not cover every single subject needed for thorough classification, new subject headings can be added to LCSH but it requires time, and a critical mass of material on the subject. According to the rules of classification a book or other material being cataloged must be at least 20% on a particular subject before a LCSH can be added on the subject, thus other subjects only briefly mentioned will not be noted in the bib. record.

LCSH are excellent at classifying material for their main user group, but for material falling outside these parameters it makes sense to explore other options. PennTags allows patrons to add their own tags to material in the catalog which can help complement the LCSH classification. The system allows users to highlight small aspects of a work, add new terminology that has not yet been added to the LCSH system and they can “pass judgment” on the material.

Being able to highlight small aspects of a material can help someone find an obscure note in a book that the subjects headings did not note because it is discussed in less than 20 % of the book. New terms such as “Third World Feminism” can be added to provide nuance to a bib. record, instead of just using “Feminism” or “Women”. Users can also note whether material is “high brow” or “low brow,” a passing of judgment that LCSH cannot provide.

PennTags allows users to view all the material which has been tagged by a particular user whose judgment they like, or who is also working with material of interest (here’s an example by a user known as dkelly). Tags provided by the university community can also add richness to bib. records in subject areas on which librarians might not know much about. This can also help when cataloging grey literature, which often falls through the cataloging cracks. Users can also use the system to create “projects”; here they can aggregate information on a subject of interest and classify it to their likes. An example of these projects is wellske‘s project on “1935-1945 Films, Philadelphia Film History“.

Currently PennTags is in Beta version and has only been released to a handful of users in the community. Releasing the Perl based script to the Open Source community has also been discussed. It was mentioned that the system is still too new to put out in the world, but also that the point of open source is not only to release script for the benefits of others, but also to benefit from additions the community can provide. Being the case those involved with PennTags wondered how this script to be used collaboratively with other academic institutions so that patrons in either place could benefit from additions done elsewhere.

You can take a look at PennTags here. Unless you are part of the UPenn community you won’t be able to add tags to their library catalog, but in case you are interested, instructions on how to do so can be found here.

Durante ALA Midwinter asistí a un Grupo de Discusión sobre Temas de actualidad titulado “Tag You’re It: Una revolución en el patrón de interacción de la biblioteca”. La primera ponente fue Jennifer Sweda, bibliotecaria de catalogación en la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Pennsylvania quien habló sobre PennTags, el proyecto en desarrollo por medio del cual se agregan etiquetas el catálogo de la biblioteca.

PennTags es una herramienta desarrollada en UPenn que permite que la comunidad universitaria contribuya al catálogo de la biblioteca añadiendo etiquetas y comentarios a los registros bibliotecarios. El sistema está integrado y funciona junto a la información que se encuentran normalmente en un registro bibliográfico. Las Etiquetas añadido por los usuarios no excluyen la clasificación tradicionales agregada al material (por lo general LCSH – Library of Congress Subject Headings) añadidos por el catalogador, pero puede servir como complemento a LCSH y puede proporcionar una clasificación más compleja para el material.

Cuando digo complejo quiero decir que pueden añadir varias capas de matiz al registro agregando acceso donde el sistema de LCSH lo alcanza a llegar por su diseño. LCSH se inició en la Biblioteca del Congreso (LOC) de EE.UU., y su propósito principal es hacer que el material en la Biblioteca del Congreso sea accesible al Congreso y otras personas involucradas en el gobierno. Los bibliotecarios en la LOC no pueden juzgar el material al clasificarlo, y su fuerza radica en la clasificación de material de los EE.UU., en lugar de material sobre el resto del mundo. LCSH también no cubren todos los temas necesarios para lograr su clasificación a fondo, además, aunque es posible agregar nuevas entradas al sistema, esto siempre toma tiempo, y requiere una masa crítica de material sobre el tema a tratar. De acuerdo con las normas de clasificación de un libro u otro material, un tema debe ocupar por lo menos 20% del texto antes de poder agregar una entrada LCSH, lo que quiere decir que cada libros puede cubrir muchos otros temas que no se reflejarían en el registro bibliográfico.

LCSH son excelentes en la clasificación de materiales para su grupo de usuarios principales, pero para el material que cae fuera de estos parámetros tiene sentido explorar otras opciones. PennTags permite a los usuarios añadir sus propias etiquetas al material en el catálogo de tal manera de que este podrá ayudar a complementar la clasificación de LCSH. El sistema permite a los usuarios resaltar múltiples aspectos de una obra al agregar nueva terminología que aún no se ha añadido al sistema LCSH y por medio del cual se puede “juzgar” el material.

La capacidad de resaltar estos aspectos del material puede ayudar a alguien a encontrar una nota obscura en un libro que no aparece en el titulo, ni en la clasificación, ya que se trata en menos del 20% del libro. Los nuevos términos tales como “Third World Feminism” pueden ser añadidos para matizar un registro bibliográfico, en lugar de usar “feminismo” o “Mujeres”. Los usuarios también pueden observar si el material es algo “culto” o “inculto,” aspecto que el LCSH no puede proporcionar.

PennTags permite a los usuarios visualizar todo el material que ha sido etiquetado por un usuario particular cuyo juicio les gusta o que también está trabajando con material de interés (en este caso es un ejemplo de un usuario conocido como dkelly). Etiquetas proporcionada por la comunidad universitaria también puede agregar a la riqueza de registro bibliográfico en áreas en las que los bibliotecarios no tienen mucho conocimiento. Esto también puede ayudar en la catalogación de literatura gris, que a menudo se pierde por las rendijas de la clasificación. Los usuarios también pueden utilizar el sistema para crear “proyectos”, aquí se pueden agregar información sobre un tema de interés y clasificar a sus gustos. Un ejemplo de estos proyectos es el proyecto de wellske sobre “1935-1945 Films, Philadelphia Film History“.

Actualmente PennTags se encuentra en versión Beta y sólo se ha entregado un puñado de usuarios en la comunidad. Diseminación del código basado en Perl a la comunidad del Código Abierto se ha discutido. Se mencionó que el sistema es aún demasiado nuevo para ser diseminado por el mundo, pero también que el punto de código abierto no es sólo para diseminación del código para beneficios de los demás, sino también para beneficiarse de las adiciones que la comunidad puede ofrecer. Siendo este el caso los involucrados con PennTags se preguntaron cómo este código podría ser utilizado en colaboración con otras instituciones académicas para que los usuarios en cualquier lugar puedan beneficiarse de las adiciones hecho en otras partes.

Puedes echar un vistazo a PennTags aquí. A menos que seas parte de la comunidad UPenn usted no será capaz de añadir etiquetas a su catálogo de la biblioteca, pero en caso de estar interesados, las instrucciones de cómo hacerlo se pueden encontrar aquí.

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PennTags originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on January 18, 2008.

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The projects wishes to be complete open and free, allowing contributors to create and alter book records as the database grows. The final project will provide a form of authority page for each book, and will allow user to link back to this database as a reference, instead of having to link back to a corporate site.

The project is also working on getting libraries around the world to share their catalogs with them, although some, like the British Library are a little skeptical of the project, and therefore hesitant to release their catalog. The British Library in particular is nervous that the project might eventually become commercial; Right now the project receives most of their funding from the Internet Archive, but in the future they will be more reliant on donations, and a percentage of sales they help direct to book sellers. Google is also weary of this project, since basically both aim at gathering the same information, except Google doesn’t want to make it freely available.

As the project develops, the aim is to provide, searchable, digital copies of complete books, and in as much as copyright allows you might be able to download a complete copy or send it to a third party for printing. There is also the ability link to other project that can provide more information, such as Project Gutenberg to digitize cultural works. These digital copies will also help preserve intellectual content, if not physical books for the future.

You can read more about this project in an article from the BBC. Find out more about The Open Library project through the table of content of their website. You can also see a little presentation of what happens behind the scenes when digitizing book, along with a detailed explanation of the project.

You can view some of there demo projects, including The Koran, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Harry Potter.

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Open Library originally appeared on Bilingual Librarian on July 31, 2007.

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