learning the RC: Free to Read and Organizing Info

Someone doing research on why libraries are important to America and to democracy? Need some professional jargon on the confidentiality of patron records, responding to challenged material or need to explore how technology and RFID undermine privacy policy? Keep handy the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual (025.213 INT 2010). (Shouldn't there be a reverb to such a spectacular intro?) The Manual has three parts: an overview or history of the issue, a step by step breakdown of the sections of the Library Bill of Rights with an interpretation and history for each section, a discussion of policies as related to access to materials and confidentiality, a part on the ALA's Code of Ethics, and finally an action plan part on to prepare librarians entering into the political fray.

I would like to state for the record that I did not graduate MLIS school without having taken a cataloging course like all old timers seem to think. In fact, I took two. But they were on metadata schema such as Dublin Core and controlled vocabularies such as the Getty Vocabularies. No, I did not learn about MARC because we're heading toward RDA anyway and besides, I learned how to follow rules rather than memorize rules that were slated to be changed anyway. With that huff and puff said, I bring you the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules 2nd ed 1988 revision (025.32 ANG) (which RDA is based on anyway (note, I said "based" and not "copied"), but with updates to support the online environment). This thing is like a MLA or APA handbook, but for describing works instead of citing papers. Part I instructs the cataloguer what information to include when describing the works (how to describe a map being much different from how to describe a sound recording) and Part II instructs you on the formatting of those descriptions. See? Not rocket science. Just requiring a lot of attention to detail. Next!

Next being the much coveted four volume, wait, five volume 26th Edition Library of Congress Subject Headings (025.33 LIB 2003 v1-5). This is the sort of book you could just jump right in to begin browsing to see how the LC assigns subject headings. And this book is a real thesaurus in that it lists the Used For and Broader Term and Narrower Term entries! I would probably learn a lot by reading through the introductory material that discusses things like pattern headings and free-floating sub-divisions. Yes, I'm a nerd. Drool!