OMG, self.

I have this class project which involves importing/creating a whole junkload of MARC 21 records into a Class Site version of Koha, with a minimum of ten different materials formats, and the option of creating some new formats, if the class site doesn't have something we want. My partners and I decided to create ebooks and ebook readers, which is kind of a challenge, because although you can adequately describe those things in a MARC framework, there's not a predefined format for them, and, well, there are a LOT of MARC fields to choose from, and I have to manually go through the default framework and eliminate fields one by one. And I don't really know what fields I do want; I've never catalogued or copy-cataloged either one, and I don't know how libraries typically handle them--inconsistently, weirdly, and sometimes just badly is my impression; the readers in particular are just so new.

Anyway, after a couple of weeks of avoiding the issue, I finally started poking around at the libraries I use to see who has 'em, and how they're making them available in the catalog, what the records look like, if they have them at all. No luck yet on the readers--as I said, they're just too new--but the Boston Public Library offers some ebook services from some external vendors with DRM-locked stuff, which I can access with an electronic card.

After some fussing, I finally got the PC electronic reader installed, checked out and downloaded a few books...and then, being me, got totally sucked into reading them instead of examining them or the software needed to read them.

Records imported into our Koha class site: 0.
MARC frameworks defined for ebooks and ebook readers: 0.
MARC records for ebooks examined: 0.
Ebooks read: Three manga and a Harlequin romance since yesterday (surprisingly, the romance novel was the best of the lot).

Fail, self.



~edit~ Frickity frack.
This whole "make up ebook catalog records" thing is very hard, because all the ebooks I see in libraries right now are from third-party vendors, and even when they DO catalog their third-party electronic resources, it's weird and inconsistent. I found an electronic version of Pride and Prejudice with the title as the main entry (that is, the main point of collocation, how the book would have been arranged in a physical card catalog that had much more limited points of access than an online catalog), and Jane Austen as an added entry--in cataloging terms, that is a statement that in this format or version of P&P, Austen's contribution is not considered significant enough to list her as the author of this text, although her name is still significant enough to warrant listing. Even taking into account the metadata best practices approach of cataloging the resource you have in hand--that is, cataloging a digital image of the Mona Lisa as a digital copy, not the actual painting, meaning that Da Vinci is not the creator of the digital version, although he remains an intellectual contributor to it--I am confused about this treatment, particularly as I also found a Sherlock Holmes book offered by the same third party vendor, in the same library's catalog, with Doyle listed properly as the author. And even though both books are in the public domain, they're still locked up in DRM, and I see no evidence of any library offering ebooks that they own in the traditional sense that they own physical books; it's all third party services, and of course, my group's fake library doesn't have any contracts with third-party e-resource providers. Maybe we should make one up?

Anyway, I am EXTREMELY troubled by the apparent library non-ownership of ebooks. Is this going to be the future of ebooks in libraries--just like other e-resources, it's all rented, DRM-locked stuff? Even the material that isn't under copyright? That's bad. It's really, really bad.

Posting this in a third social networking venue, hah, because I think it's just that interesting. From the linguistic blog Language Log's Geoff Pullum Nunberg: Google Books: A Metadata Train Wreck. If you're interesting in the Google Book Project, Google, scholarship, librarianship, digital libraries, cataloging, metadata, or even bookselling, this is a captivating read. Read the comments! A lot of them are kind of dumb and hand-wavy ("Don't be mean to poor little Google! I dun need no stinking accurate metadata."), but there's some very smart stuff in there, and a long response from the fellow in charge of Metadata at the project, which Nunberg annotates, as the OPs often do at LL. Great stuff. Librarians and catalogers start showing up at the bottom. (It's a linguistics blog, not a librarianship blog, so I think at some point, the link must have gotten passed around some cataloging listservs.)

There's a short follow-up post here, but it's mainly just a comment on the literary ranking errors.

Most interesting non-fiction thing I've read all week, since my class readings are the introductory ones. I was supposed to be working on Library Automation stuff, but since I want to be a cataloger and I'm taking a metadata class this semester, this barely even qualifies as slacking...


[edit: Nunberg, not Pullum. Geoffrey Pullum is a DIFFERENT linguist at LL. My bad.]

Novels/prose books:

Mann, Thomas: The Oxford Guide to Library Research
(not the novelist, the Library of Congress reference librarian and former private detective. He's a cranky sort, and I love him for it. This is basically a reference work, and much of text is devoted to enumerating many of the valuable and important resources still not available in digital formats, or only available through paid subscription databases--or, Why The Internet Has NOT Replaced Libraries, and Why Google Print Won't Either. Enough money and interest could make a lot of the non-digital stuff available digitally, but he's dead right about how keyword searching and ranking algorithms are no replacement for subject classification, subject headings, and value-added descriptors. A nice supplement, yes, but not a replacement for the expensive mental labor of catalogers.

I wish he was less blase about the copyright bit--he's pretty dismissive about the idea that authorship could function without strict copyright control, since we're greedy sots who want our money. That's arguably just realism, but it follows on the heels of a long discussion of the value of Government Documents, and, hello, LIBRARIES, which would be violating fucking copyright out the wazoo if not for the grace of First Sale Doctrine. Never mind that libraries predate copyright. But all that is an argument for another post).


Stout, Rex: Plot it Yourself and Murder by the Book
(Speaking of libraries, these are from my school library's pet "Bibliomystery" collection--a collection of mystery novels prominently featuring books or libraries. They're my first Nero Wolfe mysteries, and I dug them muchly, although they're definitely more along the lines of Agatha Christie, "read once, then toss," rather than Tey or Sayers, where you would keep and reread the books for their brilliant writing and characterization, not just for the mystery).


Wittlinger, Ellen: Hard Love
(A Printz-winning YA novel a friend pressed on me, about zines, first love, and a Boston-area teenage boy who falls in love with his lesbian friend. I was surprised at how engaged I was by this book--it's been a long time since I read a YA book with the power to grab my emotions this way. Recommended if you like good YA, zines, books featuring well-written gay people, or Boston. Me, I fucking love Boston, and everything else was a nice extra).



Graphic novels:

Geary, Rick: The Murder of Lincoln
(how does Geary create an atmosphere of suspense about one of the best-documented murders in American history? Incredible. It's like watching 1776, where historical knowledge does not diminish the power of the storytelling, or reduce the emotional impact--in contrast, the weight of history increases it many times over. I read with a lump in my throat that never went away).

Ka, Oliver, writer, and Alfred, artist: Why I Killed Peter
(I had a feeling disturbingly early on where this was going, but it didn't diminish the impact as it unfolded. This is Ka's autobiographical account of having been molested as a child by the titular Peter, a priest and beloved family friend. It includes Ka's blissful childhood up to that point, and, briefly, his subsequent, troubled teen and adult years. It gets pretty meta at the end, with an account of the adult Ka telling his friend and creative collaborator Alfred about the experience, and the two of them planning the book and visiting Peter. The whole thing was powerful and unsettling, but I can't tell you how much the last part got to me--it didn't feel gimmicky in the slightest, but instead very brave and honest and sad. Some of the last sequence appears in photos of Ka and Alfred, and there's always something about that technique, and the way it strips the sense of fiction away from the cartoon images of real people that really digs into the gut.

NBM ComicsLit).


Straczynski, J. Michael, writer, and Gary Frank, pencils: J. Michael Straczynski's Midnight Nation
(a friend lent this to me, hoping to amend my very negative impression of Straczynski as a writer based on the clusterfuck that was his run on Spider-Man, back when I still gave a crap about superhero comics.

It didn't work. It's so laughably silly and bad. Straczynzki's ponderous explanation of the conceit as having sprung from certain deeply dramatic events in his youth washed out any potential dignity the thing could have had for me--I know he didn't mean it that way, but god, it read as so very silly and flailing a connection--and the horrible, stiff, inappropriately oversexed, unimaginative art killed the rest. I know I liked Frank's pencils on Supergirl, but for whatever reason--because this is not a cape book, and I expect decent anatomy and clothing from non-cape books, or maybe because the inker and colorists failed or something, I don't know--his work is just hideous and lame here. I un-recommend this book).



Manga:

Yazawa Ai: Nana, vol. 14
(GOD.

I've really come to love Hachi, who's gradually growing into a much more mature, centered person than one would have initially anticipated. I wish we saw more of her. But I might have to take back everything I said about only caring about other characters as they pertain to the Nanas--I found myself with my heart in my throat for all the major characters, this time around.

And, oh, Nana O).