Outgoing

WorldCat Biographies

As part of our WorldCat Identities project it is nice to have a simple characterization of the identities (which are usually people).  While the relator codes mentioned earlier help a bit, even when they are available they are rather general (e.g. 'translator').  Eric Childress pointed out the MARC 650 subject heading of Biography, which is often matched with a 600 heading for the person.  Looking through WorldCat I found 222,000 different names in non-collective biography records with one 600 heading and an LCSH 650 Biography heading.  I find the resulting file of names and headings fascinating.

Looking for 'Disney' I found:

• Disney, Roy O. (Roy Oliver) 1893-1971; Chief executive officers--United States
• Disney, Walt 1901-1966; Animators--United States

So what about 'Animators'?  37 entries, including

• Iskandar, Nushi; Animators--Egypt

How about just --Egypt?  642 entries, including 14 for Queens--Egypt

Ignore the Cleopatra's and start again with Shakespeare which gives us three names with Shakespeare as the family name:

• Shakespeare, Percy 1906-1943; Painters--England--Dudley
• Shakespeare, William 1849-1931; Tenors--Great Britain
• Shakespeare, William 1564-1616; Dramatists, English--Early modern, 1500-1700

Following England--Dudley we find Percy Shakespeare and

• Bissell, Bert;  Methodists--England--Dudley

How many Methodists? 437, including two Methodists--Korea:

• Yi, Kyong Jae 1913; Methodists--Korea (South)
• Yang, Chu Sam 1879; Methodists--Korea

Let's try Presbyterians--Korea:

• Han, Sok Chin 1868-1939
• Pak, Yun Son 1905

Presbyterians in India?  None, but Methodists--India gives:

• Smith, Ruth Lebo 1884-1954; Methodists--Indiana
• Lemon, O. V. (Orange Vandiver) 1860-1945; Methodists--Indiana
• Branham, Edward T. (Edward Taylor) 1860-1945; Methodists--Indiana--Indianapolis

Oops, that's Indiana, not India!  Well how may Indiana--Indianapolis's are there?  22 of them.

And that's enough for now, not that I wasn't tempted to follow up on:

• Sachs, Eddie 1927-1964; Automobile racing--Indiana--Indianapolis

Endless fun with Identities and WorldCat.

--Th

Children's book week

In honor of Children's Book Week I did a scan of WorldCat looking at records which had the Audn fixed-field element set to 'j' for Juvenile.  The result is slightly different from the 'OCLC Top 1000' Childrens list, since I only counted holdings for records that had a 'j'.  Works such as Twain's Huckleberry Finn aren't at the top of this list, since many records for Huckleberry Finn don't have the Audn field set to 'j'.  Here's the list from highest held by libraries to lowest:

 

I found 58,000 holdings associated with these Mother Goose's, on down to 15,000 for Winnie-the-Pooh.   One thing I realized compiling this list is that audience can be more closely associated with the expression than the work.  In particular I found Latin translations of Winnie-the-Pooh marked juvenile, which seems questionable, while the work as a whole certainly fits.

--Th

Future of the catalog

I spoke at a conference organized by the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries November 3rd, entitled The Future of the Catalog: Deconstruction or Reinvention?  I thought they had an interesting selection of speakers (Karen Calhoun of Cornell, Tim Spalding of Library Thing, and Emily Lynema of N. Carolina State).  To my surprise we didn't repeat each other very much, although for this type of conference it's always nice to go first. The ACRL Blog has a summary of the program, and my presentation is available here.

--Th