Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station collection in Chinook

Cataloging & Metadata Services has just completed a project to make all the publications from the Rocky Mountain Research Station that we own available in our catalog. To find these publications, you can search in Chinook for the titles of the individual publications, if you know them, or to see all the publications do an author search for Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station.

The Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station collection consists of station reports and papers published by the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station Fort Collins, Colorado in conjunction with the Forest Service of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture from 1937-1997. Topics cover mostly forest and range management of the Rocky Mountain Region.

Highlights include:

• “Research Notes” (Gov A 13.69/8:1-84) of the Rocky Mountain Region on the various forest and range management methods such as burning, poisoning and “killing” undesirable native vegetation to encourage forest productivity.

• “Protect Your Pines from Bark Beetles” (Gov A13.69/7:P 52 and Gov A13.69/2:P 65) are pamphlets (mainly consisting of illustrations) published in the 1960s and reissued again in the 1980s on the eradication and control methods of the Mountain Pine Bark Beetle infestation. Insecticides such as DDT and burning as ways to kill Bark beetles were suggested.

• For more information regarding Pine beetle please see the Gov. Info. Blog:
“New Bark Beetle Website Tracks Insects Effects Over 15 Years”
http://cubgovpubs.blogspot.com/2010/10/pine-beetle-information.html

Special acknowledgment goes to Tassanee Chitcharoen, Peter Rolla and Deb Van Tassel for their work on this project. Please direct questions to Tassanee or Deb.

RDA testing at UC Boulder

CMS is now participating in the US National Library RDA Test as an informal tester. RDA stands for Resource Description and Access, the cataloging code that is intended to replace AACR2. A number of original catalogers in CMS are engaged in creating records in RDA, both bibliographic and authority records. Those who participate will create all original records exclusively in RDA, so that they don’t have to deal with 2 codes at the same time.

We have about a dozen bibliographic records and new authority records our original catalogers created using RDA in OCLC and exported to Chinook. Copy catalogers are bringing in RDA records when they are found in OCLC.

Since this is a major endeavor, an RDA Task Force was created and catalogers in other departments were invited to participate. Members are: Diana Anderson, Peter Rolla, Wen-Ying Lu, James Ascher and Steve Mantz. Windy Lundy serves as the Chair and our primary contact with the Library of Congress.

The OPAC display doesn’t look much different as we suppressed new MARC tags specific to RDA records, but you can see some RDA characteristics in the OPAC display:

• Names will show relator or RDA role terms, e.g., author, editor, photographer in personal names, or “issuing body” in corporate names. This is not an error when you see these in Chinook records.
• Minor things such as copyright date with © rather than letter c.
• P., ill. , etc. in Description are now spelled out.

You can identify RDA records if you view MARC display – “948 RDA test”

It is still unknown whether RDA will be implemented. Once a decision is made to implement RDA by the national libraries (a decision should be made next spring), we will have wider communication and consultation with all in the Libraries about the public display, faceting (if possible) and any other considerations.

For those who wish to see these records, here are some examples:
http://libraries.colorado.edu/record=b6082469~S3
http://libraries.colorado.edu/record=b6073546~S3
http://libraries.colorado.edu/record=b6431119~S3
http://libraries.colorado.edu/record=b6551964~S3
http://libraries.colorado.edu/record=b6080450~S3


If you have any questions, please contact Windy Lundyor Jina Wakimoto.

Brushing up on FRBR

All catalogers in the CU-Boulder Libraries have been engaged in reading FRBR together. That is about 35 catalogers in the central Cataloging and Metadata Services Department as well as the catalogers in specialized areas – Music, Government Publications, Maps and Special Collections. The main objective was to discuss its implications, applications, advantages, and shortcomings, in advance of the implementation of RDA.


To begin, James P. Ascher, the rare books cataloger and our invaluable resident techie, posted sections of FRBR online called UCB FRBR Discussion. This was created using digress.it. This approach allowed the readers to comment and post questions paragraph by paragraph. This was done in advance of the first meeting to discuss FRBR. Even before the first in-person meeting, there were nearly fifty comments and several philosophical discussions. There is also an additional reading section where catalogers could post interesting and related articles they found. The workshop comments section recorded the summaries from the discussions and serve to remind us about the challenges as well as the positive aspects of FRBR we observed as a group.

The first workshop was dubbed “FRBR with Strings”, as James prepared color-coded strings to indicate relationships, as we explored Group 1 relationships together. The second workshop had more color-coded strings, as we explored Group 1, 2, 3 and Bibliographic Relationships, e.g., Work-to-Work, Work-to-Expression. At the conclusion of the second workshop, most expressed sighs of relief as they felt more comfortable with the concept of FRBR and felt they understood it, if not totally in agreement with all concepts expressed in FRBR. Whereas the first workshop generated discussions focusing on challenges with FRBR as a conceptual model and challenges with applying FRBR, the group was able to discuss some positive aspects of FRBR at the second workshop.

For the next workshop, we plan to read FRAD together, rather than delve more deeply into FRBR. Please direct any questions or comments to James P. Ascher or Jina Wakimoto.

Two New Digital Collections in CU Digital Library

The C&MS Digital Resources Cataloging Team is pleased to announce the availability of two new collections in the CU Digital Library.

From Special Collections comes the Historic Hats and Headdresses collection, consisting images of sixty-five leaves of watercolors from the master's thesis of a fine arts student in 1938, as well as accompanying text. The paintings focus on western civilization, from helmets in pharaonic Egypt from roughly the 2nd millennium B.C.E. through top hats from the French romantic period in the 19th century C.E.

Through a partnership between the University Archives and the Conference On World Affairs, streaming audio of selected CWA sessions are also now available, from the conference's start in 1959 through the early 1990s, in the Conference On World Affairs Audio Archive. The Luna collection at present consists of fifteen files finished in time for the 2010 CWA, but will grow as the project continues. Additional audio streams are available at the CWA's website.

Making these collections available was a team effort as always. Recognition is due to Zoya Nazari and Josie Fania, who went to considerable length to provide detailed descriptive metadata for the Hats and Headdresses. Elizabeth Newsom in Special Collections was an invaluable resource with this collection. Digital Resources Cataloging would also like to thank Bruce Montgomery in Archives and Maura Clare and Ramsay Thurber from the CWA for bringing these materials to light, and providing valuable descriptive information about the audio sessions. Many thanks are due, as always, to Holley Long for her work with both collections and the Luna interface.

Please direct questions about the metadata portion of this digitization project to Michael Dulock.

Bent-Hyde Papers Available in Luna

The C&MS Digital Resources Cataloging Team and the CU-B Archives Department are pleased to announce that our first archival digital collection, the Bent-Hyde Papers, are now available in digital form through the CU Digital Library. The collection consists of hand-drawn maps, photographs, handwritten letters and other textual materials relating to Arapahoe and Cheyenne activities in 19th century Colorado and Kansas, including significant historical events such as the Sand Creek Massacre. In addition, the full archival finding aid for the collection, with links to some images from the collection, is available through the Rocky Mountain Online Archive.

As is always the case with digital collections, providing online access to these materials was a team effort. Digital Resources Cataloging would especially like to thank Josie Fania, who applied her archival experience to cataloging these materials in the new workspace offered by Luna. Thanks are of course due to Holley Long for her work with the Luna interface, and to Bruce Montgomery and Dave Hays in Archives for their assistance with the materials.

Please direct questions about the metadata portion of this digitization project to Michael Dulock.