> get lamp

So, yanno, basically this:

Reported

Intermittent Latency

OCLC is currently
experiencing intermittent latency issues on multiple OCLC services. We are investigating the issues and actively working on a resolution.

...misread that as "Intermittent Lunacy". Well, probably that too, considering the state of the world at the moment, although I doubt OCLC can do much about most of it.

Do spam faxes actually work on anyone? My work phone number has managed to get on one such robo-spam-faxer's list somehow, and while I've learned to recognize the number on the ID panel and just ignore it if it calls during work hours and all I have to do with the "voicemails" it leaves in the wee hours is delete them, it's still rather annoying. I've just got to wonder about this as an actual tactic to produce any profit.

In the February fast-track revisions to RDA (double underline is added text; strikethrough was deleted):

9.7.1.3, revision of instruction:

9.7.1.3 Recording Gender

Record the gender of the person, using an appropriate term in a language preferred by the agency creating the data. Select a term from a standard list, if available. using an appropriate term from the following list:
female
male
not known

If none of the terms listed is appropriate or sufficiently specific, record an appropriate term or phrase.

EXAMPLE
intersex
transsexual woman

Record gender as a separate element. Gender is not recorded as part of an access point.
Indicate the source of information by applying the instructions at 8.12.1.3

This is referring to creating authority data and is not something I work with much myself (my job focuses on bibliographic description), but yeah. I'm sort of darkly amused that someone or someones apparently advised the steering committee that approach to recording gender was, uh, kind of a problem?

This bit from one of the latest Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA papers reads like whatever that Twitter of weird patch notes is:

4.4 Core designation of PPDM elements
The approval of 6JSC/ALA/29 effectively plugged the "cascading vortex of horror".

(PPDM = Production, Publication, Distribution, and Manufacture)

I think they are referring to a place in the RDA instructions where there existed a complicated decision tree for deciding what of these elements were core (i.e. must be included in the bibliographic record), lots of "core if:" kinds of statements, that has since been simplified; but I love that someone out there apparently characterized it as a "cascading vortex of horror". LOL.

Stygian Syzygy: also, the "live stream" Apple advertised? Wasn't.
enchawntment!: oh?
Stygian Syzygy: Yeah.. apparently they weren't prepared for the amount of interest
enchawntment!: seriously??
Stygian Syzygy: I know, right?
enchawntment!: not prepared for the interest that they specifically tried to generate?
enchawntment!: seriously, you can't big-gorilla your way in here, building new buildings*, taking out trees, and then pretend you didn't know anyone would care??


* Not exactly, not in the sense of a permanent structure, though I think our Marketing department's calling it a "tent" (their exact term in the email inviting faculty and staff to take a look tomorrow afternoon, bring your District photo ID on pain of something) is rather understating it:



For reference, here's a picture of the empty space from a point roughly at the bottom of the steps that guard is standing at the top of:



Really, guys? You couldn't predict you might need pretty robust serving of internet traffic to stream your event here?

And yes, they did take out some trees that had only been there two years, like the one that replaced the tree in the bottom right of that photo when the Sunken Garden was recently renovated. (In kind of an ugly way, I might add - repaving the already-asphalt areas, ok, but they replaced half the grass with gravel because nobody knows why, and then they go and flag it part of the so-called "Historic Corridor" between the Trianon Building and the Baldwin Winery like it looks anything other than totally modern?) I hope those are at least going to be replaced. I can only imagine how much money Apple must have given the college for the privilege of having this event here (although I suppose De Anza probably won a low-bidding war or something). enotsola says this is apparently the anniversary date and place of Steve Jobs' first product presentation, or something, but I don't know whether that's verified.

Oh, and did I mention there was basically a turf war on some of the days back in August that we were trying to get a truck in here to take our pallets of boxed library books away to storage, since Apple (well, their construction and security dudes) were blocking driveways and laying claim to every which where and saying no way you plebs can't walk through here etc. etc.? Fortunately that was not something I had to personally sort out.

dronarron: .... the thumpy music in the quad is that song they use for the Absolut Greyhound commercial
dronarron: I HATE OPENING WEEK OK
[...]
dronarron: OK YOUR MUSIC IS RATTLING THE LIGHT FIXTURES IN HERE
dronarron: like, the metal... grid... thing... that is over the fluorescent lights
Enotsola .: that's... fucked
Enotsola .: I'd be out there being like "some of us are trying to work, you insufferable bullet brains!"
dronarron: ...bullet brains?
dronarron: and to be fair, I'm not trying to work, exactly
Enotsola .: Of course not!
Enotsola .: You'd be unable to under these conditions!
dronarron: LOL

I am amused that this book by Willie Nelson, entitled Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, is LC classed in ML420.

That's not actually a particularly amusing class - it means Literature on music—History and criticism—Biography—Individual. By subject of the biography, A-Z—Performers—Singers - but it's one of those coincidental oddities that can be amusing depending on your perspective, like how the Bible is classified in BS.

100 _1 Hooks, Bell.
245 10 We real cool : ǂb Black men and masculinity / ǂc Bell Hooks.

I find it interesting and somewhat irritating that cataloging practice apparently denies bell hooks her preferred capitalization of her name. I can understand why perhaps the authority file, which controls the form of the name found in the 100 field, needs to be standardized on the "usual" capitalization for data-entry-conformity reasons (as indeed the Wikipedia article I linked to capitalizes "Bell" in the URL). But the statement of responsibility (the part after "/ ǂc" in the 245 field) is supposed to be as on the item, with the exception of dropping titles (only names as such are used). It's lowercased in the LC Cataloging-in-Publication block on the back of the title page, which is where the data for these fields usually gets initially slurped from, which probably means someone in the train DLC ǂb eng ǂc DLC ǂd UKM ǂd BAKER ǂd BTCTA ǂd YDXCP ǂd OCLCQ ǂd DEBBG ǂd OCL ǂd OCLCQ ǂd RV8 changed it at some point.* Pfeh.

I wonder if the upcoming switch from AACR2 to RDA**, which is really big on "transcribe what you see" to the point that people transcribe TITLE PAGE STUFF IN ALL CAPS JUST THAT WAY MAKING IT RATHER HARD TO READ, will allow "bell hooks" in this instance.

I think I may change it in our local copy of the record anyway. If it was good enough for LC when providing the CIP block, it's good enough for me.

--

* Except for "eng", which is a language code, these are called "OCLC symbols" and identify various cataloging institutions.

** Sets of cataloging rules. Don't worry about it.

Thought some people might get a kick out of this exchange I read on one of my cataloging lists this morning.

> I have on my desk the Marvel Masterworks books of the X-Men. One of
> the letterers is an Artie Simek. According to the authority record he
> died in 1975. However, Mr. Simek has apparently been lettering graphic
> novels from beyond the grave. :) How is this possible?

Marvel Masterworks is a collection of previously published works of which Artie (Art) Simek was a part of, originally. The collection may have a newer copyright date, but the contents will take you back to when Mr. Simek had stale coffee breath and was lettering his heart out.

Ozymandias had his statue built, Artie Simek inked tiny letters. Immortality in the deed, until the deed is gone.