Problems, problems, and more problems

There are lots of problems in the spreadsheet I am working off of.  I knew there would be, but I'm realizing that it is even worse than I could have imagined.

I've had various people over the years work on this spreadsheet, but at the time I didn't know that each recording was represented by multiple rows in the spreadsheet.  So they would sort the sheet by composer name and then be able to edit all the names to the authorized heading and only have to look up the composer once since they were listed in alphabetical order.  Sounds like a great plan, right?

So now the spreadsheet is organized by date (since that is the only way to know which rows belong together) and the composers are organized alphabetically within the concert or recital date.  Thus, I don't know what the actual order the works were performed in.

Why does this matter?  Because when we catalog sound recordings we list the works in a contents note in the order in which they were performed.  And if there are multiple performers who played on some works but not on others, we list which work they performed on, as in number of work (i.e. Kerri Baunach, clarinet (3rd work)), in a performers note.  I have no way of knowing that info at this time, so I am just listing the various performers or groups of performers in no particular order.

As a result, my performer notes aren't that helpful at the moment.  And my contents notes appear as if the works were all performed in alphabetical order according to the composer's name.  If you're a bit OCD, that might seem kind of cool.  For this OCD cataloger, it's not.

Other problems:

• Misspellings in names of performers or groups
• Inaccurate title info (how about Sarabande for guitar ensemble by J.S. Bach.  Or Fugue for guitar ensemble by Handel.  Seriously, no arrangers listed, no further title info to let me know WHICH sarabande or WHICH fugue.)
• Incomplete title info (kind of goes along with the point above)
• I have no idea which concerts or recitals have programs and which do not (I may need to contact the School of Music and spend some time with a scanner, which means going to the office and finding a babysitter.)
• The authority work

As for dealing with the spreadsheet itself:

I scrolled down to the bottom of the sheet and found that I have about 10160+ rows of information.  I have so far converted the first 57 (well 56, row 1 is column headings) into 10 rows on a new spreadsheet that would create 10 MARC records.

That doesn't sound like much when I look at those numbers, but really ... that did take me a long time.  Refer back to the problems I'm dealing with.  Those problems are on each performance.  Every. Single. One.

On the spreadsheet, I've created four new tabs.  One for the student recitals and one for the ensemble concerts.  Since I'm creating columns for each MARC field, it seemed either to do it this way so there was only one 1XX field in each spreadsheet: 100 on the student recitals and 110 on the ensembles.  Then I created a tab as a "transfer" space.  This is just for me to copy the info for the recording I'm currently working on over to this space so I can see it better.  It was getting hard on the master list to see just the parts I needed and I kept losing my place, thus wasting time.  It's working well so far.  Finally, the fourth tab I added today as a place to list the date of recordings where there is insufficient info and what that insufficient information is.  This will help when I have to go back and fix things, it should be easier to locate the problem items.

As for the original spreadsheet, I'm not changing anything on it.  I'm keeping it as a master in case I mess something up somewhere and need to refer back to something.  I've made the date column bold and as I complete a recording I un-bold those dates.  That way I can keep track of where I am visually, especially since I am working in short stints and sometimes have to walk away in the middle of something.  Seven month old babies don't like to be kept waiting.

I also now have MARCEdit on my work computer and someone sent me a link to a tutorial on You Tube.  So new part of the sabbatical project: learn how to use MARCEdit and transfer all these records I'm working on into the actual MARC format.

Lots going on.  Problems galore, lots of cutting and pasting between spreadsheets, heavy use of the authority file, and eventually learning a new program.  On top of that, I really have to figure out a better schedule!