Thursday, March 1, 2012

Two Months Gone, Four To Go

One third of the way through this sabbatical deserves an update.  Especially since I haven't posted about anything here in a while.

Since my last update I am still working through the Composer column to research the names that were problems during the first pass.  I'm currently a little more than 30% done.  As expected it is taking a while to work on each name.  Some are easier than others.  The problem names are color coded four different ways.  Those that are in highlighted in yellow are names that are not in the authority file.  I've decided to leave those alone for now.  I am focusing instead on the other three problem types and for the most part I have been able to figure out either who in the authority file the person is or change the color coding to yellow because the name is not in the authority file.

Two weeks ago I attended the Music OCLC Users Group Meeting and the Music Library Association Annual Conference.  While at these meetings I chatted with several colleagues about my project and specifically about what they were each interested in knowing about how others manage their recital recordings.  I had some very interesting conversations with people from small institutions and large institutions.  It helped give me more perspective on how I would like to put together a survey and the kinds of questions I should ask.  I also received a lot of good ideas on questions to ask on the survey.  I am hoping to start putting together my questions soon based on my notes of my ideas and the notes I took while at the conference.  I even had someone volunteer to look over a draft of the survey questions.

After two months I do feel like I have accomplished something, although right now it doesn't feel like it as I work through the problem names.  But I have a much more organized spreadsheet and a plan for the the parts that are still to be dealt with.  Plus the survey is coming together even if it is currently in my notes and in my head.  There is still a lot to do in the next four months!

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