And then one day ...

... someone comes to your desk and tells you they just discovered a few boxes containing probably a couple hundred DAT tapes of School of Music recitals and concerts!!!

Oh yes, this was today. My first question was:

Do we support DAT?

Why yes we do. We have two players. Now to figure out if these are duplicates of other tapes or brand new.

Glad I hadn't gotten into the '90s yet with my revising of the spreadsheet. Ah, the joy of working in a library. You just never know what might turn up!

Cataloging Templates

It is the last official day of my sabbatical and I managed to put together the beginnings of two templates for cataloging recital and concert recordings. I decided to go with two because of the differences in some of the necessary fields between individual student recitals and concert recordings of larger ensembles. Even recitals featuring more than one performer were distinctly different than ensemble performances as were concert performances by a chamber ensemble still different than student, faculty, or guest artist recitals.

The main differences were in the fields for access points, the 1xx and 7xx fields. Also as I worked through the spreadsheet I came up with a format for titles of the recordings and these were different between the ensembles and the recitals. Overall, it just made sense to go with two templates.

I had questioned creating templates in our local catalog system (Voyager) versus creating them as constant data files in OCLC. Since OCLC is more likely to be around long term and Voyager is not, I opted for OCLC. The only complication in this is that I have not discussed with a few key people at my institution whether we want to put these records in OCLC or not. My opinion on the matter used to be to catalog locally except for maybe ensemble concerts and/or graduate recitals, but a late great music cataloger once opined the importance of adding this kind of material to OCLC and it convinced me that was the better way to go.  So for now, my templates are living in OCLC as constant data files.

This is what I have done so far:

Template for recital recordings

I am defining recital recordings as any performance featuring one or more individual performers of works mostly for solo instrument. Recitals may include chamber pieces. Some exceptions: chamber recitals in which there is still one primary performer who performs on all works while the other members of the ensembles change. Also lecture recitals which may include a number of performers but the main thrust of the recital is still focused on one individual.

In the template above I have the main descriptive and access fields. I have not yet dealt with the fixed fields or the 007 field. There are other 0xx fields I may add as well. In the rest of this record anywhere that I have text bracketed and in all caps is where I expect information to go. You'll notice in the 245 that I have left the statement of responsibility area blank. I'm still trying to decide how I am going to set that up in conjunction with the 100 and the title portion of the 245. The 260 includes only the year since we are dealing with unpublished material. But that leads me to another question I need to answer as well: I did code the Country code in the fixed fields for "xx" since the 260 does not include a place of publication. However, you'll notice the codes I added to the 033 field which do indicate location. I'm thinking I can use those because the location of performance is cited in the note field and the 033 is linked more so to that than the publication info.  Am I correct on that?

Moving along, I have a standard 300 description field followed by my notes. Compact disc note first and then a note for "Program available." That is a place holder. I hope to have a more detailed note about the program once we make a decision on to house the programs. I have also set up notes in which to add performers, date, time, and place of performance, and a contents note. Finally I've stuck in a couple places for additional performers to be listed.

I skipped subject headings (6xx fields) for now, but I do plan on having them there. Those will differ for each recording, so I do not expect that a student worker or circulation staff member will be adding those fields. So having them in the template was not important to me.

The next step will be putting together instructions for how to properly enter info into these templates.

For comparison purposes, here is the template for ensemble concert recordings:

Template for ensemble concert recordings

I am defining ensemble concert recordings as any recording of a performance by a named ensemble, whether a chamber ensemble of 3-5 players or a large group such as a concert band, symphonic orchestra, or opera production. The individual performers may or may not be named. Generally, conductors and soloists are listed alongside the group names.

Finally, I need to put together instructions. These will include things like how to put a person's name in (last, first), how to structure and what information is included in the 505/Contents field, how to add additional notes, how to create the title, and who to put where when their are many names present. Also little things like how to add a field and other technical stuff.

As I worked through the spreadsheet and then created these templates I can envision now how these records will really get created. I can see a student worker or a circulation staff member getting these recordings, entering the descriptive information and the names for the access points. I can even see training a full-time staff member to do basic searches in the LCNAF on OCLC to get the proper headings for personal and corporate names that may be there. The records would then be saved in an online file in OCLC and the recording and program passed on to either myself or my cataloging staff member for us to do the rest of the authority work and add subject headings as well as checking the overall work in the rest of the record. One of us could also add it to OCLC and our local system or maybe we pass it back to the circulation department for them to handle. Not sure yet of that last step.

And that is all for now! Since there are still many open parts of this project I will continue to keep up this blog as work on this project continues. So stay tuned.

Image source morgueFile

Floundering

I feel a little like I am floundering. I have done a lot on this project, but every time I look at my list of what I wanted to accomplish I feel like I barely scratched the surface.

I have one day left after today, so I know I'm not going to suddenly accomplish everything in a day and a half. But I feel like I should still be doing something. I just can't figure out what.

I could work on the revisions to my survey based on the feedback I received. But it feels overwhelming every time I look at it.

I could work on creating templates, and did a little bit. But I hate trying to create something where someone else can just plug in information even though the information may not go neatly into a template without some educated decisions.

Which led me to thinking that I could write instructions on how to use the template and how to make decisions on what information to use and how and what not to use. But I again get overwhelmed thinking about whether or not I can anticipate every scenario.

What I did do today, besides starting a brief OCLC Constant Data file for recital recordings:

• Did some more [very basic] internet searches on other institutions digitizing their recital and concert recordings
• Emailed the MLA-L list to ask if anyone worked at an institutions that had comprehensive guidelines for what information students supply for their recital programs
• Studied my five point list of what my project was going to accomplish (leading me to write this post)

And that was it.  I still have a good chunk of the day left, but I'm not feeling motivated right now.

Most likely tomorrow I'll no longer be floundering, I'll start panicking instead and second guessing everything about the last six months.

Image source morgueFile

Coming to a Close ...

Not my desk, but the idea is close

... but not really.

Yes, the sabbatical period is coming to a close very soon, but this project will go on.  It has to, it is so far from being complete.  "Complete" being a relative term in librarian-ese.

For now, in my last week working on this project full-time, I wanted to give a quick update on where the spreadsheet stands.

Let's recap: the spreadsheet was a total of 10,123 rows of data.  Each row represented one specific musical work performed on a recital or concert recording.  Thus one particular recital or concert could be made up of anywhere from 1 row to 20 rows (or more in a few select cases).

In an effort to get a small portion of the work done and be able to do something with it, I ended up stopping my work at the end of 1989.  That gave me roughly 8 years of data (1982-1989).  The data is sporadic in the first few years, but 1986-1989 are pretty complete.

The years 1982-1989 represented 1,789 rows on the spreadsheet, 17.7% of the total.

I copied the years 1982-1989 over to a new spreadsheet so I could play with the data without messing up the entire spreadsheet.  In the new spreadsheet file I separated this chunk of years by "Student, faculty, & guest recitals" and "Ensemble concerts."  This allowed my to delete columns in one or the other that no longer applied to that chunk of data; for example, the 100 field from the Ensemble list and the 110 field from the Recitals list.

Recitals came out to 886 rows of data or 49.5% of the total of 1982-1989 data.  Ensemble concerts cam out to 903 rows of data of 50.5% of the total.  Pretty much an even 50/50 split.

I then went through the list one last time to put in more uniformity.  One of the problems with working on a large set of data over a long period of time is as you go along and get more experience you make decisions that you didn't think of earlier on in your work.  By the time I got the end I had a rhythm established and knew how I wanted things to look.  So going back to the top and revising one last time was important for me to have the uniformity across the data.  Especially as I consider making templates for future data.

The templates were constantly on my mind.  Things have to be consistent if you want to be able to create a template for someone else to use who doesn't have the experience and can't make cataloging decisions.

Thankfully, the process of going back over those 8 years of data went pretty quickly.  Having the data separated into recitals in one place and ensembles in another made a big difference, I didn't have to constantly switch gears.  And uniformity came much easier than.

Titles (245) were a big issue in the Ensemble list.  For some reason I had left this out all the way through.  But I came up with an easy solution and it didn't take long to stick titles in for each recording.

Programs are going to be an issue down the road.  Available programs were pretty much non-existent until around 1986, but remain sporadic until around 1988.  I did not request copies of every program, that would have been too time consuming, but did request one when the info in the spreadsheet was confusing or needed to be better sorted out.  Programs will have to be addressed at a later time.

Image source: MorgueFile

In the Home Stretch

I can't believe this sabbatical time is almost to a close.  In a little less than three weeks I will be back at work and any further work on this project will become just a small part of my regular job again.  There is SO MUCH work that still needs to be done!!  I've done a lot but a lot more could be done.

Here's a quick summary of what I have tackled and hope to accomplish in the next few weeks.

The largest part of the project has been the database itself.  This is the main instigator of doing this project in the first place.  I have handled all the composer names and cleaned up a lot of other names (performers, arrangers, etc.) throughout most of the database: composers are done all the way through; other names are semi-done.

Currently I'm working through the notes, which has been way more of a headache than I anticipated.  But in the last few weeks I've gotten into a rhythm with those.  Basically I am taking all the notes and getting rid of duplicate information and condensing all the note info onto one line for each recording.  This is in contrast to the current set up where the notes appear on every line.  I had originally thought that they were all duplicates and that all I had to do with delete all lines but one and then arrange them appropriately into the columns I had established (general note, performers note, location note, etc.).  What a silly assumption!  Many of those lines of notes were specific to the piece that line represented.  So this is what I have done:

• Find something in the notes section that can be or seems to represent a title for the whole recording and cut and paste it into the title column.  Delete all other instances of that title.
• Move all performers into one line regardless of which pieces they do or do not perform on.  IF a program is available, designate which pieces individuals perform on within that note.  List each name or group once and delete all other instances of the name.
• Move any other general notes into a general note field.  Delete all other instances of that note.
• If a program is available create a time and place note (518) for the performance and recording.
• If there is a note on a student recital regarding the recital being "in partial fulfillment of" a certain degree type, put it in a general note.  Delete all other instances of the note.  [May reconsider moving these notes to a 502 note later, for now keeping them general (500) notes.]
• Delete notes made that are typically not used in MARC records for sound recordings.  In other words, if it doesn't fit, delete it.  [This was a really hard concept for me at first.  Delete information??  But something had to give and there were many instances of extraneous info.]

Right now my goal is to finish working on these notes through 1989 (I'm almost there) which will give me 8 years worth of recordings to play with in MARC format.  I am then going to copy and paste those 8 years into a new spreadsheet.  Once I have a new spreadsheet for them I will create two tabs and separate the recordings by recitals in one tab and large ensemble concerts in another tab.  For the most part every recording fits one of those two categories, exceptions are few and I can put those where they best fit.   Once I have them separated in this way, I can customize a few things that are specific to those types.  I should be able to complete all of this by the end of this week.  Next steps will be to finally move the info to MARC records.

The second part of my project was to create templates for future recordings.  I don't think this will be difficult to accomplish.  Especially with all the work I have done so far, I can see much more clearly what information we even have for these recordings and how I have been dealing with that info.  I think now that I have this experience, creating the templates won't be too hard.  That is unless I decide to create templates in RDA format (which makes the most sense, unfortunately).  Even then though, I don't think there would be too many differences.

Third part of the project was the digital side.  I have a proposal in my head for digitizing the programs and linking them up with the finished MARC records in our local catalog.  I haven't yet explored the possibilities of digitizing the sound.  Sometime in the next couple weeks I want to get my hands on some of the articles written about the Variations project at Indiana and maybe talk to someone who was heavily involved in that project.  I need to find out who else is doing something similar.  What I don't know is if they are digitizing recitals or not.  I'm not interested (at the time) in digitizing our regular sound collection.

Researching requirements of recital programs (the fourth aspect of my project) has also not happened.  The first part of this project really was very time consuming!  This is something I REALLY want to do though.  I know the approach I want to take with this, but haven't been able to devote the time to it yet.

Finally, surveying other institutions on their cataloging practices regarding recital and concert performances at their institutions.  I have put together a survey and I sent it out to a few colleagues just for feedback.  I have received that feedback and made a few changes, but I need to make more based on that feedback.  But then I stopped short on actually setting it up as a survey (I originally thought I'd get a survey out before the end of May).  Reason being is that I put together a short survey for a personal project and realized in that process that how I wanted to set up this survey wasn't going to work the way I wanted it to.  Plus it occurred to me that the university may have guidelines that need to be followed in doing surveys for research and since I want to eventually publish an article with the information I gather, I need to investigate further.  Plus, maybe the university has a survey tool that I could take advantage of that would be better than the free tools I have been using online for other projects.  So this aspect of my project has started to look bigger than I anticipated.

So that's where I stand right now.  In the last month of this project I am looking back at the project overall, what I have accomplished, what I know I can get done in the remaining three weeks, and what still needs to be done and I wonder if this project was too big from the beginning.  I knew it was going to be a lot (and one aspect was added by my superiors {part 3--researching digitization possibilities} so that wasn't even in my original plan) and it has proved itself so.

It probably didn't help that we sold a house, bought a house, and moved during my sabbatical.  That probably cost me about a month of time.  But other than that I have worked pretty regularly most every day.  I do feel like I have accomplished a lot and I know this database far better than I ever did.  If I can make MARC records of the first 8 years of the database and get templates established for creating MARC records from 2012 forward, that will be a big boost to what was there before.  And I will know how to deal with the years 1990-2004 and everything added since 2004 in a much more efficient way.

Fun with Notes

A while back, when I still figuring out just how to deal with this spreadsheet a friend of mine volunteered to look it over with me.  This friend is also a database manager, so of course I said yes!

One thing that was irritating me was that all the notes on all the recordings were  squeezed into one field.  It was not pretty.  She asked me a few questions about how we catalogers make notes and then she worked some magic in Excel to split out the field.  She used the period to plit it up.  This was the best solution we could come up with for creating multiple fields and then all I had to do was move the info as I saw fit.  Sounds great, right?

Well ... yes and no.

There are periods in many other places besides the end of a sentence.  Initials in someone's name and abbreviations are two of the big ones I have run into.  Dealing with them is tedious, but overall Istill do think that the cell split we did has its benefits.  For one, it is easier to see all or most of the information.

Right now I am working on the notes.  For the most part they consist of other performers on a recording: conductors, names of all members of a chamber group, soloists, other instrumentalists, the performers in major roles of an opera or concert of opera arias, etc.  Occasionally I also have place of performance info or something else, but not often.  Sometimes there is something in the notes area that I think is actually the title of the concert or recital.  Those are nice to find, especially since I do not have titles (MARC field 245) on the vast majority of these concerts. 

I've shared in the past how every work on a recital has the notes associated with it.  That's a lot of repeated notes.  But when a note only applies to one particular work, it is only listed next to that work.  My method is to collapse all those notes into one line next to the first work listed on the spreadsheet.  Easier said than done.  I don't have a good method for dealing with those specific notes since I don't have the order the works were performed in.  So instead of saying: harpsichord (1st, 3rd, and 4th works) and fortepiano (2nd and 5th works), I'm currently putting part of the work's title in the notes (enough for me to identify it).  The plan will be to change that once I can get hold of either the program or the recording itself.

It's hard working off just a spreadsheet.

Here's a bit of an illustration of some of what I see:

In the above illustration there are five works performed on the recital on 10/19/1985 (all in bold).  You will notice that the performer played these works on two different instruments.  I should collapse the five lines that say Harpsichord and Fortepiano into one coherent note.  Unfortunately the order of works here is most likely not the order of works as they were actually performed. I'll still get it all into one note, but it won't be pretty.

Same five works, further down the spreadsheet:

I apologize if this one is small and hard to read.  This is info about the various parts of the individual pieces: keys and catalog numbers mostly.  This is where the period caused a big split due to abbreviations.  But also, how do I collapse all this into one note?  (I'm thinking maybe a Contents 505 note, but then I have think about how I will create 505 Contents notes when we automatically create MARC records and will this get replaced by the titles of the works ... it sometimes makes my head hurt.)  You can see some of the difficulty I am dealing with.

This is not an isolated incident.  This is actually very common as I move along this spreadsheet.  I've worked on the notes section before and given up.  But now I'm back to it and really can't leave it again. 

It must be done, so no time like the present!!

P.S. In other news, I have a survey done and it is being looked over by some colleagues for feedback.  Hope to get that finalized VERY soon!

Spreadsheet Nastiness: Your guess is as good as mine

In my last post, Half Way Plus, I happened to call the spreadsheet I am working on "nasty."  And I wasn't trying to be funny.  It really is rather nasty.  I'm sure people have had to deal with much worse, but this is by far the worst spreadsheet I have had the misfortune to work on.

The spreadsheet I am working from was pulled from an old, no-longer-supported database (File Maker Pro).  The information had been entered by student workers (I am assuming) just by using whatever they were given from the School of Music: the sound cassette tape and/or the program.  Yep, sometimes just the cassette tape, no program.  The info that was to be entered was pretty rudimentary: date, performers, composer, title, and notes.  From what I can tell, each of these categories was just one box and recordings were entered by work performed.  So for example, if a recital had four pieces on it, there are four entries in the database.  The notes would be repeated each time unless there was a note specific to one piece that wasn't applicable to the other pieces.

But sometimes, apparently, the information available wasn't very ... um ... comprehensive.  To put it nicely.  Check out this one recital:

"Who knows?"????  That's what someone entered under Performer?  And why is everything else in this same field as well.  Very weird, right?  But wait ... it gets better.

The composer field contains three composers as well as the weird note: "Your guess is as good as mine on this one."  This is the only entry for this recital, so instead of entering information for each piece on the recital, there is just one entry with all three composers listed together.  Obviously there was little to no info so I guess this was the only way to do it.  But really, you have to wonder what was going on in the person's head who was entering this info.

Finally, the last two fields:

Apparently no title was entered (how could there be??), the notes ended up there instead, and the notes field is just funny.  All this info was in the very first available field and then pieced out throughout the rest of the fields.  I don't understand why.  Was it a flaw in the database program being used?  Was it user error?  A combination of both?  Obviously there was some issue with the person doing the data entry, that goes without saying.

I have no explanation on this one.  I will have to actually go pull the recording to see if there is any way to decipher what this could possibly be.