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.

Half Way Plus

First of all, I have to say that I had really hoped to make more use of this blog.  Here we are at the halfway point (well, a little past the halfway point) and this is only my ninth post.  Um, yeah ... things have been slow going.

So being that we are beyond the half way point, I really should evaluate where I am.

Number one on my Project List: Clean up the recital database.  Is this done?  No.  Is it much improved?  Yes!

• I have separated out all personal names from all corporate names in the "performers" column of the database.
• In the composer column I have cleaned up the vast majority of the names, fixed all the problem names that were in red (except for about 10) and blue, but decided to leave the problems that were in yellow and green (more on that later)
• In many places there was more than one name in the composer column.  I separated out all the extra people and have them all in their own columns.
• I started working on the Notes columns

What is still left to do:

• Create a spreadsheet of all the names that are not authorized (yellow) or uncertain (green) so they can be looked out at a future time.  This was bogging me down too much and i finally decided that I could spend the next three months fixing all these or I could skip it and get more work done in other areas.  Skipping it made the most sense.
• Authorize all the "other" names.  These are arrangers, transcribers, writers of lyrics, etc.
• Notes, notes, notes, and more notes.  I found this extremely time consuming when I started it and difficult to do.  I feel like I need to see the programs for each one or at least the recordings in order to  better organize the notes.  They really are a terrible mess!!

Number two on the list: Creating templates.  Not been done yet.  This is something that I feel confident will be easy to do once I get to a point where I'm ready to move the spreadsheet into MARC records.  Plus, I know someone at another institution who told me she has a template already.  Cooperative cataloging at it's finest!!

Number five on the list (yes, I know I skipped some): Survey.  I actually forgot that it was five on the list, but really my list isn't exactly priority order.  Well, maybe a little bit, but I have my reasons for skipping three and four.  I did finally take all my notes from when I was at MOUG and MLA in Dallas and transcribe the questions and suggestions I got from my awesome, supremely more intelligent colleagues and I'm ready to start reorganizing that list and editing the questions into a survey.  I have a reference question out to help with the "demographics" part and I have a list of colleagues I respect (paired down from 300+ to about 5) who I would like to ask to look the survey questions over and give me suggestions before I send it out.  So I feel like I've made progress here.

Number three: investigate digital possibilities.  Haven't done this yet.  This feels like just an intellectual exercise, which is the kind of thing I like.  The kind of thing that led my Master's thesis adviser to tell me that I'm a great researcher but not much of a wordsmith (thankyouverymuch).  So this is on the back burner for now.

Number four: Requirements for recital programs.  Also an item that has not been done yet.  But I have started thinking about it.  That's a start, right?

A little beyond the halfway point and this is where we stand.  I feel like I still have so much to do with this nasty spreadsheet!!  There is just still so much wrong with it.

Sabbatical Challenges

As I work on this sabbatical project, there are many challenges I have as well.

The biggest cutest challenge is caring for two babies who are just now nine months old while I work at home.  I love having this opportunity to be home with them, but it is a challenge.  My work schedule consists of about an hour and a half in the morning during nap time, another hour in the afternoon during their second nap time, a couple hours in the evening a few nights a week after the boys are in bed, and occasionally some time on the weekends.  Doesn't really add up to a lot of time, so I try to make use of every minute I can once the boys are sleeping.  It's a challenge but it's a wonderful challenge to have.

An additional challenge has been trying to find a daycare for the boys for when I go back to work in July.  It seems I could find a daycare for later in the fall, but not necessarily in July.  I'm still on the hunt, but going out to interview and tour daycare facilities takes time away from my project.  

On another front, just when this sabbatical started we got an offer on our house.  We put it up for sale early last fall and this was great news!  But it also meant we had to find a new place. We did and we're going to be moving soon.  So the project will probably take a backseat temporarily while we pack up and move from one house to another.  I assume we'll also be without internet for a short period while we're between houses.

I am also working on two other projects at the same time as the sabbatical project.  One is an ongoing thing with a deadline in June.  I'm working on getting that project wrapped up and then not worrying about that project again until I'm back at work full time.  I'll have about 11 months before the next deadline.  The second project is one that I thought was complete but was asked to do a few more things too.  I never found the time at the end of the year to squeeze it in along with the many other things I was doing in trying to prepare to be gone from the office for six months and since I was also not given a deadline I've put it aside for the time being. But it weighs on my mind and I feel like I need to just go in and get it done.  I don't think it'll take long, but I'm afraid once I start that I'll discover otherwise and get bogged down in that.  I really need to find out what the deadline is, that would give me the sense of urgency (or not) that I probably need.

It's a bit of a long list and it feels overwhelming to me to list it all out like this.  But I wanted to do this post because this is part of the reality of this sabbatical and this blog is a journal of this six month project.  In the middle of all this, I am pleased with the amount of work I have actually been able to accomplish.  And when I go back to work in July I think I'll look back on these six months as the busiest ever.  This might be a break from work, but it's not a break by any means.  I feel even busier than I do when I'm working in the office full-time.  That's the reality.

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!

Progress Update

In the last update I gave I had completed about 70% of the "Name" column on the spreadsheet.  That column consisted of student performer names, ensemble names, faculty ensemble names, faculty names, guest performers, and a few other random names.  Mostly I was separating out the individual names from the ensemble names.  That is now done!

What is now left in that column and the columns that got created from it is to separate out multiple names.  Some cells have two or more performers' names or two or more ensemble names.  I also haven't gone through those columns for authorized names.  So that is all still to be done.

I have also just completed my first pass through the column labeled "Composer."  This column had been worked on previously.  So I sorted the spreadsheet so it was in order according to this column and started going through it again.  I created four new columns to go along with this one:

• Composer: name only (existing column)
• Composer#$b: any sort of number associated with a name
• ComposerOther$c: any sort of title (for example, Sir) associated with a name
• ComposerFuller: for the fuller version of a name (when a name is commonly used with initials and we know what the initials stand for, we often put the fuller form of the name in parenthesis in another subfield in the name field).
• ComposerDates: Birth and/or death dates associated with a name

Since this field was already checked against the authority file, I was just moving the info around.  It went pretty quickly.  It's not 100% done, but the good majority of it is done.  The remainder cells have some sort of issue associated with them: multiple names, just a last name, two or more possible authorized headings, problems with diacritics in Excel, unauthorized names, and a few other minor problems.  Those are all highlighted in different colors to let me know what the problem is.

My next step is to go through the Composer column again and work on those highlighted cells.  I expect this to take a little longer since I'll have to go into the authority file for each one and try to determine the correct form of name.  I'll also have to move the additional names to a different column.  I currently have three additional columns for "Other name."  

I'll get started on this this week, but then I'm leaving early next week to attend the Music OCLC Users Group Meeting and the Music Library Association's annual conference in Dallas, TX.  While there I'll probably take the opportunity to try and talk to other librarians about the cataloging and management of the recital recordings at their institutions.  I'm looking forward to the trip!

Authority Control Matters

Authority control: The procedures by which consistency of form is maintained in the headings (names, uniform titles, series titles, and subjects) used in a library catalog or file of bibliographic records through the application of an authoritative list (called an authority file) to new items as they are added to the collection. Authority control is available from commercial service providers.  (Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science,  http://www.abc-clio.com/ODLIS/odlis_A.aspx)

Authority Control is a necessary part of a library catalog.  And it sure helps with any large database.  If I ever doubted the value of authority control (I never have), working on this database would be enough to convince me of its importance.  I'll explain.

Since my last post regarding the multitude of problems I was encountering I discussed the issues with a friend who works in computers and databases and she made a number of wonderful suggestions.  She also is going to help me with an aspect of moving the database once I get it cleaned up.

Speaking of cleaning it up ... wow, what a mess!!

After discussing this with my friend, I am no longer trying to move everything from multiple lines into one line as I was doing before.  That was taking way too long!  After two weeks on this project, I had managed to combine about 60 lines into 10 records.  I have a whole new approach now.  Currently I am going down the "Name" column only.  The goal is to separate out the individual names (remain in the column) from the ensemble names (put in a new column) from other phrases that are most likely titles (another new column).

Sounds easy, right?  Mostly it is.  I have managed to get down around line 7000 of the 10,100+ line spreadsheet.  That's big progress!

It is enlightening to see how incredible inconsistent names were entered into this database.  Notice in the definition I quoted at the beginning of this post that authority control requires "consistency of form."  Obviously that wasn't a concern with this database ... ever.

Just today I found a recital that consisted of about 10 lines of data (i.e. 10 pieces performed).  The same name appeared in all 10 rows of the column, but in about three different forms, just as example:

• Last, Matthew R.
• R. Matthew Last, piano
• Last, R. Matthew

Hmmm.  So my first question: why is the person's instrument listed in some places and not others?  Second, is the initial a first initial or a middle initial?  And finally, could they not decide if the name should be listed last name-comma-first or first-last?

The order of the names is constantly changing as I go down the list.  The addition of instrument or voice part is also inconsistent.  It seems to me that there is a tendency to prefer last name-comma-first name unless there is an instrument name added on in which case it becomes first name-last name-comma- instrument/voice.  But not always.  Another issue is nicknames: sometimes they are used (Jim or Ben) and sometimes not (James or Benjamin); and it is obvious that it is the same person.  

Oh, authority control, how I miss you!

There are similar issues with ensemble names.  Some are more complete than others.  Sometimes ensembles are combined into one makeshift name, sometimes they are just listed together.

The one thing I haven't bothered with yet is lines that have two or more names or two or more ensembles.  I'm going to have to add some new columns.  I'm also not bothering with changing the names all into the same format or dealing with inconsistent punctuation.  For now, I just want to separate everything out and then I can go back through and do all those little details.  

I'm considering going on to the notes column and then coming back to the names once that is done.  Mostly because I'm expecting some duplicate info in the notes area.  That will be something to evaluate once I get done with this current column.  

Only about 3000+ lines to go!