I've been reading the various posts on this topic with a degree of professional interest - and personal curiosity.
Having trained as a librarian and spent 4 years learning cataloguing (on cards no less, and then computer tagging), then going into private industry only to have almost all of the card cataloguing rendered somewhat redundant in terms of assigning subject headings, it's an interesting conundrum that's being solved in some creative ways. I use MS Access for my own personal db (but it needs some serious updating), and have a more sophisticated version for the RMLG library. It's by no means perfect for the tasks I demand of it, but it's acceptable. Since I started my own db before I became Guild librarian, I started from scratch and created something that at the time served my purpose for it, and have tweaked as I've gone along. What you create will be dictated by how sophisticated you want your file, and its purpose/s. I created my own thesaurus for my db, and have applied and refined and added to it for the RMLG library. It's comprehensive enough for our needs, and I have 2 levels of indexing. The controlled terms are from the thesaurus, and are generally standard terms in lacemaking, with a level of detail down to specific equipment and techniques. I also have an uncontrolled terms list that is for terms that might be more local in nature, names of people, and terms that I don't want to use in a regulated form. This is instead of see and see also headings (if you are old enough to remember them on the bottom of catalogue cards or in Sears Subject Heading List). My cataloguing fields are standard, and I don't specify format any more than monograph (which is a book), analytical (article in a magazine) or AV. If it's an unpaged loose leaf item, it's put in the pagination (1 vol. loose leaf). In the end, simple is better than over-engineered (although over engineered can sometimes be more fun). Cheers, Helen, Aussie in Denver, where we are still digging out from a good 3 feet of snow from 2 storms. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
