Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 Please, Sir, may we have a fork? I can only imagine that the Gay 
Cataloguing Mafia is with us wee folk.


Cheers,
Brooke




- Original Message -
> From: Galen Charlton 
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 10:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Eric Hellman  wrote:
>>  I also think that Code4Lib is potentially more powerful than congress
>>  in this situation. LC says that "all of the revisions will appear on a
>>  Tentative List and be approved no earlier than May 2016; the
>>  revision of existing bibliographic records will commence shortly
>>  thereafter." It seems unlikely that Congress can act before this
>>  happens. We could then implement systems that effect this
>>  subject heading deprecation without regard to Rep. Diane Black
>>  and Congress. We can scrub the MARC records. We can alter the
>>  cataloguing interfaces. We could tweak the cataloguing standard.
> 
> Or to put it another way, "we" could make a (hopefully friendly) fork
> of LCSH if it gets compromised via an act of law.
> 
> Such a fork could provide benefits going far beyond protesting
> Congressional interference in LCSH:
> 
> * If appropriate tools for collaboration are built, it could allow
> updates to be made faster than what the current SACO process permits,
> while still benefiting from the careful work of LC subject experts.
> * It could provide infrastructure for easily creating additional forks
> of the vocabulary, for cases where LCSH is a decent starting point but
> needs refinement for a particular collection of things to be
> described.
> 
> However, I put "we" in quotes because such an undertaking could not
> succeed simply by throwing code at the problem. There are many
> Code4Lib folks who could munge authority records, build tools for
> collaborative thesaurus maintenance, stand up SPARQL endpoints and
> feeds of headings changes and so forth — but unless that fork provides
> infrastructure that catalogers and metadataists /want/ to use and has
> some guarantee of sticking around, the end result would be nothing
> more than fodder for a C4L Journal article or two.
> 
> 
>>  What else would we need?
> 
> Involvement of folks who might use and contribute to such a fork from
> the get-go, and early thought to how such a fork can be sustained. I
> think we already have the technology, for the most part; the question
> is whether we have the people.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Galen
> -- 
> Galen Charlton
> Infrastructure and Added Services Manager
> Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your Library
> email:  g...@esilibrary.com
> direct: +1 770-709-5581
> cell:   +1 404-984-4366
> skype:  gmcharlt
> web:http://www.esilibrary.com/
> Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
> http://evergreen-ils.org
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

[Eric Hellman]

Yes, thank you. The "we" has to include cataloguing experts and the catloguing 
community of course. A fair amount of those people are already part of the 
Cod4Lib community.

> On Apr 18, 2016, at 10:59 AM, Galen Charlton  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Eric Hellman  wrote:
>> I also think that Code4Lib is potentially more powerful than congress
>> in this situation. LC says that "all of the revisions will appear on a
>> Tentative List and be approved no earlier than May 2016; the
>> revision of existing bibliographic records will commence shortly
>> thereafter." It seems unlikely that Congress can act before this
>> happens. We could then implement systems that effect this
>> subject heading deprecation without regard to Rep. Diane Black
>> and Congress. We can scrub the MARC records. We can alter the
>> cataloguing interfaces. We could tweak the cataloguing standard.
> 
> Or to put it another way, "we" could make a (hopefully friendly) fork
> of LCSH if it gets compromised via an act of law.
> 
> Such a fork could provide benefits going far beyond protesting
> Congressional interference in LCSH:
> 
> * If appropriate tools for collaboration are built, it could allow
> updates to be made faster than what the current SACO process permits,
> while still benefiting from the careful work of LC subject experts.
> * It could provide infrastructure for easily creating additional forks
> of the vocabulary, for cases where LCSH is a decent starting point but
> needs refinement for a particular collection of things to be
> described.
> 
> However, I put "we" in quotes because such an undertaking could not
> succeed simply by throwing code at the problem. There are many
> Code4Lib folks who could munge authority records, build tools for
> collaborative thesaurus maintenance, stand up SPARQL endpoints and
> feeds of headings changes and so forth — but unless that fork provides
> infrastructure that catalogers and metadataists /want/ to use and has
> some guarantee of sticking around, the end result would be nothing
> more than fodder for a C4L Journal article or two.
> 
>> What else would we need?
> 
> Involvement of folks who might use and contribute to such a fork from
> the get-go, and early thought to how such a fork can be sustained. I
> think we already have the technology, for the most part; the question
> is whether we have the people.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Galen
> --
> Galen Charlton
> Infrastructure and Added Services Manager
> Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your Library
> email:  g...@esilibrary.com
> direct: +1 770-709-5581
> cell:   +1 404-984-4366
> skype:  gmcharlt
> web:http://www.esilibrary.com/
> Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
> http://evergreen-ils.org



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Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

[Harper, Cynthia]

Actually - now that I think of it, maybe this is the controversy we need to get 
our catalogs and discovery engines to make better use of our cross-references, 
make them more visible and easier to use.
Cindy harper

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Galen 
Charlton
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:00 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Eric Hellman  wrote:
> I also think that Code4Lib is potentially more powerful than congress 
> in this situation. LC says that "all of the revisions will appear on a 
> Tentative List and be approved no earlier than May 2016; the revision 
> of existing bibliographic records will commence shortly thereafter." 
> It seems unlikely that Congress can act before this happens. We could 
> then implement systems that effect this subject heading deprecation 
> without regard to Rep. Diane Black and Congress. We can scrub the MARC 
> records. We can alter the cataloguing interfaces. We could tweak the 
> cataloguing standard.

Or to put it another way, "we" could make a (hopefully friendly) fork of LCSH 
if it gets compromised via an act of law.

Such a fork could provide benefits going far beyond protesting Congressional 
interference in LCSH:

* If appropriate tools for collaboration are built, it could allow updates to 
be made faster than what the current SACO process permits, while still 
benefiting from the careful work of LC subject experts.
* It could provide infrastructure for easily creating additional forks of the 
vocabulary, for cases where LCSH is a decent starting point but needs 
refinement for a particular collection of things to be described.

However, I put "we" in quotes because such an undertaking could not succeed 
simply by throwing code at the problem. There are many Code4Lib folks who could 
munge authority records, build tools for collaborative thesaurus maintenance, 
stand up SPARQL endpoints and feeds of headings changes and so forth — but 
unless that fork provides infrastructure that catalogers and metadataists 
/want/ to use and has some guarantee of sticking around, the end result would 
be nothing more than fodder for a C4L Journal article or two.

> What else would we need?

Involvement of folks who might use and contribute to such a fork from the 
get-go, and early thought to how such a fork can be sustained. I think we 
already have the technology, for the most part; the question is whether we have 
the people.

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
Infrastructure and Added Services Manager Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your 
Library
email:  g...@esilibrary.com
direct: +1 770-709-5581
cell:   +1 404-984-4366
skype:  gmcharlt
web:http://www.esilibrary.com/
Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org & 
http://evergreen-ils.org

Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

[Harper, Cynthia]

Images of a bi-lingual catalog - Republicanese and Democratese.

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Galen 
Charlton
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:00 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Eric Hellman  wrote:
> I also think that Code4Lib is potentially more powerful than congress 
> in this situation. LC says that "all of the revisions will appear on a 
> Tentative List and be approved no earlier than May 2016; the revision 
> of existing bibliographic records will commence shortly thereafter." 
> It seems unlikely that Congress can act before this happens. We could 
> then implement systems that effect this subject heading deprecation 
> without regard to Rep. Diane Black and Congress. We can scrub the MARC 
> records. We can alter the cataloguing interfaces. We could tweak the 
> cataloguing standard.

Or to put it another way, "we" could make a (hopefully friendly) fork of LCSH 
if it gets compromised via an act of law.

Such a fork could provide benefits going far beyond protesting Congressional 
interference in LCSH:

* If appropriate tools for collaboration are built, it could allow updates to 
be made faster than what the current SACO process permits, while still 
benefiting from the careful work of LC subject experts.
* It could provide infrastructure for easily creating additional forks of the 
vocabulary, for cases where LCSH is a decent starting point but needs 
refinement for a particular collection of things to be described.

However, I put "we" in quotes because such an undertaking could not succeed 
simply by throwing code at the problem. There are many Code4Lib folks who could 
munge authority records, build tools for collaborative thesaurus maintenance, 
stand up SPARQL endpoints and feeds of headings changes and so forth — but 
unless that fork provides infrastructure that catalogers and metadataists 
/want/ to use and has some guarantee of sticking around, the end result would 
be nothing more than fodder for a C4L Journal article or two.

> What else would we need?

Involvement of folks who might use and contribute to such a fork from the 
get-go, and early thought to how such a fork can be sustained. I think we 
already have the technology, for the most part; the question is whether we have 
the people.

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
Infrastructure and Added Services Manager Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your 
Library
email:  g...@esilibrary.com
direct: +1 770-709-5581
cell:   +1 404-984-4366
skype:  gmcharlt
web:http://www.esilibrary.com/
Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org & 
http://evergreen-ils.org

Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Eric Hellman  wrote:
> I also think that Code4Lib is potentially more powerful than congress
> in this situation. LC says that "all of the revisions will appear on a
> Tentative List and be approved no earlier than May 2016; the
> revision of existing bibliographic records will commence shortly
> thereafter." It seems unlikely that Congress can act before this
> happens. We could then implement systems that effect this
> subject heading deprecation without regard to Rep. Diane Black
> and Congress. We can scrub the MARC records. We can alter the
> cataloguing interfaces. We could tweak the cataloguing standard.

Or to put it another way, "we" could make a (hopefully friendly) fork
of LCSH if it gets compromised via an act of law.

Such a fork could provide benefits going far beyond protesting
Congressional interference in LCSH:

* If appropriate tools for collaboration are built, it could allow
updates to be made faster than what the current SACO process permits,
while still benefiting from the careful work of LC subject experts.
* It could provide infrastructure for easily creating additional forks
of the vocabulary, for cases where LCSH is a decent starting point but
needs refinement for a particular collection of things to be
described.

However, I put "we" in quotes because such an undertaking could not
succeed simply by throwing code at the problem. There are many
Code4Lib folks who could munge authority records, build tools for
collaborative thesaurus maintenance, stand up SPARQL endpoints and
feeds of headings changes and so forth — but unless that fork provides
infrastructure that catalogers and metadataists /want/ to use and has
some guarantee of sticking around, the end result would be nothing
more than fodder for a C4L Journal article or two.

> What else would we need?

Involvement of folks who might use and contribute to such a fork from
the get-go, and early thought to how such a fork can be sustained. I
think we already have the technology, for the most part; the question
is whether we have the people.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Infrastructure and Added Services Manager
Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your Library
email:  g...@esilibrary.com
direct: +1 770-709-5581
cell:   +1 404-984-4366
skype:  gmcharlt
web:http://www.esilibrary.com/
Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
http://evergreen-ils.org

[CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

[Eric Hellman]

As you've probably heard, LC has decided to deprecate "Illegal Aliens" as a 
subject heading. https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/illegal-aliens-decision.pdf 


In a troubling development, Rep. Diane Black has introduced legislation to 
prevent this from occurring.
There's a nice article in DailyKos. describing the situation: 
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/13/1514702/-Now-they-re-coming-after-the-librarians
 


Based on conversations with some library folks in Washington, I think this 
legislation has a chance of becoming law. At the very least, it could 
politicize the nomination of Dr. Carla Hayden.

I also think that Code4Lib is potentially more powerful than congress in this 
situation. LC says that "all of the revisions will appear on a Tentative List 
and be approved no earlier than May 2016; the revision of existing 
bibliographic records will commence shortly thereafter." It seems unlikely that 
Congress can act before this happens. We could then implement systems that 
effect this subject heading deprecation without regard to Rep. Diane Black and 
Congress. We can scrub the MARC records. We can alter the cataloguing 
interfaces. We could tweak the cataloguing standard.

Or at least I think we can. Code4Lib knows better than I do. What else would we 
need? What might be hard for us to do if LC is forbidden to help us, officially?

"Illegal Aliens" appears a total of 91 times on 15 pages of the most recently 
published edition of the LC headings (8,179 pages total 
https://unglue.it/work/140214/  )

Eric Hellman
President, Free Ebook Foundation
Founder, Unglue.it https://unglue.it/
https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/
twitter: @gluejar



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