When I switched my secondary assignment to Cataloging with the intended goal of working with our video game collection, I sought out opportunities for more formal education on cataloging to supplement my self study. I enrolled in the 6 week ALCTS Fundamentals of Cataloging online course which ran from April 11 until May 20. This course required weekly readings and assignments as well as a weekly hour long chat.

Course Description:

This six-week online course is a basic primer for library cataloging concepts and practices. It covers:

• principles underlying cataloging practice,
• examples illustrating the principles in practice,
• tools used in cataloging practice such as AACR2, RDA, Library of Congress Subject Headings, Library of Congress Classification, MARC, OCLC, BIBFRAME, and
• processes used by catalogers in creating bibliographic records.

Fundamentals of Cataloging (FOC) begins with a discussion of how cataloging assists users in finding resources and of the value of standardization of practice. These foundations are then given practical grounding in the work of creating bibliographic descriptions, the process of subject analysis, and summarizing content utilizing classification. Standards such as MARC bibliographic and authority formats, Library of Congress Subject Headings and Library of Congress Classification are discussed. The shift in focus from format-based cataloging to entity-relationship model cataloging is taken from the FRBR foundation to the RDA practical application, with a final look at RDF triples and BIBFRAME. In all areas, the value of standards is illustrated and discussed. There is a heavy reliance on examples from actual practice throughout the course content.

 

Certificate of Completion_Frankosky