Week 2

First ETD down, many more to go!

This week I jumped into updating bibliographic records, name authority records, and Wikidata items. I left my meeting with Cate last week with a bibliographic save file and a started Wikidata item for the author of the ETD. With that, I was on my own until my meeting with her early this week. On my own, I continued editing the Wikidata item we had created for this author and also created a name authority record for him. It had been a while since I created an authority record, but I had examples to go off of from already completed education ETD work, so I was able to get a good deal done and wrote down all of the questions I had when I ran into them.

I also worked on subject analysis, which involved reading the abstract of the thesis as well as doing some skimming, especially of the discussion and conclusion portion. With this, I dove into LCSH using OCLC Connexion’s browse feature as well as ClassWeb. I’ve had different catalogers say they prefer using one or the other, but so far I’ve found it helpful to use both, as well as looking at the files available on LC’s Linked Data Service. For this specific record, I came up with three potential subject headings which I brought to my next meeting.

At my meeting with Cate, we reviewed the edits I had made to our Wikidata item along with the questions I had (does citing the OCLC number mean we’re citing the record or the resource? What about the ResearchWorks page? How do we include a middle name? What about his additional academic degrees?). We then went over the name authority record I had created. I had questions about certain fields, punctuation, and terms I had selected but was not super confident about. We updated the record together and saved it, and then we were able to link the Wikidata item to the NAR, creating linked data!

Finally, we took a look at the subject headings I had selected and with Cate’s help we chose the better options out of my list. I was sent off with some updates to make to the Wikidata item and bibliographic record, and with the go ahead to select another ETD to work on, which is what I have been doing since!

I now have another bibliographic record, name authority record, and wikidata item (and lots of questions) ready for Cate’s review. I feel like there’s a lot more I can do with this one. For example, there appears to be two Wikidata items for the faculty supervisor of this thesis, and I am almost positive that they refer to the same individual, so I may be learning how to merge or equate these items, and then I will be able to add additional information about the person!

Hopefully as I get the hang of things I will be able to speed up a bit, but for now I am taking my time because I want to be sure to absorb everything I am learning and take the care and concentration necessary to produce high quality, thoughtfully done records.