Week 5

I can’t believe that I’m nearly halfway done with this directed fieldwork experience. I feel like I’ve learned a lot but there’s still so much more to do. After NACO training last week, this week I jumped right back into subject analysis and entity management for ETDs. I also got to attend a drop-in cataloging session with the Principal Cataloger at UW Libraries.

I’ve become much more comfortable and confident finding subject headings based on the dissertation I am looking at, but I still run into areas where I get confused. One such area is the subdivision –research, which I have learned is used when the resource is looking at research done on a topic, not when the resource itself is research on a topic. This means that an analysis of previous research done on a topic could accurately use –research, but a case study would not use this, it may use –case studies instead.

With entity description and management, I have been doing a lot of research into graduates from the the UW College of Education Ph.D. program. Some people are easy to track down online, especially if they were then hired by UW and now have a nice, neat faculty page in the directory. However, others barely exist online - no social media, no LinkedIn page, nothing. These people are harder to describe in Wikidata and in a name authority record (if necessary for distinction), but I enjoy the research process that goes into it.