Day 8

Thursday, June 7th 9am-8pm

Today I spent my first hour or so getting organized and continuing to create item records based on the template I had created. Following this, I met with Nancy Eckerman and Elaine Skopelja to discuss subject headings, geographical headings and name authorities.

Elaine provided me with an Excel file containing PHIN subject headings (medical terms, chemicals, diseases, etc.) to be used in the item records. As for names we are using name authority records when possible. However since most individuals will not have name authority files, our local standard will be to use the names as they appear in the bulletins. We are also having difficulties with geographical headings. The records will need to include one or more of the following: state, region, county, township, or city. The LC standard is more complex than we would like to use for web searching purposes and is also not entirely consistent. Nancy is going to continue looking into this issue, though we may be creating our own local authorities.

My job for the moment is to insert appropriate subject headings into the records I have already created. Along with that I will be creating our local authority file. Next week I will be meeting with Nancy and Elaine again to discuss what subjects I have used and why. At that time we are hoping to have a definitive plan for geographical headings and get a more concrete idea of the number of subject headings that should be included in an item record.

I also spent some time at the end of the day researching CONTENTdm, which I am not very farmiliar with. I began at http://www.oclc.org/contentdm/ and expanded my search from there.