Cataloging, Part 2

Chapter Two made total sense: where to find information for the bibliographic record if it doesn't come with the materials. The Library of Congress has some great tools that I'm sure I'll use (although it doesn't seem as school friendly). The reference to CLEVNET made me happy--all the libraries near me in Stow, OH used CLEVNET.

And then, on to Chapter Three. At this point, my reading rate got super slow, just like we always tell the kids at school it does when we don't understand something (when to skim and scan, when to slow down and read closely). I also produced pages and pages and pages of notes. I always take a lot of notes; it helps me learn. But I've noticed a negative correlation between how much I understand and how many pages of notes I take.

Anyway, on to the content. As soon as the authors started talking about tags, I got completely confused. I understood all the information that you'd need to have on a bibliographic record, but it seemed so bizarre to me that you had to have all this code for each line. It just seems like the $a and the other $ codes and the tag numbers could be simplified so much. Why not just a numbered list? I'm sure there's a good reason, like it wouldn't contain enough spots. I understood the concept of leaders, directories, variable fields, etc. as they were explained, but it was hard to imagine that it all had to be so complicated! And this was just the first application chapter!