I wanted a quick and easy way that I could transform LCSH Monthly Approved Lists into a more structured list of what headings have been changed. So I created a reusable set of OpenRefine operations to do just that.

Hello! I'm back with another edition of "Elliot writes out the process for how I did something, mostly for myself, but puts on the internet in case anyone else finds it useful." This one started out as one thing (counting percentages of MARC records in a set that contain a given field) and morphed into another thing, as well (use OpenRefine to add labels to LCC class numbers).

I’ve been thinking about subject headings a lot lately (as one does), and it inspired me to return to some work that I had started doing while I was at TDL, thinking about subject heading uniqueness in DPLA.

It's been a minute since I wrote anything on this here blog, but I was working through a process today that I wanted to document and thought that other folks might be interested in.

This week, a group of coworkers and I were discussing whether there is an LCSH for "Cuban diaspora" (there is not), and whether there should be (we think that might be useful, and might eventually want to work on a proposal). There are a handful of other LCSH terms for "[blank] diaspora", and I wanted to be able to view them all at once, rather than paging through them individually in ClassWeb. That way I could compare the See From and See Also From references, the public notes, and the works cataloged, to get a sense of what the format and structure of this group of subject headings is. So basically, what I wanted to do was to download a batch of LCSH records in a format that I could open in OpenRefine to examine.

I’ve been feeling curious about the number of rules in RDA that deal specifically and explicitly with religion.  Because I’m generally interested in the development and history of cataloging standards, the number of religion-specific rules seems notable.  Why is religion given so much attention, and are there historical reasons for that? I’m not trying to be critical of the frequency with which religion appears in RDA - in some ways, I think it makes perfect sense - but I do find it kind of intriguing.

'People taking a gondola ride along the Coral Gables Waterway. Coral Gables, Florida' "Recognizing the importance of having a luxury resort hotel in the city, George Merrick turned to John McEntee Bowman, President o...'https://t.co/27MqoSFJtU

— SSDNbot☀🌴🐊 (@SSDNbot) June 16, 2018