Great collection for my media class. A must in all libraries.

Absolute necessity for media cataloging ( )

The plot in Minnie Sears masterpiece is extremely complex, highly riveting, and surprisingly inspiring. The "list" goes on. I could not put this book down...for nearly three and a half months. It is no wonder that this book is in its 19th edition. It is sure to inspire readers for many years to come. Just when you think she has exhausted her imagination, Sears manages to add one more topic to her otherwise complete masterpiece. This is a real page turner...for the right person ( )

Here is the popular Sears List of Subject Headings in Spanish. So what? Two ideas for the use of this list. First, because of the growth of Spanish speakers subject headings in both English and Spanish could be supplied in the OPAC no matter what the language of the text is. That would require knowledge of Spanish on the part of the cataloger. However, the second idea might be more important. For students learning Spanish and/or for native speakers/readers of Spanish, use the free Web 2.0 program: Librarything.com. Ask the kids to catalog the Spanish language collection because this program is so simple. The best part about having the kids catalog items is that they can supply as many Spanish Language tags as they wish to a particular title. Sears might be quite useful in doing this, but they could also supply natural language tags. So much of the learning commons programs should be designed as collaborative rather that uni-dimensional and the students would enjoy adding materials to “their” collection. Include the foreign language teachers in this project and they might even allow their classroom collections to be entered. Would they do itn “correctly?” Probably not. Would that really matter? Not really. The important thing here is ownership of the collection and the desire to build it an manage it by the users of that sub collection. Worth a try.

The most important work of cataloging these days is in the area of subject headings since the world of digital information now predominates and it it is never arranged in classified order like books on shelves. But, what is your authority in your catalog? L.C.? Sears? A mixture? Whatever comes to mind? The current edition adds some 400 new headings and the source of your cataloging data should adopt this edition for all the new materials. Find out what editions your cataloging source uses. It is an important evaluation of that service. Should an individual school use L.C. or Sears as their authority. That is for you to decide, but if you do considerable cataloging, the new edition is a must. The new edition continues the use of UF – use for; BT – broader term; NT – narrower term and does suggest Dewey numbers for many headings. You already know if you need this edition because of the amount of cataloging you do. Highly recommended. ( )