Back to school! Classes didn't start for me this quarter until the first of October, because I don't have class on Monday or Tuesday. I have Thursday free as well, which is nice because it means I can spend those three days working in Issaquah. Unfortunately I pay for that luxury by having class Wednesday afternoon and evening, Friday evening, and Saturday afternoon.
LIS 531 (WF 16:30-18:20) is entitled Catalogs, Cataloging, and Classification,
and that's what it is. At the moment we're learning MARC format and descriptive cataloging. Later in the quarter we will pass to subject cataloging and then classification. We have two textbooks; one is Cataloging and Classification: An Introducation, from which some of our readings are drawn. The other is Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition, 2002 revision (abbreviated AACR2), a huge $65 loose-leaf binder (to facilitate revisions) that we must lug to class every day.
Oh, and by the way, AACR2 is only descriptive cataloging. It's fairly straightforward compared to everything else. Subject cataloging and classification require miles and miles of books on Library of Congress Subject Headings, Library of Congress Classification, Dewey Decimal Classification...
LIS 559: Digital Libraries (W 13:30-16:20) is a study of the social and technological implications of digital libraries. Our major project is to build a digital collection in cooperation with some department on campus, and that project will make us deal with the issues inherent to digital collections—access, copyright, preservation, maintenance, to name a few.
LIS 565: Materials for Children: Selection and Use (S 12:30-16:20) is the best class I could have on a Saturday afternoon. Our major assignment is to read 30 children's books and write a journal
about them. It's not quite as easy as just reading them, because the idea is for us to learn how to evaluate children's materials effectively, but it's still pretty painless. I love comparing Jeff's ethics or physics textbooks to my volumes of fairy tales: Your homework... My homework
(with a wide, smug grin).
Little Librarian says:
Wow, what a great idea for the children's materials class! We had to read a few and write specific papers on them, but it wasn't as neat as a semester-long, read-a-whole-bunch journal. Enjoy!!
My children's librarian self must tell you that I thoroughly recommend Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism by Georgia Byng. :) It's my latest favourite and I'm compelled to spread the word.
Laurabelle says:
That's the only problem with this assignment. Everyone has at least one book to recommend, and I don't know how to say no to books. :-)