----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The next meeting of this group will be on Saturday, July 6, 8-9pm, at SHER,
Madison Suite 2.  The topic of discussion will be: "The Ideal Work Station/Area
for Cataloging Cartographic Materials."  If you can't attend and are interested
in the topic, do send me your additions to this list.
 
 
Required:
All that currently is available to catalogers in libraries now:
- - access to substantial numbers of records online (through OCLC),
- - Library of Congress Name Authority and Subject Authority Files,
- - Catalogers Desktop,
- - Library of Congress Classification Schedules (to be out sometime this year),
- - fields in order that makes cataloging easy, rather than in order that
database
structure permits;
- - and
so forth.
 
Plus the following:
a. live background map,
b. ability to locate north arrow on the item
c. ability to find distances from any one point to any other given point
d. the ADL Gazetteer for checking place names, getting correct forms, and
obtaining coordinates
e. ability quickly and easily to convert the coordinates given on maps (which
are always in degrees/minutes/seconds) to the decimal degrees required by
Alexandria
f. spell-checking
g. online digital data: use PURL (Persistent URL software) for the location of
items available over the Web.
h. training for spatial-data catalogers in image processing and geographic
information systems software, aimed toward the particular uses catalogers need.
i. multilevel description
Sheet-level/frame-level access is essential, since users request items at that
level, rather than needing to see every sheet in a series.
For sheets in any given series, or for frames in any given flight, the following
is needed:
        i. ability to scan in item: maps can easily be up to 4 feet by 5 feet,
and be very detailed, all of which makes considerable demands on a scanning.
Ideally, one would want to be able to put in digital form each of the separates
that were used for printing the map, or be able to separate out the various
layers of information after scanning, in order that users would be able to
manipulate the information in each layer.
        ii. ability to link record to other records - parent to child, host to
part, one edition to other editions, one physical format to another physical
format.
j. indexes for air-photo flights and map series: These indexes are extremely
important items; they need to be put in digital form, and if possible used both
for a user to request a given frame/sheet, and for the library to check in the
frames/sheets it has.
k. retrospective cataloging of large map and air-photo collections: Ways to do
this expeditiously would be warmly welcomed by map libraries.  For example, with
map collections, one hauls the maps to the computer terminal.  Given the
relative weights of the materials involved, it would seem more sensible to haul
the terminal to the maps.
l. legend as part of metadata
m. header as part of metadata
n. being able to generate subject headings from coordinates, and coordinates
from subject headings
o. automatic extraction of metadata
p. idea of concatenated fields in USMARC
q. ease of cataloging for the non-cataloger
 
 
 
Mary Larsgaard
chair, NOTIS/Ameritech SIG CM