Unit 7: Catalog Record Challenges

There were two distinct challenges that I experienced in cataloging my items:

Challenge #1: Selecting the Subject Listing

This proved not to be as straight-forward as I expected, especially considering there is a wide range of possible subjects. In my situation where I found myself having to make a decision, and having to really consider what really my deposit was, was deciding the most appropriate subject. Specifically. for a couple of images I ended up deciding to choose “T Technology > TR Photography” as the subject. Technology really would not have been my first thought. Originally I started out thinking the subject that best suited the images of my children was “N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General)”. This is because such an image depending on what I may use the image for can be considered visual arts as it is an image that has a purpose to produce general feelings through the sense of seeing, the visual aspect of our senses. Ultimately I decided that the best subject was “T Technology > TR Photography” because the images will be many and not all of them will used as art, but instruments of memory and personal gratification that came through the use if technology, the digital camera which produced a digital image.

Challenge #2: Selecting the appropriate keywords

I had to ask myself if this was supposed to be something different than the text I inputted in the “abstract” field. Generally speaking, they were always the same because the words that were used depict the abstract were keyword terms that appropriately and most accurately described the image. I then decided the keywords needed to have a set of rules or guidelines, especially in the word tense and other grammatical distinctions. This is so that when that when I, or others, are attempting to search for an item the conventions will be set forth so that searches do not produce empty results as a consequences of choosing to input the wrong word choice, for example inputting a verb as or a plural instead of a noun or the single form of a word. This will increase search timing and increase system efficiency in locating and displaying the correct results.

As far as approaching the problem of consistency I believe it is important to set conventions and guidelines when inputting information in fields such as “keywords” and “abstracts” as well as “subject”. This will minimize the potential for error in search results and it will improve efficiencies and produce a well formed, balanced and predictable repository system. I mean this in the sense that if the user follows the conventions/guidelines in the text they input they can predictable results that correspond to their search terms.