Zines, or noncommercial magazines, are increasingly collected by libraries as primary source documents relating to particular communities. Because of variuus factors such as frequent title changes, inconsistent publishing schedules, and pseudonomous creators, zines can be particularly challenging to properly catalog. This session will cover many common challenges relating to cataloging zines and offer solutions to these problems.

If you're looking to save time and automate time-consuming processes, Python can help! Python is a programming language that can help make your life easier by automating workflows and metadata management processes. This course will cover how to get started with Python, how to use the basics of the language to write simple scripts, and how to use the the PyMARC library of code to automate library-specific tasks.

* This course is eligible for micro-credentialing (optional) - What is micro-credentialing?

Authority control is the process of ensuring that all access points in a library catalog are used consistently, and it is a great help to patrons and library staff in identifying and locating library material. But it also can be overwhelming for librarians who are not familiar with it. This session covers the principles of authority control and the value that it brings to library users.

Library of Congress Classification (LC), a classification system used by many academic and special libraries, can be perplexing even to seasoned cataloging staff. This course will provide an overview of the structure of the Library of Congress Classification system and offer helpful resources for developing comfort and expertise with the system.

Do you deal with library data or metadata? Perhaps in your library catalog records, digital repository metadata, or even spreadsheets? As the amount of data we deal with grows, so do the errors and inconsistencies in that data, resulting in the manual correction of these issues becoming even more time consuming. To help you with your data clean-up needs, this course will review OpenRefine, the software which allows users to quickly view, identify inconsistencies in, and enhance a variety of data.

Does a book on houseplants go into gardening (635.9), botany (581.6), or interior decorating (747)? Librarians responsible for cataloging and classifying often encounter and similar dilemmas when processing new materials. Whether new to cataloging or just in need of a refresher, this review of Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) basics will help catalogers feel more comfortable using the classification scheme.

Do you want to do more with your MARC records? Are you looking for an easy way to add or delete fields, split a batch of records into several groups, or extract particular fields to create a report? This course will walk you through how to do all of these tasks and more, starting with the basics of how to download and install the free MarcEdit software.

* This course is eligible for micro-credentialing (optional) - What is micro-credentialing?

Special metadata projects often require specialized vocabularies beyond the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Many libraries are now supplementing their MARC records with terms from other thesauri. This course covers taxonomy design and development of controlled vocabularies. Topics include types of controlled vocabularies, taxonomy planning, and design, structure and relationships in a taxonomy, and taxonomy management and maintenance.

MarcEdit and OpenRefine are two powerful tools to help handle metadata clean-up issues. Detect misspellings and inaccuracies in your data and remedy them with OpenRefine. Quickly update large quantities of MARC records with MarcEdit. Learn to harness their power to work smarter, not harder.

Library collections contain many types of video formats, from Blu-Ray discs to streaming videos. Using the Resource Description and Access (RDA) instructions relevant to cataloging tangible and digital video recordings, gain proficiency with descriptive elements, choice of preferred source of information, access points, and relationship elements for video content.