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The American Antiquarian Society hosts informal webinars on various topics.
Help us schedule our next series of webinars by letting us know of your areas of interest.
Proposed topics include searching the catalog, book history, visual culture, and K-12 resources and instruction.
Searching the Catalog Webinars
Amy Tims, AAS Cataloging Initiatives Librarian, is hosting the following webinars on various aspects of searching and navigating AAS’s catalog (http://catalog.mwa.org/).
- Introduction to MARC
Wednesday, August 5, at 3 pm EDT - FULL
Each session is standalone and includes time for an open Q & A.
The webinars are held on Zoom.
Upon signing up, participants are emailed a link to the Zoom meeting and a link to a reference sheet that they can download, take notes on, and print out at their convenience.
Searching the AAS Catalog: Introduction to MARC
Wednesday, August 5, 3:00 pm EDT
Approx. 60 minutes
Topic
The session discusses MARC, the data format underlying the catalog, and how it connects to and impacts the searches you can do in the AAS Catalog.
Questions addressed include
- Why does it matter if I choose “as a phrase” or “all of these” when keyword searching?
- What do those punctuation marks in the record mean?
- How does a cataloger see the catalog?
- What kind of information do catalogers make note of and how do they record it? (And why does this matter?)
- What information is this search actually searching? (Is it doing what I think it is?)
- What the heck is MARC?
Formally, topics include
- MAchine Readable Cataloging (MARC), a very brief history and overview
- MARC fields and subfields, the structure thereof
- MARC fields and subfields, the content thereof
- Resources catalogers use for MARC fields with formally-structured content
- AAS Catalog searches and the MARC fields they’re searching
- Specialized indexing
Handouts
AASCatalogIntroToMARCFieldsAndSearches.xlsx
AASCatalogIntroToMARCAug5Reference.pdf
AASCatalogIntroToMARCAug5SlidesPDF.pdf
AASCatalogIntroToMARCAug5SlidesPowerpoint.pptx
About Our Host
Amy Tims, Cataloging Initiatives Librarian. Amy joined the AAS staff in 2012 as a cataloger for the North American Imprints Program (NAIP), and she now takes on a variety of projects to enhance access to the Society's holdings.
This session is full.
Each session is standalone and includes time for an open Q & A with an AAS staff member.
The webinars are held on Zoom.
Upon signing up, participants are emailed a link to the Zoom meeting and a link to a reference sheet that they can download, take notes on, and print out at their convenience.
Previous sessions:
- Foundations
Thursday, May 7, 2020
- North American Imprints Program, the Evans years (pre-1801)
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
- Keyword & Browse
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
- Introduction to MARC
Thursday, June 11, 2020
- Foundations
Wednesday, July 8, at 3 pm EDT
- Keyword & Browse
Wednesday, July 22, at 3 pm EDT
These webinars have been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor
