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How to Clean Up Book Metadata in Drupal

  1. Login at https://nnels.ca using your account information
  2. Once you login, you should see a link called Shortcuts at the top of the page
  3. Click on Summary/Subjects Editor in the drop-down menu. This will take you to a list of all our repository items (book records).
    1. You can change the search criteria to only display books that are missing any or all of: subjects, summaries, genres, literary format, and audience.
  4. Select a Record Set to work on. Refer to the Completed Records Set page.
  5. Click on the edit link (in the far right column) for a particular book in order to edit it.
  6. This will take you to the book record. The two tabs that are of most concern are Genre/Formats and Subjects/Descriptors.
  7. You want to check that there’s data in all of these fields:
    1. Genre - the terms must be separated by commas; select Genre terms from the NNELS Genre Taxonomy.
    2. Literary Format - select one from the drop-down menu
    3. Subject - use FAST headings (below); the subject terms must be separated by commas; if the term contains commas then it must be surrounded by double quotation marks
    4. Audience - select one from the drop-down menu (except "specialised", please don't use "specialised")
    5. Abstract - you can copy and paste from Amazon, WorldCat, or the publisher’s website; clear all formatting when done (highlight text and click that white eraser icon)
  8. Other fields to check data for:
    1. Click on the Basic Details tab. If you notice that the Title of a book contains weird formatting or is missing punctuation - please fix this to the correct title! Also, we prefer to use sentence case for titles.
    2. Click on the Creators/Contributors tab. If you notice that the Creator field of a book is empty - please add the author's name(s) in the Creator field in "Last name, First name" format

Assigning Genres

Select from the genre terms found on this page of the wiki.

Assigning Subject Keywords

OCLC Classify

Use OCLC Classify to help you assign subject keywords to books. Use the FAST Subject Headings.

For example, the FAST Subject Headings for The Reluctant Communist are: Manners and customs, Korea (North), "Jenkins, Charles Robert, 1940-", Military deserters, United States, Americans, Defectors, "Korean War (1950-1953)"

Assigning Data to Other Fields

For assigning missing audience, literary format, and other metadata to NNELS records, we recommend using the following resources to help you out:

  • Public library catalogues, i.e. Vancouver Public Library
  • Evergreen - you can search for a title in Evergreen and view the MARC records created by many other libraries

Fixing a Record in Drupal Step by Step

These fields are all mandatory. This is the order I do things in.

1 Basic Details

1.1 Title

This is the only entry that needs to be looked at.

  • Leave articles (the, a, an) at the front of the title. Ex: The two towers; not Two towers, the
  • Only capitalize the first word of the title and proper names.
  • Use a colon to separate any subtitle from the title (space, colon, space). Ex: The hobbit : there and back again
  • If the title has a reference to the series and it's position in the series, use "book" to identify where it falls in the series (there are a lot of ways these come from the publishers - volume, no., number, book, etc. - this isn't terribly important, but it makes things more uniform). Ex: The two towers : the lord of the rings book 2

2 Creators / Contributors

This information should already be in the record, but it needs to be looked at quickly to make sure it is actually there, and is in the right format. If the information needs to be added or if it looks wrong, some sources to find the right information are: Google, Goodreads, Worldcat, OCLC Classify, publisher's website.

2.1 Creator

This is the author, authors, or entity that created the item.

  • Each author should have his or her own field, not all in the same box.
  • The format is Last name, First name. Ex: Tolkien, J.R.R.
  • If the author uses a single name, use that. Ex: Madonna
  • If the author is a pseudonym use that. Ex: Galbraith, Robert
  • If the item is a collection of short stories, it is sufficient to put in the editor's name. Again, one line per editor.
  • Some items are created by non-human entities, like corporations. This may come up with academic printing presses or conference proceedings. Use the corporate name. Ex. University of Alberta Press
  • The OCLC website (discussed below) includes authorship - so this might clear up any confusion if their is any.

2.2 DC Contributor

This is a contributor who is not the author. If there is one, it will be included with the record. It is usually a translator.

  • The same rules that applied to Creator apply here.

3 Subjects / Descriptors

3.1 Subject

These are subject headings that will be applied to the item. Currently we use FAST subject headings and copy catalogue them from OCLC. The website is: http://classify.oclc.org/classify2/

  • Search by title. If it is a pretty generic title you may get a lot of hits (hundreds), in which case include the author's last name in your search.
  • When searching OCLC, the item may not appear if the title we have includes series information. Ex: The two towers : the lord of the rings book 2. Just search for The two towers.
  • Sometimes the subtitle won't be in OCLC, so you won't get any results. Ex: The hobbit : there and back again. If it doesn't show up, just search for The hobbit.
  • Some special characters will interfere with your OCLC search. Ex: Hit & run. If the item doesn't show up, search for Hit and run. Even when replacing the "&" with "and", the result in OCLC may actually show up as Hit & run.
  • After you find the title, click on it and scroll down to FAST Subject Headings.
  • Copy and paste each Heading into the Subject field - separate each one with a comma. Ex: Assassins, Fugitives from justice, United States
  • If the Heading contains a comma, then it must be enclosed in quotation marks. Ex: "Keller, John (Fictitious character)"
  • The Usage Count tells you how many libraries use each particular heading. Sometimes there will be a list of headings that have a Usage Count of 1 (while the others have hundreds or thousands) - if there are a lot of these 1s then they can be omitted if there are a bunch of more used ones.
  • If you can't find any Subject headings to copy and paste, try to find something similar and take one or two that fit. If the item is part of a series, you can probably take one from one of the other books.

3.2 Audience

Select the age group that the item is for - it is a drop-down menu.

  • Only use Juvenile, Adolescent, or Adult.
  • Juvenile - for children's material (about 12 and under).
  • Adolescent - for young adult material (teenagers).
  • Adult - for adult material.
  • Sometimes it isn't entirely clear which one to use - there is crossover, especially in Juvenile and Adolescent.
  • The abstract should give you an idea of who the audience is.
  • If you know authors, then they should give you an idea as well (especially children and teen authors).
  • At the bottom of the OCLC page for the item, there are links to WorldCat pages for them - these will often have useful information about audience.
  • Other sources are: Google and Goodreads. If you are desperate try the publisher's site.

3.3 Abstract

This is the item summary.

  • If the abstract is empty or isn't right, find a summary and copy and paste it in. Amazon, WorldCat, Goodreads, and the publisher's site are good places to find them.
  • After pasting in the summary, or if there is one already present, highlight the whole thing and click the Remove Format button (the icon is a white eraser between the quotation marks and the Omega symbol). This gets rid of any formatting like italics, bold, etc.

3.4 Language (Item)

This is generally fine. Items that aren't in English may have to have their language properly selected. When working with a non-English record set, if the first handful of items have the language correctly set, you can assume that the rest are ok.

4 Genre / Formats

Both of these fields needs to be set.

4.1 Literary Format

Only one category can be picked.

  • Only use Non-fiction, Fiction, Comic strip, Drama, Short story, Poetry.
  • Don't use the other formats.
  • Non-fiction and Fiction should be obvious.
  • Comic strip is for comics and graphic novels. Not for children's picture books.
  • Drama is for plays.
  • Short story is for a single short story or a collection of short stories.
  • Poetry is for poetry collections.

4.2 Genre

This field only needs one entry, but can have as many as necessary separated by a comma.

  • Here is a list of Genre terms with descriptions: LINK!!!!
  • There are terms specifically for Non-fiction, and terms specifically for Fiction.
  • Sometimes a single genre is fine, sometimes multiple genres are better. Ex: Science fiction, Apocalyptic fiction might be better than just Science fiction. The same applies to nonfiction. Ex: I would use History, Science for a history of medicine and medical procedures (in fact I did!).
  • There are genre terms that should be added to describe the form or type of the item in addition to what it's about. Ex: Fantasy fiction, Comics (Graphic works) would be a fantasy graphic novel; Music, Nonfiction comics, Biographies would be a biography about a musician or musical group told in a graphic, comic book style format.
  • There are genre terms that signify special content that should be added as needed. These are Canadian fiction, Canadian nonfiction, Canadian drama, Canadian poetry, French language materials, Indigenous materials, Juvenile fiction, Juvenile nonfiction, Young adult fiction, Young adult nonfiction.
  • Canadian genre terms are for book by Canadian authors or about Canadian subjects. Same with Indigenous materials.
  • Special genres should be added redundantly. Ex: Poetry, Canadian poetry would allow a patron to find the item using different search avenues - whether they are looking for Canadian poetry or whether they are trying to find poetry in general.

Genre tips:

  • Literary arts is used for books about books, criticism, libraries, etc. It is also for books about authors. Ex: Literary arts, Biographies would be a biography about an author.
  • For autobiographies/memoirs, use both Autobiographies and Biographies.
  • Juvenile fiction can be tough because it's usually a big combination of Humorous fiction, Magical realist fiction, Science fiction, Fantasy fiction, Detective and mystery fiction, etc. So instead of trying to pin it down, just use Juvenile fiction. This also prevents juvenile results from showing up when patrons looks for adult genre books like mystery or science fiction. Genres that should be added to Juvenile fiction should be things like Comics (Graphic works), Nonfiction comics, Picture books, Choose-your-own stories.
  • Young adult items should be treated like adult books, in that they should get full genre treatment. This is because young adult material tends to be more focused in its content, and also adults read them.
  • Picture books are specifically for children's picture books.
  • If you can't figure out the genre, or it doesn't fit any of the categories, use Literature - only for fiction.

General tips

  • Sometimes the record won't save properly when you click on Save. Click on View changes first, then hit Save.
public/nnels/cataloguing/metadata-cleanup.1547089447.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/01/09 19:04 by robert.macgregor