More of a challenge than I expected...

This week, working with EPrints and the LOC subject headings, is the first time during 675 that I've encountered issues related to cataloging my collection. Now, I'd like to state up front that I've yet to take IRLS 530 (cataloging and metadata) - although it is on my schedule for spring semester. Hopefully that course will bring some clarity to the process.

Using my own taxonomy, as I did earlier in class, seemed easier for my 15 items than LOC because I could hand pick subjects and fields that I knew were related to my modest collection. LOC (or LCSH), of course, provides comprehensive subject headings which, surprisingly, can be difficult to navigate for items of a general, non-descript, nature. For instance, 3 of my items are simply pictures of books. I don't know the subject, author, or any details about their publication. I struggled with how to classify these, and eventually settled on "Fine Arts - Print Media". I'm not sure this is the best place for these items, but I gave it a shot. Problem is, were I looking for images of books, I'm not sure this is the first, or even second, place I would think to look.

I ran into a similar problem with my three sports-related pictures. I settled on a category in "Recreation", but it wasn't specific to the sport itself, which I found disappointing. I'm trying to be consistent in category selection, although I may only be consistently wrong in the choice of subject headings. That's obviously a separate issue. Say I have a collection of photos that don't neatly fit a specific subject heading, so I use my best judgement and pick one. Even if I'm consistent in using that heading, someone else with similar material may have chosen a different heading, and now our metadata doesn't match up - a problem for users and queries across repositories.

Hopefully my examples make sense. As I mentioned, cataloging is new to me, but I can already see that it's not nearly as easy as one might suppose, and will take a lot of practice and skill to apply on a consistent basis.