day six.

Multilingual cataloging day:  Hungarian and Chinese!  Non-roman-alphabet-having languages are the worst!  I can't even recognize any of the letters.  All of the Asian language items do at least have some text in English—usually the part I need, the institution name—but the Library of Congress prefers a romanized/phonetic spelling of the native language.  Thus, NOT "Taipei Fine Arts Museum" but rather "Taibei shi li mei shu guan."  I can't help but wonder if this is productive, in terms of providing access for users...

Hours worked:  9-3pm.
Records created:  17.

day five.

"Stockholms Slott" to "Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts."  Many entries had no LC authority.  I'm starting to get more confident about how to do these.  Mostly I follow the formatting of MARC records I find through Arcade or WorldCat.  And wonder how the hell the Library of Congress decides which things become authority files.

Hours worked:  9-5pm.
Records created:  33.

day four.

Film crew madness!  They're making a movie at the museum.  I guess that happens often enough around here that no one else is weirded out by it.

Meanwhile, in cataloging land, I hit a run of hard ones today.  A series of "State University of..." files, which are inevitably complicated by name changes and subdivisions and administrative affiliations.  Then:  a bunch of Swedish museums!  Really.  It's hard enough making sense of the LC authorities in ENGLISH.  It seems like being a cataloger might require knowing everything about everything, and in every language.

Hours worked:  9-5pm.
Records created:  31.

day three.

Suddenly starting to doubt myself.  I recognize that self-doubt is kind of a general problem of mine, and that since this is an internship it is SUPPOSED to be educational, but I have to ask Beth so many questions!  I can't help but feel like it's really annoying.  The oddness of her personality is certainly a factor...it is quite common for her to blink at you and simply not respond to pleasantries like, "how are you?" or "good morning." 

But added to this is a valid level of worry, I believe.  This institution is much more established and hierarchical than I am accustomed to, whereas I have always been free to establish my own routines in the past, and essentially be my own boss.  So I don't want to overstep the boundaries here, but I also want to show initiative...

Hours worked: 9-5pm.
Records created:  31.