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AJL RAS 2020 Cataloging Committee Meeting Minutes
June 25, 2020 | Zoom, 11am EDT
Old Business
1. Welcome and introductions, approve 2019 minutes
2. Implementation of OCLC merge project (Neil, Jasmin)
● This is a collaborative project between our committee and OCLC, aimed at streamlining the merging of Hebrew and Yiddish duplicate bib records on WorldCat.
● Since our start at the last AJL conference, Jasmin has gained independence. Two other catalogers are well on their way to finish as well, Sharon and Caroline
● Robert Talbott and Neil were already independent at the start.
● We encourage you to explore this project. You can do it individually or as an institution. It involves some online training and a limited period of review.
3. Non-Latin Script Affinity Group – part of PCC LD4P (Jasmin, Heidi)
New Business
1. Linked Data Hebraica/Jewish Studies (Neil) –
● Last year at the conference Neil gave a short presentation on the issues faced for a Digital Humanities project tracing medieval authors in the Crown of Aragon.
● Throughout this year we started establishing a number of authorities as items on Wikidata and linking them to VIAF and to the LC authorities.
● This is a long work in progress, but if you are interested, you can follow it at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Dhneil
● Lessons learned have helped us launch several non-Judaica-specific projects at UMD’s Special Collections and University Archives and Special Collections and the Performing Arts.
● Neil co-lead Wikidata training for a handful of traditional authority catalogers and graduate students.
● We are collaborating with the Discovery and Metadata department regarding the integration of Wikidata entities in our metadata environment.
● Finally, we are about to launch a UMD Wikidata interest group. Perhaps the RAS Cataloging committee will be interested in creating a similar structure in the near future.
2. Wikidata Judaica Project (Heidi) – Heidi discussed her Wikidata Judaica project with respect to establishing an authoritative author list.
3. Good and Welfare
(Reconstituted from memory after computer failure)