Volunteer Tutor Program: Days 2, 3 & 4

The second session (15 Oct.) was on cross-cultural communication. It was kind of review for me bringing back memories of when I taught English in university.

Although we discussed the same principles of communication, I got a whole new perspective on it and realized that the methods I used before wouldn't be useful in this situation where my prospective student has zero or very little English speaking background.

I totally missed day 3 (21 Oct.) because I was down with a terrible cold and in the process missed the activities and the opportunity to know my student. But I was back for day 4 (28 Oct.) and finally had the chance to have a look at my student's profile. So yeah, I'm looking forward giving her a call and making my first visit.

Meanwhile, our discussion for this day centered on planning our sessions with our students and preparing lesson plans. Again there was this nostalgia of years gone by and yet I was still learning something new.

Two more sessions to go and my Wednesday evenings will be back to normal again.

RDA : The Next Level of Cataloguing (Part 3)

The content of RDA is divided into two parts: Part 1 is for recording attributes of entities and Part 2 for recording relationships with entities; entities being the author, the work, publisher, expression, object, etc.

Here's the link to the Joint Steering Committe RDA page, this one for screenshots of how the RDA structure looks like, and this one describing the structure, content and development process of RDA.

So with the implementation of RDA in 2010, Filipino cataloguers are in for a lot of training (look forward to that as I will next year). Library and information science teachers will also be busy because the LIS curriculum will need to be revised to include RDA, so yes they also need to attend the training sessions. And not to mention a lot of echo sessions to pass on the learning. Do I hear the coffers of library organizations clinking?

RDA : The Next Level of Cataloguing (Part 2)

There are a number of critical differences mentioned between RDA and AACR2 mentioned in the lecture. These are the levels of description, structure, physical format, punctuation, and terminology.

In terms of levels of description, whereas AACR2 aims for a comprehensive description RDA goes multilevel, a combination of comprehensive and analytical description.

AACR2 has specific chapters for a particular item for cataloguing while RDA has none. Policies for description are about entities and elements.

In AACR2 the GMD is presented in terms of format, e.g. sound recording, videorecording, etc., while in RDA, material description would include the carrier and type of media. For example a video CD will be displayed as [moving image: video CD], etc. We were continually assured that current records in our databases need not be edited because it will be the library system's vendor who will be responsible for making global changes in this field.

For those who take issue with the punctuation that is so strict in AACR2 will breathe will relief as punctuations are no longer integral in RDA but there will be no need to recatalogue existing records as the changes will not be significant.

In terms of terminology, headings become access points, authority control becomes access point control, and uniform title becomes preferred title.

Fewer abbreviations will be used in RDA so we'll be saying goodbye to et al and the likes. Also the hierarchy with which we describe the Bible will be changed, too.

Do remember that we won't be doing much editing to our existing records because, again, it falls upon our vendors to come up with the global changes to our databases.

RDA : The Next Level of Cataloguing (Part1)

Not to be confused with nutrition labels' "Recommended Dietary Allowance", the librarians' RDA stands for Resource Descriptor Allocators.

The first time I came across this acronym was more than a year ago and not it seems that a lot of things has happened in this area. Last week I was fortunate to have been able to attend a CAVAL-sponsored lecture on RDA and was able to make sense of it.

RDA is going to supersede AACR2, will be released sometime in 2009 and will be implemented in 2010. It is primarily web-based and based on the screenshots shown to us, the text are supported by hyperlinks. It is based on concepts from the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). A Joint Steering Committee (JSC) composed of the ALA, the Australian Committee on Cataloguing (ACoC), the British Library, the Canadian Committee on Cataloging (CCC), and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) are responsible for developing standards. The Library of Congree who used to be part of the JSC has pulled out from contributing but will support its implementation.

Some of the reasons why this new standard is being developed are:

• to simplify rules;


• to accommodate newly emerging resources previously limited in AACR2;


• to support flexible catalogues; and


• to provide more consistency in description independent of any particular syntax or structure.

From my understanding, RDA is a totally new paradign in cataloguing because of the "entity relationship model" it is based on. In FRBR, there are three groups of entities. Group 1 is made up of the creative work (idea), the form in which the work is expressed (text, audio, video, etc.), the manifestation of the work (book, talking book, painting, etc.), and a sample of that manifestation or simply the number of copies fo the work. Group 2 entities are responsible for creating the work hence composed of persons and corporate bodies and Group 3 entities are those that involve subjects, place or event.

Volunteer Tutor Program: Day 1

Three weeks ago while waiting for my sons during their swimming training, my husband and I were browsing through the posters in the leisure centre's bulletin board. I came upon an AMES announcement for volunteer tutors to help newly arrived migrants settle in Australia by helping them learn the English language. I pointed out the ad to my husband and without saying anything to him he told me to go ahead and apply. So I made the necessary email, got an appointment for an interview, passed it and the police check, confirmed my attendance to the training sessions and I was on my way to becoming a volunteer tutor.

Last night was the first of a 6-day once-a-week two-and-a-half hour sessions and it was fun and educational. Initially, I was focused on the training itself totally forgetting that there were going to be other voluteers attending. It was only when the other volunteers started arriving (I was there first arriving 30 minutes early) that I realized that yes, it was a great opportunity for me to meet people and make friends with them, people who more or less share the same values I have (otherwise they wouldn't be volunteering would they).

Since it was the introductory session, there was the customary getting-to-know-you activity where we introduced ourselves to another volunteer and had a quick chat about ourselves and why we volunteered. So it was rather uplifting that a lot of us wanted to give back to the community and help others. FYI, there was a number of us who are migrants ourselves.

And because we will be paired with adult migrants, we were given background info on adult as learners and were made to do an activity that focused on ourselves as adult learners. It was truly an insightful activity. Credit goes to Sarah, our lead facilitator who was so good at waht she did.

At the end of the session, I've made a couple of acquaintances and am certainly looking forward to eventually building a relationship with them over the next few weeks. Margaret, whom I met on my way out of the room best summed up the session: "I was suprised at the number of volunteers who showed up. It kind of gives hope to humanity." Couldn't have said it any better.