Karen Snow
Born:
Connection to Illinois: Snow is associate professor and PhD program director in the Graduate School of Library & Information Science at Dominican University, River Forest. Biography: Karen Snow teaches cataloging, classification, and metadata courses and has written several journal articles on cataloging topics and cataloging education. Snow holds a PhD in Information Science from the University of North Texas (UNT), where she cataloged for UNT’s main library, the Rare Book Room, and the University Archives
Awards:
WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Karen++Snow
Selected Titles
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A Practical Guide to Dewey Decimal Classification ISBN: 1538127202 OCLC: 1395067824 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2024 A Practical Guide to Dewey Decimal Classification is a hands-on introduction to the world’s most frequently used classification system. The book gives a brief history of the scheme and discusses the theory behind the organization and construction of Dewey class numbers. However, I would like to go further and walk through the process of finding DDC numbers and how to build them using WebDewey, the online resource for accessing DDC. Since DDC is no longer published in print (as of June 2018), it is important that readers understand the basics of using WebDewey. End-of-chapter exercises let readers assess their learning. |
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A Practical Guide to Library of Congress Subject Headings ISBN: 1538142996 OCLC: 1227976725 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2021 Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) is used by more libraries worldwide than any other controlled vocabulary system. Yet, many librarians and paraprofessional staff do not have any formal education or training in LCSH. They find themselves having to decipher or construct LCSH strings and don’t know where to begin. Here’s a resource that uses language non-catalogers can understand and provides hands-on, user-friendly training in LCSH. Here Karen Snow transfers her popular LCSH workshops and continuing education courses to book form for those who can’t attend her courses. This book offers material on the basics of subject analysis, the importance of controlled vocabularies, and the main features and principles of LCSH. It explains and provides guidance on the application of LCSH. Library of Congress’ instruction manual for LCSH, the Subject Headings Manual, is discussed at length. Several chapters concentrate on assigning LCSH to resources of a certain focus or genre: fiction works, biographical works (or works that focus heavily on a certain person or their works), and resources that emphasize a geographic location. A separate chapter on encoding subject information in the Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) standard will be particularly useful for library staff. Most chapters contain exercises (with answers at the end of the book) that test a reader’s understanding of the chapter material and provide opportunities to practice applying LCSH and subdivisions. |