Classification - we can't live without it!

Reading about classification reminded me of a time when I decided to organise a month's menus for our family at a time. I decided on the recipes, drew up a table to cover the month, organised the meals so there was plenty of variety, then drew up an accompanying shopping list week by week which was sequentially organised according to the layout of the supermarket. After two months I threw it all away. We were eating like kings - gourmet meals every evening and the food bill was astronomical! I did, however, come to appreciate the classification system in the supermarket. With so many ingredients to buy each week being able to classify the ingredients on my shopping list at least helped to speed up the shopping trip. Our meals are less organised now - more a case of 'What's in the fridge to cook with?' -but at least I'm not broke! Classification? We couldn't live without it!

I felt I needed to take some time out tonight to reflect on the topic - 505 that I am doing at the moment. I handed my assignment in early as I had to go to Bangkok (a promise to my son and his girlfriend that I wanted to keep)so I have had the weekend to 'chill out', tonight I will be catching up on my sleep and tomorrow I will be launching myself into the exercises necessary for the next part of the course. RDA was really interesting, I loved reading about it and comparing it to AACR2. However, I struggled to understand the whole concept of FRAD and FRBR. Maybe when I get to work with it I will be able to come to grips with it better. Also I need to remember it takes time to assimilate all this information before you can apply it. Learning how to create subject headings using SCIS was great! I am a long way off being an independent cataloguer, but I worked really hard. I didn't worry about the hierarchy of the headings as Anne (Lecturer) said it wasn't necessary, but it was really interesting to see how subject headings could be established. I have no idea of how I will go but I was really happy with what I had done. I am learning to recognise that I can't expect myself to be an expert at everything I am learning. It is a gradual process and to be a good cataloguer will take time. However, I do feel I have established a good solid foundation on which to build. I was a bit nervous about how to reference the ETL 505 2A assignment. It wasn't like other assignments, I wasn't researching information. I did the best I could to work it out, and I really hope I have referenced it correctly. Time to go -only 5 hours sleep last night between getting home from the airport and getting up to work,so I am exhausted!