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Zoot Biblio Capability
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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Apr 9, 2007 at 12:42 AM
I have just read the most incredible post over at te Zoot Yahoo group under the following subject: “[ZootForum] Newby question: Bibliographic database”
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Here is the post, used without permission, but much appreciation for what the writer has shared:
Awhile back, I posted a method I used to catalog my own library in Zoot and
it doesn’t involve setting up any special fields.
I go to the Library of Congress website (http://loc.gov
), click on “Library Catalogs” and then “Basic Search.” Once the search
window is open, you can search on the ISBN, the LCCN, the title, the author,
or a key word to find the entry for the book you have.
When the book’s page comes up, click on the “Full Record” tab, and then
highlight everything from the title down to as far as you want to go. Then
click on the Zooter and transfer the highlighted matter to a Zoot database.
You will end up with an entry the has the Title of the book as the subject
and the body of the item will look like the following (using my own book as
an example):
Planning the low-budget film / Robert Latham Brown.
LC Control No.: 2005930390
Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
Personal Name: Brown, Robert Latham, 1947-
Main Title: Planning the low-budget film / Robert Latham Brown.
Edition Information: 1st ed.
Published/Created: Los Angeles : Chalk Hill Books, c2006.
Description: xvi, 414, [1] p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
ISBN: 9780976817802 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Notes: Includes reproduction of the production board for The anarchist
cookbook (23 x 57 cm. folded to 23 x 15 cm.), tipped onto p. [3] of cover.
Filmography: p. [415].
Includes bibliographical references (p. [399]) and index.
Subjects: Motion pictures—Production and direction.
Low budget motion pictures.
LC Classification: PN1995.9.P7 B66 2006
Dewey Class No.: 791.43/3 22
Quality Code: pcc
When you have a database of these types of items, you can search on anything
contained in the item. For example, if I were to search in my LibCat.zot
database on “production board”, the above entry would be found. In addition,
all of those categories that the LOC uses such as “Subjects” or “ISBN”
become Zoot delimited fields because of the colon after them. It takes about
5 seconds per book.
I hope you find this useful
Robert Brown
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My question is whether there are advantages to using this approach, and only using a citation formatter at the actual time of writing and inserting references?
It seems to me that this approach, combined with James Fallows (national correspondent of The Atlantic Monthly) Zoot article organizer (in the group’s file section, could be very, very powerful, and perhaps more flexible than IdeaMason, which I am having some trouble getting used to.
Daly