OK. So I'm at school working on the bibliographies for my comprehensive/candidacy exams, cleaning them up and getting them ready for signatures. So I look up the books in the online, electronic card catalog to make sure all the capitalization is correct. (The professors are sticklers on this kind of stuff!) Well, the title are listed twice for each book. The first entry, every word of the title is capitalized. Always. The second entry, only the first word of the title is capitalized. Always. ARGH! How come they just can't capitalize the title as it is in the book? So, I have to go and physically check all the books that I can to make sure of this. Why do they have to make it so hard? Then, why do they sometimes use ALL CAPITALS for the titles? [Growl] I'll be glad when this is over and I can just read the stuff!
2 comments:
It is the old adage ... You get what you pay for ... Not you Pastor ... the data for the card catalog is probably entered by minimum wage keyboard technicians who are more at home using the texting slang prevalent today.
Prior planning and thought identify how data is to be used BEFORE the data is collected and entered is important as well.
If it is not that, it is GIGO Garbage In Garbage out. No one realizes that standardization and consistency are important when creating and entering data ... so that the users of the data can consistently find data that has been prepared for them.
Unless it is done deliberately in order that grad students have to work harder (on mundane trivial minutia) to earn their coveted degree, :)
I think your last line there is probably the truth!! :-)
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