Think I'm persnickity about spelling?

[muckefuck]

My promise to my readers: I will continue to avoid that "Grab the nearest book to you..." meme, if for no other reason than that determing the nearest book to me when I'm at work is not a trivial task.

Earlier today, the Chef de Reference showed me the list of titles called up by a keyword search on "propoganda" and asked what I could do about them. She's expressed interest in the back office before, so I felt comfortable getting technical. I explained to her that, since the Title field is a descriptive one, I couldn't correct a misspelling in it unless I was absolutely sure that it was an input error. If the spelling on the book was "propoganda", I'd have to retain it and add another, searchable field with the correct spelling. She responded "That's the most anal thing I've ever heard!"

Welcome to the world of bibliographic cataloging!

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I am shivering with delight, remembering my days in serials cataloging.

(I have the same trouble with the book meme.)

[d3l1r1um.livejournal.com]

The process makes perfect sense to me. If it's misspelled, catalog under the misspelled title, plus add the correct spelling as a keyword. What's so anal about that?

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

Not so persnickety as all that, I see.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Damn, he beat me to it.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

We'll be sure to point this out the next time he bitches about "Gandhi". :: giggle ::

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I came this close to looking up persnickety because I wasn't 100% how it was "correctly" spelled, but I figured it's a humourous, old-timey word so there's probably acceptable variation. Apparently, I was wrong. (Google sez: 23,800 to 5,260.) So I took some lumps, fair is fair. But if I keep hearing it about it, then consider all your posts fair game for Merciless Pedantry.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry hun, I'm just givin' you hell.

(HUG)