Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Errr* (for Error*, Errata, etc.)

Grrr, typos in our library catalogs can be extremely annoying. (Er, except in the case of our little blog here, where we are actually quite delighted whenever we can discover and then erase them.) This daily exercise is in fact a rather strange admixture of pride and humility, which is perhaps precisely what makes it such an enjoyable and productive endeavor. (I often "find" a good typo by making it myself.) We found 15 typographical errors for words like errors in OhioLINK, with one exception being a song title on the Blood, Sweat & Tears CD by Ace Hood called "Errrythang" (although this appears to be a typo as well—"errythang" apparently should only have two R's), and 293 in WorldCat. Your errand today is to look for this errant spelling in your own databases and to eradicate any erroneous examples you find there. Remember: to Errr* is human, to edit is the job of a good cataloger.

("Robson & Crane in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors," courtesy of the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division.)

Carol Reid

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