typooftheday

Conslusion

2007-03-30T00:37:00.000-07:00

For conclusion - that word was suggested because this is the conclusion of posts at this address. Starting Monday, we will be at http://librarytypos.blogspot.com in our new and improved blog "Typo of the day for librarians." This site will remain as an archive for our past work, and you can always check http://libtypos.pbwiki.com for an alphabetical list of our highlighted typos. On behalf of all of us on the Libtypos team, thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us next week in our new home. This is Terry Ballard - signing off.

Disaster

2007-03-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

Having a catalog full of errors can be a disaster, which is the word people were thinking of when they added this one. There are more than 200,000 of these in Google, and a substantial 33 in Worldcat. As we have mentioned before, the location of the mistake can be important. A typo in a notes field is mostly annoying, but when the first word of the title is a typo, that impacts access to the title. This is found in the D section of the Typographical errors in library databases page, which is the Low Probability area.

Transprotation

2007-03-27T00:26:00.000-07:00

Transportation is what they were getting at. This typo can be found on the 'D,' or low probability section of the main page at http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/typoscomplete.html
There are 21 of these showing in Worldcat this morning, but a high percentage of them are in the title - the worst kind of mistake. We find it interesting that every typo that we've seen involving inverted letters has the letters on opposite sides of the keyboard, so we are getting into issues with coordinating the two sides of the brain. As we hinted yesterday, this blog will soon be transported to a new location with a slightly new title "Typo of the day for librarians." This site will be left as an archive for the work that we've done for the past 200th of a century.

Announcemnt

2007-03-26T00:26:00.000-07:00

This typo for announcement was found on the 'E,' or very low probability section of our compilation of typographical errors in online catalogs, but be alert anyway. There were 14 hits for it this morning in Worldcat, unlike its neighbor on the D list "Announcemet" which only had one. The word may have caught our attention because of a possible impending announcement about the future of this blog. Stay tuned.

Competion

2007-03-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

This one jumped out at us this morning because, at first glance, it looks correct. It can be found on the B list, or high probability errors that might be found in an online catalog. When you go to correct it, you will need to decide if the intended word was completion or competition. When we checked Worldcat this morning, we found that this was high probability indeed with nearly 150 hits. In looking over the first screen, it appears that "Competition" was the likely intended target in most of these.

Eighteeth

2007-03-09T00:34:00.000-08:00

Was it intended to be eighteenth or eightieth? Once again, you have to go into your individual records and find out. This is on the high probability section of the list that we keep. Tomorrow will be this last posting at this address. Come Monday, we will be at our new home at:
http://librarytypos.blogspot.com/ . Be assured that this is not some April Fool's prank - we really had to move due to a computer mixup. How ironic.

Special Bonus Typo

2006-10-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

Normally, we take the weekend off, but we ran across this on the wacky news segment of Keith Olbermann's Countdown. He claimed that this might be the typo of the century, and we can only imagine the impact it had. Reuters recently had to retract a story about the lives of bees, and somebody made an unfortunate substitution for the term "Queen Bee," and provided the following information:

'Queen Elizabeth has 10 times the lifespan of workers and lays up to 2,000 eggs a day.'

Caldecot & Newberry

2006-10-27T00:15:00.000-07:00

From "More Typos," two more words that are typos in context:

Caldecot
Newberry

Often typos for Caldecott and Newbery medal winners.

Once again, be sure your automation software searches the field you are using to note this award.

An expensive typo!

2006-10-26T00:14:00.000-07:00

Today's entry from " More Typos" made the "Bizarre News" and "Peculiar Postings" columns of the major news services recently. If you do a Google search for "+Ottawa-County +Michigan +public +ballot", you'll get over 15,000 hits. It seems proofreaders didn't catch the "L" that had been left out of "public" in the text of one controversial measure on the ballots for the Ottawa County, Mich., Nov. 7, 2006 election. The ballots were reprinted at a price of $40,000.

In library catalogs, watch out for unexpectedly risque versions of "public health", "public hygiene", and "public relations", as well as problems with "publications" and "publicity". Don't do a blanket search-and-replace, though, or you're likely to create some problems, particularly in your medical records.

"L" for "one"

2006-10-25T00:12:00.000-07:00

L7+

A "can of worms" typo. Any date in the last millennium could have been keyed in using the lower case "L," rather than the "one" key.

Before you run these searches, be sure that your automation software will search the copyright date.

This problem may show up in contents and summary notes, also. And that's where you're most likely to find "L066" or "L492."

I hope catalogers didn't make many of these mistakes by the 80's and 90's!

Searches can be truncated to:

L0+ ("ell" "zero" and truncation symbol)
L1+ ("ell" "one" and truncation symbol)
etc.

If that brings back an overwhelming number of hits, narrow it down like this:

L0+
etc.
L91+
L92+
L93+
L94+
etc.

If you're interested in searching for "L" inside a date, you might be able to find them by searching 0L, 1L, 2L, 3L, etc. Your mileage will vary with your automation software and your ability to customize reports.

This searching can be very tedious. I have let volunteers do the searching, listing the typos and giving the list to me. Then I make the corrections. Whether or not that works out depends on the abilities of the volunteers. Because SIRSI uses the dollar sign for truncation, I'm very careful about explaining truncation.

Count on many false hits. Again, whether or not a volunteer can spot the false hits depends on his or her training and education.

Millenium/Millennium

2006-10-23T00:06:00.000-07:00

The last typo of the week is everday for everyday. Newly identified, it will be added to the Highest Probability list in the next compilation. One of those insidious little errors that is so easy to overlook, everday can even creep into titles. Like the Good Housekeeping everday cookbook, which resided in this defender's catalog until this morning.

This word has been spelled with just one "n" many times, historically and during the recent Y2K spate of publishing. I've even seen a current (but less than authoritative) dictionary spell it with one"n" with no explanation and no "millennium."

So, this is one of the times when you really want to consult the work before you change the spelling.