“A Trained Librarian is a Powerful Search Engine with a Heart” Quote

A lovely example of Authority Work to disambiguate authors with the same name: Sarah McIntyre. One of them is wearing a funky hat and glasses. Quite fitting for the super-librarian role!

I found a slogan with a good vibe and a decent message. It came from a list of quotes but what’s the story here? Whose quote is this? Whose comics?

Image Source: Librarianship Studies (2018)

It is attributed to Sarah McIntyre. Have you heard of her? If you live in the U.K. and read children’s books, perhaps you know her. If not, how do we establish her identity? You “Google,” of course, first!

Sarah McIntyre is a British-American illustrator and writer of children’s books and comics.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia.

What if you wanted to add her works to your library collection?

An authority record for Sarah McIntyre, the British-American illustrator.
Source: Library of Congress Authorities file.
MARC view of the authority record for Sarah McIntyre.
Source: Library of Congress Authorities.

So, what else has she written? What works are available in nearby libraries?

A couple of bibliographic records for Sarah McIntyre’s recent children’s books.

You see quite a few records via the OCLC’s WorldCat OPAC:

Are you sure they are creating by the same person, Sarahs McIntyre?
Should a PubMed record by Sarah McIntyre, the cerebral palsy expert, be linked to the illustrator’s works?

Source: Sarah McIntyre’s Livejournal (2012)

Source: Western & Affiliate Libraries (OMNI Catalogue)

McIntyre S, Blair E, Goldsmith S, Badawi N, Gibson C, Scott H, Smithers-Sheedy H; Australian Cerebral Palsy Register Group. Congenital anomalies in cerebral palsy: where to from here? Dev Med Child Neurol. 2016 Feb;58 Suppl 2:71-5. doi: 10.1111/dmcn.13015. Epub 2016 Jan 14. PMID: 26762782.

The story Behind the Super-Hero Librarian

In 2012, there were organized efforts to lobby the U.K. Parliament to demand that every school in Britain should have a library, staffed by a trained librarian. Thus, the flyer with the super-hero librarian! See the photo-coverage with commentary from the time.

Just having fun prepping some materials for training in the Authority Work class in the IO course!
Basically, it should be plain obvious that we’d better disambiguate content creators with the identical name.

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