The Art of Cataloguing & Classification: Lessons learnt

Before I began cataloguing?
I always thought that catalouging was complex data entry. To be perfectly honest with you, I still relatively see it as the same thing now. You enter important information about an item which create a catalogue record for the intended user to find the item when they search for it. The more access points you can create e.g. the subject of the item, the more refined your searches become. 

How do you catalogue?
Bowman's "Essential Cataloguing" book has really given me more insight into the world of cataloguing in the simplest way. Cataloguing involves a vast amount of strict rules all set out in book over 500 pages called the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2). These strict rules are inputted in a machine readable format called MARC which places all the data into a descriptive fields that the user can understand.

Last but not least, to ensure that any library that wants to use the same information, International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is used to make sure the same punctuation is used in a standardised fashion. 

What have I learnt since starting to catalogue?
Punctuation is paramount!! You always hear people say that librarians must possess attention to detail. Well, its even more important for a cataloguer, as one missed or misplaced punctuation creates an inaccurate catalogue record.

To demonstrate this I have created a powerpoint of a few things I have learnt about cataloguing the books for my "botanical books display". 

Audiences for Asian collections

As it is an ambition of mine to work with Asian collections in the future, I was delighted to be invited to NACIRA annual conference, topical on “redefining the audiences for Asian collections”.

I was really surprised to hear the interesting projects such as the conservation and digitization of the Lewis-Gibson Genizah collection between Oxford and Cambridge (which still sounds weird given their history).  However, Oliver Urquhart Irvine from the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership Project is one that really caught my eye.

The idea of creating a completely online digital repository rich with content about the history of the Gulf and Arabic Science, with bilingual searches and metadata in English and Arabic, is something that hasn’t really being thought of before on such a scale. Utilising project management skills with digital humanities knowledge within libraries, I saw how the project was split into phrases to include aspects of the library catalogue, functionality via platform, and OCR software for search capabilities and embedment for sound and GPS mapping (for digitalised maps).  Followed by, the creating contingency plans for challenges in public and staff communication, awareness and advocacy, plus internal problems in spending alternations that affect technology and staff turnover.

This ambitious project has really got me thinking about what I could do with a qualification in librarianship. Simply from combining traditional librarianship with digital means to not only conserve material through data management from cataloguing, appropriate digitalisation, translation, creation of authority files to content delivery, but also ensuring the use of such information to encourage teaching and education e.g. changes in politics, trade and global communication. This therefore means creating a longer shelf life for digital libraries, from changing the culture of its use and adapting to user social needs in web compatibility, simplicity in architectural design and information content without overload.

Other projects into creating awareness for Asian collections was also highlighted with projects for the Clay Sanskrit Library for classical Indian literature and the Jainpedia project for the Jain faith.

Not your ordinary music library

I always thought that a "music library" was just a place to store all your music on Itunes, but I definitely got a different idea of a term, while visiting Surrey Performing Arts Library for "CILIP in Surrey" event.

After trekking through the beautiful scenery of Denbies Vineyard in pouring rain, me and my colleague arrived at the library which houses a large collection of music, dance, theatre, and cinema in print and digital format.

With over 4000 play sets and 6000 music sets in rolling stacks from Christmas carols, modern plays and pantomimes, available in different languages with individual scores for every part of an orchestra it is no wonder it is pretty large. I think one of the things that shocked me the most that even the book collections included notes on the techniques used to not only play the music but to the way in which a theatre set can be made and drama costumes can be designed.

The collections are classified and catalogued with a combination of ANSCR and Dewey Decimal Classification System and there has a catalogue available through Surrey Libraries. When you have one of the last remaining music sets from famous artists within your collection, you really wouldn't dream to make that so easily accessible. However, with a 6 months reservations period, items can be on loaned to orchestras, choirs, schools etc for 2-3 months at a time. 

This was astonishing to me and a lot of librarians at the talk, because with a reduction in print-based material, just how do you deal with loss or damage? You can imagine that having an item on loan for 3 months that it isn't going to come back your library in one piece, especially if the user doesn't have proper handling training.

I have to say that I was pleased to know that the performing arts library didn't have to bear the brunt of this. Within its collection policy, anything can be loaned without charge but any damaged or lost items would have to be bought and replaced by the user. When a library has shrinking budgets, this is an effective method. The library also has a stock replenishment system that for any play set, score etc. there are always multiple copies e.g. one copy for every member of an orchestra for multiple requests.   

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about this library and it specialist collection.