New Developments in Library Cataloguing

So the Archives and Society had a seminar on 4th Feb and I decided to pop along. After all it is not every day you get to have a free taster session from the Cataloguing and Classification lecturer, Anne Welsh (UCL).

Having not come from a typical library school background I was expecting to be thrown into a world of jargon about all the new things in cataloguing, I would eventually have to adopt. However, to my surprise Anne presented an in-depth review of the history of cataloguing to bring the unbeknownst archive majority in the room up to speed. Oblivious to many in the library field the next move for cataloguers is RDA. Finally a move away from the cataloguing entry of MARC21, to a tool that allows linkages between various formats of the same items (e.g. book to film) and various authority headings.

For many cataloguers, that idea of #marcisdead comes with unfavourable change to those stuck in their ways of the absolute metadata standards of IBSD needed for cataloguing within MARC21. However, the developing benefits might just outway the negatives.

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". 

Botanical Books Display

Usually fortnightly, me and colleague changes the books display with new books that we have catalogued. Focusing on a range of different botanical themes with range of different sizes we come up with eye-catching displays with highly scientific information.

 

As I have catalogued a few of the books on this display, I want to also demonstrate how I have been thought to catalogue books with SirsiDynix Symphony in a cute little presentation. So, look forward to my next post.

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.

Giving a tour of Kew Gardens Library, Art and Archives

In November, me and the other graduate trainee at Kew carried out a tour for some graduate trainees from Reading University. Unfortunately, I was unable to go to a reciprocal visit, so I really wanted to impress with a nice display of our rare books collection and illustrations.

The day itinerary mainly consisted of:

Meet & Greet

Intro to Library and Archives Graduate Trainees

Tour of the Library, Art and Archives

Lunch

Display presentation

Some of the material on display form the oldest part of our rare books collections within the library dating back to the 12-14th century. I also decided it was a good idea to put books that I had catalogued on display also. The book with the red card inside is featured on my new blog post called the The Living Fossil

Next month, I will be shadowing and giving a tour of students and interns. So I am really looking forward to doing more tours.

Disposal of Special Collections

It was thoroughly invigorating being able to attend the Historic Libraries Forum Annual conference on Tuesday. It is not every day you can attend a conference on the topic of “guarding against the disposal of collections” with a long list of guest speakers from special collections.

We had a Pressi presentation from Katie Flanagan (who was ill and couldn’t attend but still sent a copy of her speech) setting the scene about the need to build awareness of inappropriate disposal of special collections and the need for libraries to become watchdogs of this active through increasing social media campaigns. Also highlighting the idea about having a more pragmatic approach to ensure that there are less secretive sales of books and keep collections together in the public domain, if they do indeed need to change hands. 

After such an introduction I just knew I was in for a good debate. A lot of problems that libraries face is the need for more storage and space and the lack of money to invest in core library collections. I was therefore completed enthralled by the following speech from David McKitterick, keynote speaker on this topic. After speaking at length about the University of London blunder to sell several Shakespeare’s folios to where public opinion through newspapers and social media mobilised to act on the provocation of such a valuable collection, David laid out some truths that some libraries try heavily to avoid or are in denial about.

Whether it is the story of Wigan Public Libraries or Birmingham Law Society, quite simply all libraries have to discards books! However, he pointed out that libraries change with each generation and it is important for collection policies to be updated to reflect this. Lastly, he pressed the matter that we as librarians should remember that libraries are not museums. Where museums have “one-off” special items that can never be duplicated or found anywhere else in the world; books have a contextual value in a holdings collection. Therefore, it is important to avoid bulk selling decisions without consultation as it is most likely result in wasteful mishandling by the library and antiquarian booksellers that acquire them or lead to auctioning in fear of scarcity of space which may only raise funds and create space for the short-term. 

Visit to London Library

Having visited the London Library, I realise that I appreciate their collection policy of only acquiring books that will be central to their collection thus never disposing of anything. As a form of preservation and unique identification a lot of books are covered and labelled with a London Library book stamp.

Other unique features of the library is that out of the million books it has 97% are on open access either in the 1890's wing containing art and humanities books or literature session majority in English and some foreign languages. Winding around this maze it is easy to see the thought given to keep the library as it once was by ensuring the writers room has no electronic devices so have complete silence. However, also new editions such as T.S Elliot house for the art collection and The Times Room.


Taking the time to speak to the tour guide, it was great to find out why so many librarian aspire to work there. The majority of head librarians and /or cataloguers are either fluently bilingual or trilingual. You can imagine the step competition to be able to speak and write up to three languages. There are also some interesting projects such as retrospective cataloguing of the holdings of the times newspapers which is a very sort after skill.

I will be interesting to visit again just to see the art room once more. The blue lights are definitely my favourite part of the library.