Dewey or Don’t We?

Cataloging for Small Libraries

Melissa PowellHead of Technical ServicesWindsor-Severance Library DistrictWith thanks to Carol Foreman, Englewood Public Library

What Am I Doing Here?

• Why is this so important?• Cataloging Basics• MARC Records• Weird Stuff• Handy Websites• If you leave with only one thing . . .

Why is this so

important?

Why Bother?

• The Patrons• The Staff• Interlibrary Loan• New Technology

The Patrons

• Your catalog records should be accurate so that your patrons have easy, reliable access to your collection.

• Your catalog may be the first “look” a new patron gets of your library. An organized, accurate catalog indicates an organized, helpful library.

The Staff

• Records with accurate and consistent access points make it easier for your staff to find the materials or information the patrons need.

• The more you make the catalog more useful to the staff, the more the staff will see how useful an experienced cataloger is.

Interlibrary Loan

• Accurate records make it easier for other libraries to access your catalog to borrow materials.

• SWIFT and other ILL consortium programs cannot work with incomplete, inaccurate, or incorrect records.

• You really don’t want to be the library that everyone says “Don’t do it like they do” when referring to cataloging records.

New Technology

• Clean, complete, and accurate records transfer to new systems, upgrades, and databases much better and smoother than inconsistent, incomplete records.

• FRBR—new standards to accommodate new PACs and search strategy technology.– Interactive/intuitive searching

New Technology

• Standards changing over to more user centered search strategies.

• More “Internet look” on PACs.– Hotlinks embedded in records.– Interactive interfaces.

• A need for more “inclusive” language.– More patron-oriented language, i.e. “book”

instead of “item”.

What can we do?

Most ILS’ will program for global change, allowing for across the board replacements of outdated headings, authors, uniform titles, series, call numbers. Global change doesn’t work if the records aren’t consistent.

Cataloging Basics

Rule #1: The catalog is for the patron. What may make perfect sense to you can be horribly confusing to the patron.

Librarians love searching. Patrons love finding.

• If you add a series line to one item, make sure you add it to all in the series.

• Make sure that you are consistent with your placement of works by a particular author, including multiple copies.

• Add notes or headings to make it obvious why an author may appear in more than one section.

Rule #2: Be consistent.

Rule #3: Play well with others.Your catalog has to be understood by other agencies, networks, and catalogers.

What every record should contain:The International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD

is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) to describe a wide range of library materials, within the context of a catalog. These rules organize the bibliographic description of an item in the following areas:

• Area 1: title and statement of responsibility (for example: author, editor, artist).

• Area 2: edition. • Area 3: material-dependent information (for example, the

scale of a map or the duration of a sound recording). • Area 4: publication and distribution. • Area 5: physical description (for example: number of pages

in a book or number of CDs in the same jewel case). • Area 6: series. • Area 7: notes. • Area 8: standard number (ISBN, ISSN).

Acronyms, the librarian’s friendISBN

International Standard Book NumberISSN

International Standard Serial NumberLCCN

Library of Congress Cataloging NumberLCSH

Library of Congress Subject HeadingGSAFD

Guidelines for Subject Access to individual works of Fiction, Drama, etc.

Subject Access to Fiction

Used regularly today by Library of Congress and OCLC. Part of the

move to more user-oriented searching.

“It was a novel about farmers in Virginia during the revolutionary war and one of

the daughters was a mistress to George III.”

Helpful tools for CatalogingGenre Subject Headingshttp://alcme.oclc.org/gsafd

Translating LC call numbers to Deweyhttp://www.questionpoint.org/crs/html/help/en/ask/ask_map_lcctoddc.html

Library of Congress Authorities filehttp://authorities.loc.gov/

Dewey Decimal Systemhttp://www.oclc.org/dewey/

MARC Records

• MARC stands for MAchine Readable Cataloging. MARC is simply a standard for recording bibliographic information that was once widely found on catalog cards and putting that information into machine-readable form. MARC is a world standard for the recording of bibliographic information.

• You isolate your library if you “invent” your own. No one else can understand, and often are unable to read a “homegrown” system

• Using the MARC standard also enables libraries to make use of commercially available library automation systems to manage library operations.

• The MARC standard also allows libraries to replace one system with another with the assurance that their data will still be compatible.

Why MARC?--A standardized system

• No source is going to be able to supply you with pre-cataloged MARC records for everything that you buy or own. So, you'll need some idea of how to do original MARC cataloging.

• If you outsource, the vendor will ask you which field and subfield your local call # is in, you will need to be able to tell them. You may be asked which fields you want to have searchable in keyword searching; will you know what they mean when they say 6XX?

I outsource my cataloging. Why do I still need to know about MARC records?

MARC Record Types• Authority records -- MARC authority records

provide information about individual names, subjects, and uniform titles. It establishes an authorized form of each heading, with references as appropriate from other forms of the heading.

• Bibliographic records -- MARC bibliographic records describe the intellectual and physical characteristics of bibliographic resources (books, sound recordings, video recordings, and so forth).

• Holdings records -- MARC holdings records provide copy-specific information on a library resource (call number, shelf location, and so forth).

Bibliographic/Holding Record

Title Indicators

First indicator (Tracing/indexing indicator): • 0=Title as main entry• 1=Title as added entry

Second indicator (Filing indicator). Tells the PAC how many letters to skip.

• “The” Skip 4 letters• “A” Skip 2 letters• “An” Skip 3 letters

Weird Stuff– Music CDs– DVDs– Videocassettes– Kits– Books with CDs & DVDs– Software– Equipment

Handy Websites

• Z30.50 Libraries http://staff.library.mun.ca/staff/toolbox/z3950hosts.htm

• Colorado Association of Libraries Technical Services and Automation Division http://www.cal-webs.org/tsad.html

• MARC Specialized Tools http://www.loc.gov/marc/marctools.html

If you leave here with only one thing . . .

As long as you are consistent, follow basic

cataloging rules and MARC standards, your catalog will be ready for whatever comes along.