A week of visitations

I've continued copy cataloging for the Wilkinson gift items, pulling aside some items that have issues. Some need upgrade cataloging as no suitable record exists. Others have issues with the URL identified as an electronic version of the resource. I've ended up updating a few OCLC records with better URLs for electronic versions, which has been nice. It's great to think that I'm doing something that is improving the record that libraries around the country will use so many people will have better access to resources for their work and research.

Because my supervisor was going to be busy or out of town every day last week, she arranged some time with various other departments. Rather than a post a day about the visits, I'll just sum them up in this post at the end of the week.

On Tuesday I visited the conservation lab where I got a look at the tools, materials, and processes for mending books as well as constructing boxes or other protective casing/covers. We discussed the materials used and how newer books were treated differently than older rarer materials. One major difference was the use of PVA (polyvinyl acetate) glue for modern books, but repairs to older books were usually done with paste is it is fully reversible by soaking it off in water later, if necessary. Another major material used was Japanese tissue. Repairs made to covers with the tissue were remarkably invisible when complete. I was fortunate enough to be visiting when a 10 volume set of 18th century Italian books were having boxes constructed for them, which were interesting to examine.

On Wednesday, I visited the documents department. On that visit, I found out that the department actually combines 4 different groups of material: government documents, business data, maps, and microform. The idea is to work with the synergies between the material types - for example, maps are often produced by the government and also are a great way to represent a lot of the data from government or business documents. Microform materials are often government documents (or newspaper archives). In the maps section, I found the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps a real treat; the level of detail available in them and the look at the history of the areas was fascinating.

The university also has a large amount of aerial photos over most of the 20th century. These are popular with local construction and environmental groups to do environmental impact studies. We talked briefly about the university's charges for these services. While I hadn't thought of the need to charge the public for the service, and it struck me as odd at first, it makes to me now given the demands placed on the staff who are there primarily to serve the university. If the choice is to charge fees (and thus allow for more staff time to service the requests) or not offer the service at all due to cost, I can see the argument for requiring fees.

This is getting longer than I expected, so I'll try to be brief. One other documents group project that was interesting was the compilation of resources related to Salem, OR for use in 25 different classes this year. The documents group apparently uses a more consultative model rather than a reference model. Instead of having a reference desk for the department they tend to have appointments with patrons and expect to spend up to an hour (or more) with the patron understanding their need, seeking out resources, and getting the patron comfortable with those resources.

On Thursday, I went through the physical processing process with a staff member. This consists mostly of applying the security tagging, barcodes, and call number labels to the items before they are shelved for the first time. As we went through the process it became evident that there a lot of variations depending on the exact nature of the material being processed - format, media, rarity. It was nice to get a sense of what exactly happens to the items after I catalog them and place them on the processing truck. It gave me a more comprehensive understanding of the whole work acquisition process through the point it ends up on a shelf somewhere.

On Friday, I sat in with a cataloger who works with a lot of different formats. We discussed the differences and similarities in cataloging purely electronic resources (available over the internet), DVDs, CDs, monographs with supplemental CDs, and the like. From his perspective it seemed they were mostly the same with variations for the physical description of the media and some limited description of the contents. This was interesting in light of the discussion in a a cataloging course of what ought to done for access points for popular movies - who is "responsible" for the work, who should have added entries, etc.