I’m a little late posting for last week, so…
Last Week At the Library
Last week at the library I really started to make some headway on our project to reorganize our movie browser packs by genre. Together Jessica and I got through about fifty records. I’m starting to get into the flow of the steps we need to take in re-tooling our movie records. Unfortunately I realized last night that we have lost our major source for obtaining record information. I have been using Firstsearch, which usually provides some pretty decent information on items to help catalogers create good records for items. Well, I knew Firstsearch was on its way out, it is a service that has been dropped from OCLC. So I got the nasty but not unexpected surprise last night of having no access to Firstsearch. This will significantly slow ALL cataloging down, at least for a while. I try to really make a good record for each item I catalog, with multiple subject access points, and a summary. Now instead of going to one source for most of my information I’m stuck in the position of going to multiple sources (Melcat for subject headings, publication information) Amazon for some of the summaries, I imagine I’ll also be using the Library of Congress website.
Last week we also received TWO MONTHS worth of young adult and AV materials. I came in Friday to a disaster on my work table and had to spend thirty or forty-five minutes just organizing items that needed cataloging before I could get down to work. Who can work like that? Not me. Our donated materials will be receiving a lower priority as we move along with the movie project, so for now I moved the donations to the
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basement and organized all the movies we received in a box. Stacking them up on my work table just doesn’t work. As the work piles up, I’m more grateful than ever for our new volunteer, Emily. You can read about Emily on Vicksburg District Library’s new downloadable PDF newsletter. Last week Emily cleared an entire cart of items to be placed in our book sale. Once the records for withdrawn items are taken out of the computer, the item is stamped with a discard stamp and the barcode is taken off. Emily spent a couple of hours Monday doing just that. When discarding staff have to be particularly careful about removing memorial plates and Emily did an excellent job catching them. She also started changing the browser packs over to our new genre scheme, for the records Jessica and I managed to get through. All the yellowing, cracking old browser packs are gone and in their place are new packs with the genre stickers and genre headings written out. They are looking fantastic.
Jessica and I will be meeting with one of Kalamazoo Public Library’s catalogers to discuss issues of cataloging, and in particular, movie records before we get too far into the project. We will be discussing what KPL considers important when cataloging, what fields are particularly important and which ones could perhaps be left out for the sake of speeding the project. We will be asking all the questions we have about cataloging in general. Last week Jessica and I took a look at pulling information from Firstsearch into the cataloging records and how I go about building my records. Of course, all this will have to go through some changes since we have now lost our predominant source of record information.
Last Week In Library School
Over the week and week-end I studied for and took my first test for my technology class. I was really stressing out about it because it’s my first test as a graduate student and I just didn’t know what it would be like. However, it was not very difficult for me and I believe I did well. I was face palming myself the next day though because I’m pretty sure one of the questions was supposed to be obvious to me at the time and it just wasn’t. The next day it was somewhat more obvious. However, it was only worth one point so I am not too concerned. Now that I know what the tests are like I can adjust my note taking process accordingly. I am really really enjoying the technology class. It’s filling in some gaps that I had in my knowledge and I feel like I just can’t get enough of it.
Last week we finished up our group blogs for our Introduction to the Profession class. I love how our blog turned out. We had a very talented member who created a custom header for us, and I think it just looks great and professional. It’s already been graded and I received full points on the assignment. It’s been a really fun experience reading everyone’s blogs and thinking about the issues that are affecting Librarianship. The blogs on censorship, multiculturalism and increasing relevancy in tough economic times all were great food for thought. In particular, one of my classmates brought up the topic of assigning rates to movies that come in “not rated” and stated this could be a form of censorship. I do this regularly to help provide some guidance on the content of movies that are not rated. If they are not rated so they can add extra content beyond the R rating, they get an R rating. If they are not rated for some other reason I have to look at it carefully and make a judgement call. I have never considered that this could be a form of censorship, but in fact I am making a rating assignment based slightly on my own values. But I am also really considering what the MPAA generally uses as criteria for ratings. So is the MPAA rating system a form of censorship? Lots of interesting topics this week, all important to Librarianship.
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