Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
How new books work
I’m going to swap out the vlogs for a bona-fide blog this week.
It’s been an interesting semester so far. I still can’t quite account for the fact that midterms are already coming next week.
Just what have I been doing? Well, stuff. Ordering books (not many movies, though, just yet -- I’m waiting for the spring DVD rush of films released during the holidays), coping with the cataloging challenges presented by some of those books, navigating the wilds of our e-books with anyone and everyone who’ll hear from me, getting our new Digital Campus service off the ground, and figuring out ways to work with the English Language Institute here on campus. I’ve also temporarily added inter-library loan processing to the list while our specialist is out for a few weeks. There’ll be another post on that new experience soon!
On an interesting note, someone who managed to walk into my office a week or two ago and noticed a new-book cart full of, well, new books, wanted to know exactly what it is that I do with them. The silly thing actually mentioned writing about it on the blog, because he thought it was always interesting to really get a look behind the scenes.
If you disagree, turn back now. Otherwise, abandon all hope.
We do the majority of our purchases through a single vendor with which we have a very good long-standing relationship. They take care of just about everything for us, from providing information about each book to load into the catalog, to putting the barcode sticker on the front of the book. They’re a major time-saver.
9 times out of 10, new books arrive in perfect shape and head straight to the shelves within a week of arriving. The rest of the time is where I come in.
Sometimes the record loaded doesn’t include enough information (a frequent-enough occurrence for less-mainstream titles like She seized the balls), or sometimes the systems involved get a little confused about what goes where. The end result is usually a record that only has the title and ISBN number (that mess of 13 digits you usually see above the barcode on a book’s back cover), or a record that’s really fine, it just needs a little extra information. Other times, the source of those records -- a national database of published items associated with the Library of Congress -- just has a weird call number we can’t use because the library that created the original record uses a different system.
In case you’re curious, the most common wrong-call-number issue we deal with involves biographies. Lots of public libraries tend to just put “B” for “biography” on the spine and alphabetize by the last name of the person the book’s about.
We always use Dewey, of course. When any of the above happens to a given book, I hunt down the information we need and add it to the record. Sometimes it’s easy -- the national database may have what I need, just in a different version of the same item -- other times it’s hard, like when there are no Dewey call numbers available for a particular book. Then I have to make it up from scratch, using a set of four ridiculously-complicated books that include instructions like:
These cataloging issues are relatively rare. Out of a cart of 90 books or so, we’ll pull maybe four or five. Once or twice a year, the systems involved decide to stop speaking to each other -- maybe the Consortium just so happens to shut our system down for maintenance, or the Sun gets trigger-happy -- so we’ll get a cartload or two of books that apparently don’t exist. Fortunately, there’s some redundancy built in, like weekly updates that include downloadable packages of records that we can load manually fairly easily.
Sometimes we order books and films from Amazon because they aren’t available through our primary vendor, and those arrive completely naked. No record, no physical processing, nothing. For those, I grab the records from the same national database, check them over for accuracy, double-check the call number, and load them into the catalog. Then they’re physically processed and come back out, ready for shelving.
It probably sounds like a bunch of things that can go wrong, but truthfully, that’s the only thing I really need to do: deal with what goes wrong. It’s a testament to the services we use that it’s rare enough to leave me time for all the other things I do.
Next week, you’ll get another vlog, just as soon as I decide which “classic” to review. I also take requests; just e-mail me or post a comment!
It’s been an interesting semester so far. I still can’t quite account for the fact that midterms are already coming next week.
Just what have I been doing? Well, stuff. Ordering books (not many movies, though, just yet -- I’m waiting for the spring DVD rush of films released during the holidays), coping with the cataloging challenges presented by some of those books, navigating the wilds of our e-books with anyone and everyone who’ll hear from me, getting our new Digital Campus service off the ground, and figuring out ways to work with the English Language Institute here on campus. I’ve also temporarily added inter-library loan processing to the list while our specialist is out for a few weeks. There’ll be another post on that new experience soon!
On an interesting note, someone who managed to walk into my office a week or two ago and noticed a new-book cart full of, well, new books, wanted to know exactly what it is that I do with them. The silly thing actually mentioned writing about it on the blog, because he thought it was always interesting to really get a look behind the scenes.
If you disagree, turn back now. Otherwise, abandon all hope.
We do the majority of our purchases through a single vendor with which we have a very good long-standing relationship. They take care of just about everything for us, from providing information about each book to load into the catalog, to putting the barcode sticker on the front of the book. They’re a major time-saver.
9 times out of 10, new books arrive in perfect shape and head straight to the shelves within a week of arriving. The rest of the time is where I come in.
Sometimes the record loaded doesn’t include enough information (a frequent-enough occurrence for less-mainstream titles like She seized the balls), or sometimes the systems involved get a little confused about what goes where. The end result is usually a record that only has the title and ISBN number (that mess of 13 digits you usually see above the barcode on a book’s back cover), or a record that’s really fine, it just needs a little extra information. Other times, the source of those records -- a national database of published items associated with the Library of Congress -- just has a weird call number we can’t use because the library that created the original record uses a different system.
In case you’re curious, the most common wrong-call-number issue we deal with involves biographies. Lots of public libraries tend to just put “B” for “biography” on the spine and alphabetize by the last name of the person the book’s about.
We always use Dewey, of course. When any of the above happens to a given book, I hunt down the information we need and add it to the record. Sometimes it’s easy -- the national database may have what I need, just in a different version of the same item -- other times it’s hard, like when there are no Dewey call numbers available for a particular book. Then I have to make it up from scratch, using a set of four ridiculously-complicated books that include instructions like:
“Add to each subdivision identified by * the numbers following the numbers following 671 in 671.2-671.8, e.g., welding aluminum 673.72252.”Or:
“Add to 01 the numbers following 781 in 781.1-781.5, e.g., Spanish folk music for springtime 781.6261015242, rhythm in Spanish folk music for springtime 781.62610152421224.”These are unusual cases, I admit; it isn’t often you see a sentence that says, “the numbers following the numbers following …” or call numbers that are 17 digits long focusing on a specific aspect of a specific type of folk music used during a specific time of year.
These cataloging issues are relatively rare. Out of a cart of 90 books or so, we’ll pull maybe four or five. Once or twice a year, the systems involved decide to stop speaking to each other -- maybe the Consortium just so happens to shut our system down for maintenance, or the Sun gets trigger-happy -- so we’ll get a cartload or two of books that apparently don’t exist. Fortunately, there’s some redundancy built in, like weekly updates that include downloadable packages of records that we can load manually fairly easily.
Sometimes we order books and films from Amazon because they aren’t available through our primary vendor, and those arrive completely naked. No record, no physical processing, nothing. For those, I grab the records from the same national database, check them over for accuracy, double-check the call number, and load them into the catalog. Then they’re physically processed and come back out, ready for shelving.
It probably sounds like a bunch of things that can go wrong, but truthfully, that’s the only thing I really need to do: deal with what goes wrong. It’s a testament to the services we use that it’s rare enough to leave me time for all the other things I do.
Next week, you’ll get another vlog, just as soon as I decide which “classic” to review. I also take requests; just e-mail me or post a comment!
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
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