October 2010 Article Abstracts
When Preservation Moves Off Campus
Trends and Effective Practices in ARL Libraries
By Cathleen Martyniak
Preservation librarians face both practical and fundamental challenges when moving preservation operations from the main library to an off campus location. Practical issues include transporting materials and staff safely and securely between facilities, hiring and retaining student employees, and communicating effectively between geographically dispersed library units. Fundamental concerns include how to continue providing high-quality services and maintain productivity in the remote location. The author conducted a survey of Association of Research Libraries preservation librarians who are discussing a potential move, planning to move, or have moved previously and analyzed the responses. This paper reports on findings from the survey and effective practices identified both in the survey and during follow-up interviews.
Divination and the State
Classifying Technical Texts in Han China
By Hur-Li Lee
Aiming at diversification and expansion of classification research, this in-depth study examines one of the six main classes in a two-thousand-year-old Chinese library catalog, the Seven Epitomes (Qilue ä¸ç¥). The target class, the Epitome of Divination and Numbers, represents a group of divination manuals that are further divided into six subcategories. Through a contextualized analysis of the Epitome itself and other related texts, the study identifies a number of classificatory principles at work. The scope of the Epitome was evidently determined by government functions rather than objective observations of similarities and differences between topics represented in the library collection. In other words, the Epitome included technical manuals, as opposed to philosophical writings, collected by the offices in charge of divination in the imperial government. The study also examines the order between divisions and between individual texts within the Epitome. Further, the nature of the Epitome and its association with two modern-day concepts, science and religion, are clarified in the appropriate cultural and historical context. The final section discusses the significance of the current study and offers suggestions for future classification research.
What is a Professional Cataloger?
Perception Differences between Professionals and Paraprofessionals
By Elizabeth J. Cox and Ann K. D. Myers
This paper examines the roles of professional and paraprofessional catalogers as they are perceived within the cataloging community. A survey was sent to all catalogers in member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries. In presenting these results, the authors consider whether a difference still exists between professional and paraprofessional catalogers beyond the master of library and information science degree and, if so, the nature of any such difference. In the process, the authors also examine issues such as whether catalogers feel that their work is valued and how cataloging work is evaluated.
NOTES ON OPERATIONS
Cataloging E-Books and Vendor Records
A Case Study at the University of Illinois at Chicago
By Kristin E. Martin and Kavita Mundle
E-books have become a substantial part of many academic library collections. Catalog records for each e-book title enhance discovery by library users, but cataloging individual books may be impossible when large packages are purchased. Increasingly, libraries are relying on outside sources for their e-book catalog records, which may come from vendors or third-party record services and are frequently included in the price of a subscription. Rather than handling individual items, catalogers find themselves managing and manipulating large sets of catalog records. While dealing with the records in batch is the only practical way to provide access to the large sets, batch processing does bring about a new set of challenges. This paper will explore the challenges of managing Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) records for the Springer e-book collection at the University of Illinois at Chicago University Library. It discusses tools and methods to improve record quality while working in a consortial setting. It provides lessons learned, continuing challenges of working with vendor records, and some steps that might help other libraries expedite the process of getting vendor records into the catalog.