Do You Have [Insert Title Here]?
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IMAGE: Public library, Brooklyn, N.Y., Bedford Branch, delivery room. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/98506658/>. |
If I had a dollar every time I had someone asked me if the library had a specific book while standing right in front of the online library catalog (without using it), I would have a fully funded library. Anyone else? We've learned to keep an iPad at the circulation desk that only has the library catalog available for students to search. Whenever we get the inevitable question of "do you have?" or "where is?", we are able to direct them to the catalog so they can learn to search, discover how the catalog works, and how the library is organized. Since implementing this minor change, after showing students the catalog, they now come to the desk and try searching before asking. We now have some students coming to us asking where the catalog is, instead of what they are looking for. It's a win-win!
Students can access the library catalog from their computers, but we do not have a custom domain name (expensive) so it is long and unmemorable. Even I google search the library to find the catalog. But that's another story. Today, I am going to talk about the catalog itself!
Patron Catalog Experience
When a patron uses the library catalog, they have the entire library at their fingertips ... it's a lot. They can look at new items in the sidebar, curated lists in the pathfinders, or search everything with various filters. They can do all this from the school, their house, or an internet cat café.
Catalog Engagement
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IMAGE: Collins, Marjory, photographer. |
There are a few ways we get students engaged with the library catalog system and the library itself. One way is in December, we (the library squad) create "The Whimsical Winter Scavenger Hunt". The idea is that students will come to a librarian to ask for a clue. The clue could be "Dorothy's not in Kansas anymore" (Wizard of Oz or Wicked), "Her cells are still being used for research today" (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), or "I'm falling to pieces" (inside a puzzle box). The idea is students have to decipher the clue and then use the library catalog to find the item we are referring to in order to find the "Golden Ticket" that we have hidden in the book or around the item. When they find the "Golden Ticket" they bring it back for a handmade crocheted critter (made by one of the librarians) as a prize. They go crazy for these. Basically, we make the clues so students cannot find them just by looking around, they have to actually search the catalog. The librarians even made a harder version of this for teachers (multiple clues based on department), which got them looking around the library and seeing what the library had to offer for their classrooms.
The second way we get students engaged with the catalog is through the Library Orientation for 9th graders. While this is only initiated if a teacher requests it, the entire class participates in groups to find the items on a scavenger hunt list. The first group that finds everything under the time limit wins a prize (stickers). It's interesting, they all get confused about where cookbooks are as they search in every section except non-fiction. Those Dewey Decimal Numbers really confuse them when they don't think of an items as being non-fiction, such as the case with cookbooks because to them non-fiction is "history".
That's student engagement; but what are they really engaging with? Sure they may ask you some questions, and they're running round the physical library, but they are really interacting and learning about the library's catalog system — the OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog).
Librarian Catalog Experience
From a librarian's perspective the library catalog (OPAC) looks different. I like to imagine I'm Angelina Jolie in Hackers (1995), but it's far less dramatic. Librarians use MARC records (MAchine Readable Cataloging) for every item (notice I said ITEM and not BOOK) in the library that the librarian needs to keep track of. These item records are not just "here is a title / item, here is an author / manufacturer, and here is the cover / image". They are complicated, computer reading, distribution enhancing, interconnecting "files" of information that allows your catalog to be the most useful thing in your library since "librarians" became a profession.
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IMAGE: Van Vechten, Carl, photographer. |
MARC
I won't go into detail about how MARC records are set up. If you're not a librarian and reading this, read Catalog It! A Guide to Cataloging School Library Materials by Allison G. Kaplan (right now it's in its 3rd edition), it will explain all. Instead, I want to talk about my favorite MARC fields. Nerrrrrrrrrd. Anyone else when they make a surrogate record get excited to add certain fields? Anyone? Anyone? ... Bueller? These are the fields I am constantly adding, updating, or changing.
You can find all the bibliographic MARC fields and rules at the Library of Congress's MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data.
Field 490 — Series
I cannot tell you how many series we have in our collection (especially Fantasy, goodness, those authors can write!) where we have no series title for the first book, and the second book has a series title, and the third book has a series title but it's formatted differently, or some books have the series number in the title where others don't ... it drives me b-a-n-a-n-a-s. And these are coming from the MARC records from Junior Library Guild, Mackin, and others.
I love adding the series title $a so they all are uniform and adding the volume / series number $v so when the title series is clicked or keyword searched for, they all show up and you can easily distinguish between the order. It's like that saying, "a place for everything, and everything in its place", it makes my little organizational heart so happy.
After reading Catalog It!, I found out I should also be adding the series title to the 8XX field if I want my patrons to be able to do a series title search and not just a keyword search. Yes, my 490 has the value of 1 (tracing), but the Library of Congress requires an authoritative series title. This means that I will need to look up whether or not the LOC has established an authorized title for the item I'm updating and plug it into an 8XX field. "You need to make use of the LC authority database when creating tracings for series titles." (Kaplan, 154)
Field 520 — Summaries
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IMAGE: Library Of Congress. |
It really amazes me how many "classic" books in our catalog only include the title, author, and no summary. It has one general note that says, "book". That's it. Just, "book". It's not very helpful as you can imagine. How can students conduct a general search when the MARC record contains barely anything? This is where field 520 has become my friend. I look for summaries on GoodReads, Barnes and Noble, Amazon ... basically anywhere a publisher has written up a blurb and copy and paste it into a 520 field. I do a little tweaking, cutting out parts we don't need, but it's a whole lot more explanatory than "book".
Now, Catalog It! says that school library records should be short and sweet and contain all the keywords that would show up in a keyword search. Through the RDA (Resource Description and Access) guidelines, summaries should be what is on the back or inside flap of the book. It equates to, "catalogers [should] transcribe data from the item exactly as the data appears on the item." (Kaplan, 39) But it also says that I can do what I want ::evil laughter::. AKA, I should do what is best for my library patrons and how the keyword search will be effected by the summary I include.
Let's take a look at Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. My school catalog blurb says, "In early nineteenth-century England, a spirited young woman copes with the suit of a snobbish gentleman as well as the romantic entanglements of her four sisters." I don't know about you, but this does not explain the book well at all. Call me an Austen snob, I don't care, but this sounds like a cookie cutter romcom set in the 1800s. This is also clearly not the summary description written on the inside cover of the book. GoodReads includes in its blurb: "witty, spirited heroine, sensational romances, and deft remarks on the triumphs and pitfalls of social convention." Now that tells more about the story! Basically, I try to do the best of both worlds and incorporate plot with keywords, without giving the story away.
Field 850 — Holding Record
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IMAGE: Library Of Congress. |
Okay, this is just an general holding field that cannot be removed from the MARC record so you wouldn't be adding it as it's already there. But in this field you can include a price for the item ($9), call number ($k, $h, $i, $m), and location ($c). Now for our library, location is a BIG deal. We genrified our collection a few years ago so we now have dedicated areas of genres like a bookstore. Because of that, if a student is searching for a particular book they have to know the location of the book or they will be going to all the sections looking for it.
This is also the place where we change the call number. We do this when we receive a biography or memoir that has a Dewey Decimal Number instead of our system's call number where Biography / Memoirs are listed differently. So not only can I add the location in Biography, I can also update the call number to reflect our call number system.
We include price as well, so when students lose a book they know how much it costs to replace or decide if they can find it cheaper and replace it for us. The prices we receive from vendors are NOT accurate. Sometimes I think it averages the cost of the books in the bundle we buy and gives that price for all the books. So a $30 book will say it costs $21.35, the same with a $15 book will say it cost $21.35. We want to make sure if a patron pays for a lost book, they are not over- or under-charged.
BIBFRAME
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IMAGE: Library Of Congress. |
Alright, we can't talk about MARC without talking about BIBFRAME (BIBliographic FRAMEwork). BIBFRAME is to MARC as MARC was to Card Catalogs. It's a big change in how catalog information is disseminated, but the heart of it is still how information is organized, connected, and accessed. It's a way to bring MARC (created in the 1960s) into the 2000s.
The BIBFRAME initiative was created by the Library of Congress in 2012. The LOC states, "Instead of bundling everything neatly as a 'record' and potentially duplicating information across multiple records, the BIBFRAME Model relies heavily on relationships between resources (Work-to-Work relationships; Work-to-Instance relationships; Work-to-Agent relationships). It manages this by using controlled identifiers for things (people, places, languages, etc)." Now, before you go panicking that you will have to learn an entire new system, and that everything I mentioned above is pointless, and doom spiraling into hours of managing your time to update your catalog ... breathe. LOC also states that "BIBFRAME is far from an environment that you could move to yet." After 13 years it is still being worked on and it does not sound like it is close to being done either.
So keep updating those MARC records, but know that this is on the horizon with an undetermined timeline.
To Dewey or Not to Dewey
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IMAGE: Melvil Dewey, -1931. |
To combat this, libraries have started to genrify their entire collection meaning all mystery is together, all classics are together, all science fiction is together, etc. One could also make a sports section and have fiction and non-fiction together by sport. You see where I can go with this. It's a classification system determined by the librarian where the library next door can classify any way they want. There is no guideline about genrification. You could have one library where there is no classic section, but instead all classic books are sorted into other categories. For example, in my library we ended up adding stickers to all the spines and adding location data for every. single. book. If The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is in the Classics in one library, Fantasy in another, Philosophy in yet another ... see where the madness lies? But a benefit is patrons know that if they love Horror, they can go straight to the Horror section instead of sifting through entire sections of the library. It also makes shelving easier as sections are smaller and you know exactly where a book should go.
Others are not convinced about the benefits of genrification. They believe, that while the DDC is flawed, the catalog should be genrified and tags be added to content not to the physical collection. This way, the same system is in place in all libraries — The Little Prince will always be under 843.912 no matter where you go — and patrons will understand how to navigate all collections.
Personally, both sides have their flaws and as a librarian you have to ask yourself what is best for your library and patrons.
Conclusion
Works Cited
Ainsworth, Colin. “5 Controversial Facts about Melvil Dewey and the Dewey Decimal System.” Mental Floss, Minute Media, 10 Dec. 2018, www.mentalfloss.com/article/566704/melvil-dewey-decimal-system-controversies-facts. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.
Austen, Jane. “Pride & Prejudice.” Goodreads, 2016, www.goodreads.com/book/show/129915654-pride-prejudice?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_9. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.
Ellis, Leanne. “Genrify Your Catalog, Not Your Collection.” Knowledge Quest, American Association of School Libraries, 29 Nov. 2022, knowledgequest.aasl.org/genrify-your-catalog-not-your-collection/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.
Kaplan, Allison G. Catalog It! : A Guide to Cataloging School Library Materials. Third edition ed., Santa Barbara, California, Libraries Unlimited, 2016.
Library of Congress. “BIBFRAME - Bibliographic Framework Initiative (Library of Congress).” Www.loc.gov, 2019, www.loc.gov/bibframe/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.
---. “BIBFRAME Frequently Asked Questions (Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative, Library of Congress).” Www.loc.gov, 18 June 2024, www.loc.gov/bibframe/faqs/.
---. “MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data: Table of Contents (Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress).” Www.loc.gov, Library of Congress, 6 Dec. 2024, www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.
Magazine, Smithsonian. “Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Nov. 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remembering-howard-university-librarian-who-decolonized-way-books-were-catalogued-180970890/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.
Wellesley High School Wilbury A. Crockett Library. “Pride and Prejudice.” Opalsinfo.net, Wellesley Public Schools, 2025, whs-wps.narvi.opalsinfo.net/bin/index#/recDetail?kw0=Classics&sf0=21&recType=&pSize=20&pNum=1&sortAttr=31&sortOrder=1&op=search&boolop0=&recRsPos=6&b2rsUrlId=398cc95db3172d59b075c2f6cef50f13. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.
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