Get in (Technical Services) Shape

CMRLS has just release the Spring Continuing Education Catalog. As usual, there is a great selection of programs for all library staff regardless of area of responsibility.

There’s a plethora of workshops for Technical Services devotees, so mark your calendars and plan to attend at least some of these events. I’ve described the ones for January and February. Watch this space for more information on workshops to be held in March, April and May.

Wednesday, January 30 (snow date February 1) at the Auburn Public Library, I’ll be teaching a workshop on Dewey Decimal Classification. Even though most bibliographic records include a DDC to use, some don’t. Sometimes the supplied number just doesn’t fit well with the rest of the items in a library’s collection. Sometime the number is wrong; I’ve found many a transposed DDC in my years of copy cataloging.

This workshop includes lots of hands on practice and practical advice for applying Dewey. We’ll see how numbers are built and learn how to shorten long numbers. And don’t forget all the opportunity for sharing tips and techniques with other Technical Services staff. Bring a recent edition (20th or 21st unabridged; 13th or 14th abridged) of DDC and items that need classifying. Please note that this workshop begins at 9:30 a.m. and runs until 12:30 p.m.

Tuesday, February 26 (snow date February 28) at the Paxton Public Library, I’m presenting a brand-new workshop on Authority Files. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make a bibliographic record useful and an Authority File is one of those things.

Several years ago, I worked on a Name Authority Project and found it fascinating. I have a lot of respect for the librarians who have researched the forms of personal and corporate names. There’s a lot of information to be gleaned from an Authority Record, but it can take a little practice to learn to read it. So take this tour with me. It begins at 10:00 a.m. and runs till noon.

You can see a list of upcoming workshops on the right hand side of the CMRLS home page. Click on the title of the workshop to be taken to a description and the opportunity to register. Want to register for something that’s not yet listed? Click on Continuing Education Classes at the top of the list for the complete schedule.

I hope to see many of you at one or more of these programs. Do they still say "be there or be square"?