New Books

We’ve added several new books to the RCO (aka Professional ) Collection at CMRLS. Here are the titles that pertain to Technical Services.

Fundamentals of Technical Services Management / Sheila S. Intner, with Peggy Johnson. Chicago : ALA, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-8389-0953-9. Call no.: RCO025.02 Intner.






FRBR a Guide for the Perplexed / Robert L. Maxwell. Chicago : ALA, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-8389-0950-8. Call no. RCO 025.3 Maxwell.






Understanding FRBR : What it is and How it will Affect our Retrieval Tools / edited by Arlene G. Taylor. Westport, CT : Libraries Unlimited, 2007. ISBN: 978-1-59158-509-1. Call no.: RCO 025.3 Understanding.



Sheila Intner, Robert Maxwell and Arlene Taylor are all very respected names in the cataloging arena.

All of these titles are in the C/W MARS catalog. To borrow any of them, follow the same procedure that you would for any other item: Locate the title in the CMARS section of the catalog and click on the “Request” button.

We have lots of other titles in our RCO collection. We’ve purchased them for you to borrow. If you discover a useful title that we don’t own, please let us know. We’ll likely order it.

Share your history. Be a part of Digital Treasures

Have you explored Digital Treasures? If not, you’re in for a treat.

Click here and then click on “Browse” along the top of the page.
You can do it right now. I’ll wait….

Did you see the image of that great Grout steam automobile for $800? It’s part of the collection at the Wheeler Memorial Library in Orange. Did you see the images of Calvin Coolidge in the Forbes Library’s collection? Or the one of the Great Fire on School Street in Worcester in 1838? The Bancroft Memorial Library in Hopedale has scanned historic, one-of a kind newspapers as well as photographs. In all, 26 libraries are participants in this fantastic resource and you can be, too.

I have received a grant from the Greater Worcester Community Foundation to help libraries in central Massachusetts add their treasured photographs, postcards, pamphlets and other materials to Digital Treasures. Don’t have the time to choose items? Don’t know how to create metadata in Dublin Core? Not to worry. The grant includes a professional librarian that will work with you on those tasks.

Not a member of C/W MARS? Not a problem. The grant includes scanning fees for both members and non-members of C/W MARS.

Don’t delay! Contact me right away to get more information. Contact me right away to begin the process of adding your images to Digital Treasures. Contact me right away at dgaudet@cmrls.org or 508-757-4110 x307.

What’s in store for DDC

The Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) is a ten-member international advisory board for the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The EPC held its most recent meeting (called Meeting 128) on November 13 and 14, 2007 at the Library of Congress.

EPC is the group that revises DDC and at this meeting they approved a complete overhaul of the treatment of groups of people, a project that has been under discussion since fall 2005. EPC also approved changes in 004-006 (Computer science); 010-090 (Information and general works); 100 (Philosophy, parapsychology and occultism, psychology); 320 (Political science); 380 (Commerce, communications, transportation); 390 (Customs and etiquette, except folklore); 520-550 (Astronomy, physics, chemistry, earth sciences); 610 (Medicine and health); 630 (Agriculture and related technologies); 780 (Music); 790 (Recreational and performing arts); 800 (Literature and rhetoric).

Also planned are changes in topics such as philosophical counseling; alternative therapies; volleyball; abortion; cytology and histology; and wine.

How did I find all of this out? I subscribe to the online newsletter LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE. It’s published irregularly by the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, Library Services, Library of Congress, and contains news of cataloging activities throughout the Library of Congress.

LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE is available in electronic form only and is free of charge. To subscribe, send a mail message to listserv @loc.gov with the text: subscribe lccn [firstname lastname]. Back issues of LCCN are available through the LCCN home page at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/lccn/

Cataloging Again

Because of a shifting of responsibilities at CMRLS, I’m now copy cataloging again. Since CMRLS doesn’t have a very large collection, there’s not a lot to catalog, but we do have a very good professional collection used by lots of librarians.

Much of what we purchase is already in the C/W MARS catalog. If it isn’t in C/W MARS, it’s likely in OCLC just waiting for me to export to C/W MARS. The work isn’t difficult, but it’s nice to look at MARC records. I’m also learning the intricacies of MillCat (from Innovative Interfaces, Inc.) and the myriad ways one can produce spine labels. Maybe someday there will be an Integrated Library System (ILS) that allows easy printing of spine labels. I haven’t seen one yet. There are many ways, none of them easy.

We did recently purchase a book with an accompanying CD for which I found no copy in OCLC. I’ll search it again next week, but if there is still no bibliographic record, I’ll have to create one. I haven’t created an original record in over two years, and I hope I’m not too rusty. In the days when I cataloged every day, all day, I could whip out bib records pretty quickly complete with subject headings and classification numbers in both LC and Dewey. Now, I expect I’ll be a little slower, but I’m glad for the practice. I’ve been feeling as if I’m growing further and further away from knowing how to catalog all of the new media being developed. I’ll let you know how it goes.

(Almost) last chance to apply for NETSL scholarship

For NETSL members:

The deadline to apply to NELLS (New England Library Leadership Symposium) is drawing near. The NETSL Executive Board wants to encourage Technical Services Librarians to become Library Leaders by offering a scholarship of $250 to attend NELLS.

NELLS is a great opportunity to develop leadership skills and connect with other "up and coming" library leaders from throughout New England. These connections will be invaluable for your entire career.

More information about NELLS and an application form are available at http://nelib.org/nells/. If you are a NETSL member and want to take advantage of the scholarship, add a note to your application form stating such.

The last date to apply for both NELLS and the NETSL scholarship is January 28, 2008, so GET GOING!

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"?

New Tech. Services Titles

CMRLS has something called an RCO collection. It’s a term left over from pre-incorporation days when CMRLS was a department within the Worcester Public Library and stands for Regional Consultants Office.

The RCO collection consists primarily of books (and some audiovisual materials) of use to library staff. The items include such topics as library management, supervising staff, writing grants, planning, social networking, storytelling, collection development and lots of other important topics.

Just like in your libraries, new books are arriving all the time. To see if CMRLS owns a book on a particular subject or has a specific title, search the C/W MARS catalog under Central Mass. Libraries. You can use the drop-down menu to select only CMRLS.

Three new Technical Services titles that just arrived are

Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction by Lois Mai Chan – 3rd. ed.

Maxwell’s Guide to Authority Work by Robert L. Maxwell.

Learn Library of Congress Classification by Helena Dittmann

There are lots of up-to-date Tech. Services books in the collection. Need to learn more about MARC? Dewey Decimal Classification? Metadata? We’ve got it! And coming soon: two books about FRBR.