Organization of College and University Libraries

THE C A T A L O G department's primary function is to incorporate books and other materials into a library's cataloged collections in such a fashion that the reader may readily ascertain what the library's holdings are and get hold efficiently of the particular item he wants to use. Classifying, shelf-listing, descriptive cataloging, and subject cataloging are the principal processes involved in accomplishing this function. Traditionally, in libraries large enough for departmentation, these are the minimum duties assigned to a catalog department, although it is frequently made responsible also for certain others more or less closely related to these major functions. Examples are accessioning, physical preparation of books for the shelves, and maintaining location records for books shelved more or less permanently in branches, departmental libraries, or other special readers' service units. Study of the organizational structure of large catalog departments reveals a surprising lack of uniformity even in libraries of a single type which are comparable in size. hloreover, because of the number and diversity of the elements on which organization of cataloging work may be based, the pattern of individual departments is usually complex. A casual examination of organization charts shows that among these elements the following are considered to be especially important: function, subject, language, form or type of material, degree of difficulty of material, and level of treatment to be accorded various categories of material. Theoretically, the organization of work in catalog departments along strictly functional lines seems both natural and logical. Yet few departments have set up separate divisions for classifying, descriptive cataloging, and subject cataloging. A stronger preference has been

Organization and Administration of Cataloging Processes

There can be few libraries where the need for reorganization has not at some time been felt, and it is therefore a subject of very wide interest. The previous paper dealt with the planning of special library buildings, with their equipment, and administration—the present paper will deal with reorganization as applied to the stock of a library, and with the more usual aspects of that type of reorganization, namely recataloguing and reclassification. As would be expected, a fair amount has been written about the problem. Unfortunately, it is a matter in which so much depends on local conditions, on the scale of the operations, on what has gone before and what is to follow, and on the resources available, that it is difficult to give comprehensive practical advice. Most of the literature is therefore confined to generalities, and many of these, though arrived at by investigation of reorganization in a large number of libraries, might equally well have been reached by the use of common sense. This particular ...

Reorganization of libraries

\"WHY IS THE cataloging so slow?\" This is a question that has been repeated for many years. In the public library, the few books that stay in the catalog department only a few days are still too slow in reaching a demanding public. In the college library (as elsewhere) many books may remain on the shelves for months awaiting Library of Congress cards. In the research library, where many titles are in foreign languages and where costs are extremely high, speed-except for \"rush\" or \"haste\" titles-is generally nonexistent. Even the rush books take 24 hours. There are no L.C. cards for too many titles. The filing gets behind. . Staff shortages play havoc with schedules. Large and unexpected gifts slow up the process still more. Temporary cataloging has been advocated as a solution for this problem, and is undertaken in the case of some of the more important titles in many libraries. Generally, however, even temporary cataloging shows up in the card catalog only after days or weeks. This is due principally to the fact that permanent classification and shelflisting of the volumes are usually parts of the \"temporary\" process, making it necessary for the cataloger to exami~e the books themselves. This slows up the process. When temporary cataloging is undertaken as rush work it is a nonroutinized activity and therefore unduly expen-

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Harry Dewey

Papers

Precataloging--A Must for the Modern Library