Cataloging, esp. catalog cards

[Theo Palmer <tpalmer@ALVORD.K12.CA.US>]

Dear LM NETTERS,

One more word on cataloging.  In defense of the class in which the teacher
librarian had to learn how to type catalog cards,  there is no guarantee
that she will spend her intire career in an automated invironment.  Someday
she may have to know how to type cards.  I teach part-time in a library
technicians' certificate program at a local community college and I, too,
make my students learn how to type cards.  It is an excellant tool for
teaching the AACR2 rules and everything they learn transfers to MARC format.
It is analogous to learning to drive a car with a standard transmission.
Transferring to an automatic is a piece of cake.  It doesn't work the other
way around.

No, I don't think librarians should spend their time typing catalog cards,
but they need to know how so they can show their clerks (in case they can't
hire one of my excellently trained students) how to do it.  When it comes to
cataloging/classification tasks the librarian should be doing the
classifying.  This requires broad general knowledge and an understanding of
the needs of your own library.  Every library is slightly different, but as
someone else has already said, you have to know the rules before you can
bend them.

When most of the library world is automated, then we can quit teaching
people about cards, however, I will maintain a card self till the day I retire.

Theo
Theo Palmer
(909)351-9331
Alvord USD
tpalmer@alvord.k12.ca.us