Re: Cataloging Opinions

[Betty Louise Copeland <bcope@TENET.EDU>]

I, too, remember cataloguing as a struggle, although once I got locked
into the reasoning behind all those little numbers I enjoyed it more.  I
think it is critical for school librarians of all levels to know at least
the basics of cataloguing, so as to maintain the validity of their
collection.  We can depend on vendors to do our cataloguing for us, but
they make mistakes as well as anyone, plus their cataloguing ideas may
not truly fit the needs of our collection.  And if you work at a private
school, as I do, we get several donations of books each year that need to
be catalogued independently.

Another issue in school libraries is explaining the sense of the
organization of the library to students.  If we don't know what we're
talking about, how can we teach students information skills?

Betty Copeland
St. Michael's Academy
Austin, Texas
bcope@tenet.edu


On Mon, 24 Feb 1997, Mary Marguerite Ludwick wrote:

>   Please respond to the group as I would like to see this discussed.
>   Some of the universities offering degrees in librarianship are
> now deleting cataloging as a required course.  What is the opinion
> of seasoned librarians?
>    I will admit the class was very painful for me, but I am so
> glad that I have cataloging knowledge (even if I am not the
> best cataloger!).  I have heard that for elem. librarians cataloging
> should be required, but that for other areas it is not so important.
>   What is your opinion?
>
> Mary Ludwick         Ludwick@tenet.edu
>