When I was in undergraduate library school (yes, back then we had an
undergraudate major in library science), we were taught practical
information about how to operate a school library. We had a cataloging lab
at the back of the classroom and each student was given books to catalog.
We all had the proper tools and actually did the cataloging, including the
minute details of how the entries were spaced correctly on a card, how to
include the tracings, etc.
Several years ago my husband taught cataloging as an adjunct professor for
an ALA accredited school. He held the class at his community college
library so that the students would have access to cataloging tools. He made
practical assignments to help the students understand how cataloging was
done. Unfortunately the students ran to the library school administration
complaining that there was too much work to complete in his class. The next
time he was asked to teach he had to go to the downtown library where he was
assigned to teach "conceptual" cataloging instead of the practical methods
that all of us need. Unless he took his heavy cataloging tools to the
public library or borrowed their materials, all he could do was to talk
about them rather than demonstrate how they were used rather than give the
students practical experience. He no longer teaches for that university.
The university emphasized conceptual or theoretical cataloging rather than
practical cataloging techniques.
Last week a man came into his library and asked to see his cataloging
textbook. He is taking cataloging from the same university from another
instructor and the assignment was to critique cataloging textbooks to
compare the different approaches to teaching cataloging. How can that
information help him catalog in a job situation? One student who attended
this university told me that she had learned more in her 4 weeks of working
with me as a student intern than in her entire coursework in the school of
library science.
I am still wondering how anyone can learn cataloging without actual
cataloging a book. And I am tired of complaints of too much work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Madeline L. Buchanan
Retired Library Media Specialist (Birmingham City Schools)
9th and 10th Grade English
Parkway Christian Academy
Birmingham, AL
mlbuchanan1@charter.net
http://www.mlbuchanan.com/
http://www.pcfonline.com/pca.htm
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