Action for Libraries
BCR Team Eliminates Cataloging Backlog
By Dig Chinn and Mary Norman
What do the country's deepest ditch - the Grand Canyon - and BCR's cataloging service have in common? Last year the growing backlog of uncataloged items at Grand Canyon National Park Library had staff concerned that they would soon have to begin stacking the materials up the canyon walls outside their library doors. But that was before they decided that using BCR's Custom Cataloging Services was a better solution.
In a year's time BCR's professional catalogers have made major progress in cataloging the library's collection, almost completely eliminating the backlog the small staff at the library did not have the time to tackle. The library had thousands of documents, maps, books, videotapes and other materials that were neither organized nor cataloged. Rare books were mixed with ephemeral materials. Some items needed to be restricted because they showed the location of unprotected ancestral Puebloan remains and artifacts.
Tailored to Meet Library's Needs
Dig Chinn, BCR cataloging project manager, and Mary Norman, BCR cataloger, worked closely with Park Interpretive Specialist Ellen Seeley, who oversees the library, to customize the project to meet the library's particular needs. They developed specific guidelines for cataloging the eight-year backlog of materials so the items could be made readily available as part of the library's comprehensive collections. The variety of types of materials and the fact that some were restricted had to be taken into consideration. Of particular concern was cataloging the
library's vertical file. For example, research in the file on the black-foot ferret included articles, books, various documents, maps, letters and other materials. Chinn and Norman suggested pulling out the books and cataloging them separately, while cataloging the remaining items as a kit or set of materials.
A grant from the Grand Canyon Association, a volunteer group that supports the park and library, funded the cataloging project. The contract began in September 2005, and as of mid-September 2006, BCR staff had cataloged 2,300-plus titles. "I've been really pleased. We just send the stuff out, and it comes back completed. We've been able to get everything cataloged and available to the world. That's what's important," said Seeley, who has had to depend mostly on volunteers to staff her library.
"BCR's people offer a level of professional expertise that small libraries don't have on their staffs," Seeley noted. "I think that small, special collections libraries need the help BCR can provide. We concentrate on a single subject and have all sorts of documents." Seeley hopes to be able to find the money to keep the Grand Canyon cataloging project going to ensure current and future materials can be readily accessible.
All Types of Materials Cataloged
BCR's Custom Cataloging staff are adept at cataloging all types of materials. They have cataloged a variety of government documents - local, special districts, state, federal and even international. They catalog books, serials, audiovisual and sound recordings from 78 rpm phonodisks to DVDs and CD-ROMs, as well as musical scores, maps and atlases, manuscripts, theses and dissertations and electronic resources. Foreign language materials also are no problem. BCR's catalogers have worked with materials in most European, Roman and Cyrillic alphabets, as well as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Hebrew and Yiddish.
BCR staff also have undertaken specialized projects providing personnel and inventory services, not ordinarily a part of BCR's cataloging program. Among those was a five-year contract with the University of Colorado's Norlin Library to inventory some 928,000 titles.
If your library needs cataloging assistance, whether for a backlog of materials or for current cataloging of special items, contact BCR's Dig Chinn or call (800) 397-1552, ext. 114.