[DCRM-L] Advice requested for Rare Book Cataloging preparation

[Deborah J. Leslie]

Dear colleagues,

I'd like to brainstorm ideas for preparing potential students to take my Rare Book School class<http://rarebookschool.org/courses/library/l30/> who don't have original cataloging experience. I've always considered it essential that students walk into the class with enough active mastery of general cataloging rules that they can competently populate a blank MARC workform, and that experience doing original cataloging is what provides necessary active competence.

What can I tell people whose jobs involve cataloging rare books, whose institutions are willing to invest in their training, but are not in a position to give them background experience with original cataloging? What about people whose ambition is to be a rare book cataloger, but again, are not in a position to develop experience in original cataloging of general materials? It seems neither fair nor ultimately beneficial to shut these people out.

When pressed in the past, I've recommended that individuals sit down with the rules and practice original cataloging of older books (published before 1970 or so) at hand, advising against looking them up in OCLC or the LC catalog; older books don't have CIP and are unlikely to have AACR2 or RDA cataloging.

Are there more effective ways to get adequate practice in original cataloging? Better ways to gain the necessary competence so they can hit the ground running on Day 1 of class?

All thoughts and suggestions welcome, even half-baked ones.


Deborah J. Leslie, MA, MLS | Senior Cataloger, Folger Shakespeare Library | djleslie at folger.edu<mailto:djleslie at folger.edu> | 201 East Capitol Street, S.E. | Washington, DC 20003 | 202.675-0369 | orcid.org 0000-0001-5848-5467

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