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

[Mark Seidl]

Hi Debora--

My sense is that there are a fair number of people who teach basic
cataloging online for various MLS programs. (I'm thinking specifically of
my own cataloging instructor, the excellent Rick Block, currently Metadata
Librarian at Seattle University.) If you could find an willing instructor
or two, you could connect that person and a group of people who want to
take your course but need the background in basic cataloging. For perhaps a
nominal fee, the instructor could lead the group through a series of online
exercises designed to teach cataloging essentials.

Hope this helps, if only a little bit.

All best,

Mark Seidl

On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 10:13 PM, Deborah J. Leslie <DJLeslie at folger.edu>
wrote:

> 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 | 201 East Capitol Street, S.E. | Washington, DC
> 20003 | 202.675-0369 | orcid.org 0000-0001-5848-5467
>
>
>



-- 

Mark Seidl
Technical Services Librarian for Special Collections
Vassar College Libraries
http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/
Gargoyle Bulletin <http://pages.vassar.edu/library>
http://pages.vassar.edu/library/
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