First off, let me just say that now that I have had some practice, I'm finding cat n' classing the collection much easier and that the WebDewey tool is much easier for me to use than the standard DDC volumes. I've gone through a bit of the collection and hope to have assigned a call no. to roughly 1/20 of the collection by next week.
It's all the non-serialized reports and brochure like newsletters that I'm having trouble with, or was until today that is. Most of it I'm finding quite normal now. UNESCO also has it's own classification scheme, so on top of the DDC number I have to put the UNESCO code on top as well so the collection will be broken up by UNESCO code, then each section organized by DDC instead of just DDC.
This presents a rather sticky situation as many of UNESCO's materials are interdisciplinary and separating out which UNESCO code to apply to each one is difficult to say the least as they like to include a lot of approaches to a lot of different subjects in one book or journal series and yet still insist that the collection be organized by their code which is organized by having materials fall into one code and one code only. I'm also finding their organization method a little... well, broad for my tastes. Some codes are ridiculously specific such as efforts to use education to uplift youth from poverty, while there are separate codes for youth, poverty and education as well - encompassing a rather broad take. So which of those four do I use? I can put all of them down, but I can only put it in one area.
Ok, but on to red meat - The meeting. First off, I must say I was really impressed with what they do at the library here in Basseterre, they do a lot of the stuff that HPL does but with much much less. They are still using a card catalogue and typewriters, though they are waiting on more computers and are investigating some ILS solutions.
I got the informatin I wanted on policies, processing materials and a lot of other good stuff I needed to know (we both fall under the purview of the Ministry of Education, so operational compatibility is highly desired). The big big thing I want to talk about though is that they need an ILS... we need an ILS... we both work for the MOE...
It's collaboration time. I've spoke of the need for an ILS already and personally, I'm leaning towards LibraryWorld and not BookCat. The great thing about LibraryWorld... If the MOE buys a license... we can organize BOTH collections on the same account for the same price. Whereas if we use BookCat, or the much more expensive ILS purchased by the public library in Nevis (the sister island to St Kitts)... well, we'd have to pay for each instance we downloaded onto each computer, effectively doubling our costs.
This would allow us to share costs, have an extremely easy to learn/use ILS that really takes the misery out of cataloguing, we'd have a common system that volunteers and paraprofessionals could be trained to use AND a built in OPAC!
I stupidly did not think of this at the meeting with the librarian, but I sent her an email as soon as I did think of it a few hours later with a basic proposal and a desire to meet again for consultation. I hope we can put together a joint proposal to my boss and her boss and maybe include the Minister and really push hard to get.
We also compared some notes at the meeting RE: library procedures. She got her MLIS in 2007 and before that she was a principal. She is also a late learning in most ICT and computer tech, so I found myself actually explaining a few things while I was there. All in all, it was an extremely productive, and refreshing, collegial exchange.
It was probably the best work experience I've had insofar!
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