My practicum has been a great experience; because it has
given me an opportunity o see the day-to-day workings of a high school
library. This week my volunteer hours
were not spent in the library but at a district librarians meeting. During the meeting a variety of topics were
discussed – common core, 21st century learning skills, curriculum mapping,
among other things. It was excellent!
The afternoon was spent reviewing questions and concerns of
the librarians. One of the discussion
topics was concerning the online catalog system. The district is using Follett’s Destiny to
circulate books. The librarians are
frustrated because Destiny is a union catalog, so all of the schools share
title records. This means if one school
creates a title record, then it could possibly impact all of the rest of the
schools.
I have taken cataloging, so I understand that each version
of a book – hardcover, paperback, special edition etc – will have a unique
title record. The school librarians
claim that student do not care what version they receive from the library; they
would just like the book. It becomes
difficult for the librarians to teach students especially the younger ones to
use the catalog when there are multiple title records for one book.
A great example of their complaint is Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone. When a student does a search
they receive results that include ten different versions of the book. It is difficult to discern from the catalog
the difference between versions.
Students get frustrated because they want the book and many times want
to place a hold on it. The system is not
smart enough to know all ten versions are the same book. In order to place a hold, the student or
librarian would have to mark all ten records to ensure a copy comes to the
student as soon as one is available.
The librarians have decided that they are going to merge all
similar title records within the catalog. (When I heard this news, I imagined
my cataloging professor freaking out over the situation.) They are going to create their own cataloging
handbook with rules that fit a school setting and try their best to stay
consistent across all schools.
I do not think it is possible to be more specific and strict
then AACR2, so it is a near impossible task for this group to rewrite a manual
that will be specific enough to avoid any future problems. My guess is that this will be a continuous
discussion. It was fascinating to see a
group make library decisions, so they can better serve their patrons. I am wondering if 5 years from now, they will
be glad that they did it.
