Coastal Archives Cataloging Project
The Coastal Engineering Archives (after merger with another department and loss of funding for staff to maintain the collection) agreed to give most of their materials to George A. Smathers Libraries in March 2007. A substantial portion of those materials were selected Marston Science Libraries by Vernon Kisling who coordinated the transfer and these were physically moved by G&E to Smathers Library 3rd floor in July and August 2007 for cataloging. Jimmie Lundgren is cataloging coordinator for the project. Some decisions about them are listed below to make handling of these materials faster and easier. Flexibility and patience of all staff involved are appreciated.
- Identifying strips were placed in each book as it was unboxed to specify that it had been selected for MSL by Vernon Kisling, and that the book came from Coastal Archives. Putting the strips into the books was intended to enable them to be handled according to decisions made for these materials when they become mixed with materials from other sources. The books are also identifiable by the “Coastal Engineering Archives” stamps.
- Most boxes were unpacked onto shelves in the Alcove waiting to be searched.
- Second or third copies are wanted unless otherwise stated.
- Stamps. Since the Coastal Engineering Archives is no longer a valid library location it is not critical that each stamp be crossed out (either by catalogers or students in processing) as we normally do to prevent later mistakes in shelving. These stamps had been used quite generously J
- Call number labels. The books have call number labels that must be boldly marked through to prevent later mistakes in shelving. The classification systems used in Coastal Archives were neither Dewey nor LC, but either the Delft system or a geographical system beginning with “G”, so these numbers cannot continue to be used and each book must be relabeled. Multiple Delft numbers were assigned as subject codes and may appear in Aleph records.
- Many of these books fall into criteria normally determined to be bound, but per selector decision these should not be sent for binding.
- Some of the books were previously entered into our Aleph catalog with Coastal Archives location and own code. Jason Fleming used a macro to suppress all Coastal Archives bibliographic screens before the transfer. They did not have item records. When these bibliographic records are recycled in Aleph the own code must be changed to PUBLIC and the “STA SUPPRESSED” field must be removed. Since the HOL’s have not been separately suppressed, care must be taken that no unsuppressed HOL’s with the Coastal Archives location (UFACA GEN) attached to unsuppressed bibliographic records are left in Aleph.
- Even though good bibliographic records are sometimes available, it will still be required that we update our holdings in OCLC.
- These are not priority or RUSH cataloging, and it is understood that it will take some time for all of them to be completed.
- There are about 4,000 volumes, most of which already have copy in OCLC.
