I was adamant to finish my OJT before March comes because I
am positive my other subjects and LIS majors would eat me alive because of midterms. Thus I arrived exactly 8:00 am
in Gonzalez Hall or the University Library. I was confused at first because my
wrist watch told me I was 10 minutes early but the clock in the library said it
was 8:00 am. Oh well.
I headed straight to the Cataloging Section on the second
floor of the University Library ready to face one of the works a librarian
cannot escape. Cataloging. I don’t know what is very scary of cataloging a book
when I heard about it; you basically just write down the description of the
book and its contents in a 3 by 5 index card and put it in little drawers
holding more cards each contains a book description of one book in the library.
But little did I know that there are a lot more into
cataloging than “just writing down the book description of the book and its
contents in a 3 by 5 card”. There is the RDA, the verification, the editing,
the re-editing, the verification, etc. It sounds so easy and it is. IT IS JUST
VERY TEDIOUS.
On my first day, I was thought how to do Author Fitting and
Unit Library Verification by Sir Elijah (THANK YOU SIR!!!!).
An author fitting and Unit Library Verification are done
to check if the record of the book is in the shelf list cabinet. You will be
given ½ bond paper containing the MARC record of the book and the first thing
you do is check if the Cutter Number is correct. Then look for the drawer with
the same subject heading in the shelf list, see if there is a card in the shelf
list. If there is no card in the shelf list, then make a dummy card by writing
down the control number, author up until the copyright year. An after writing
the dummy card, you punch a hole in the lower middle part of the card and tear
or cut it side ways and write A-2 on the top left corner and below that write
your name and the date today.
There are cases when there is a card but it has a different
year. In cases like that, you make a dummy card – the same process but this
time instead of writing A-2- and write AFOE-2. This means the library has a
older/newer edition of the book. There
are others like B-1 meaning there is no need of a dummy card only verify that
it has a card already.
From 8:00-12:00 pm, I only did that and my feet was hurting
after that time because I was walking from one shelf to another, from one
drawer to another. It’s surprising that it was actually easy just technical.
After my first part of doing my OJT, I got to learn about the Cutter Table and
finally understanding it, learned how to do author fitting and Unit Library
Verification, and learned to wear more comfty shoes next time.
On my second part of OJT day 1, Mam Annie taught me and two
other OJT-ers in BSU and Raisa Amores about the RDA, Call Number and Cutter
Number. To be honest, even before, I never understood much about the Cataloging
as a whole. Thus when we were given an exercise, I asked and answered the best
way I could (by guessing). I never got to know if what I did was correct but I
asked the other two OJT girls and they did exactly what I did so my guess was I
did it right. *shurgs*
My thoughts about the cataloging Section: It’s very quiet
and every one is zone out by their work. There are times when they chit chat
during work to break the tension, I presume and I like that there are times
there is music flowing in the very eerie section of the library.
