Fundamentals of Cataloging
February 6-April 27
$415
3.0 CEUs/30 LEUs

You will receive an email with login instructions a few days before the course begins.

“The catalog is the one medium through which the resources in your library are made available to all classes and ages of people, at all times and on all subjects and even to the librarian who is popularly used for a catalog” (Esther Crawford, librarian, 1900).

Although times have certainly changed with automation and electronic resources, the spirit with which early libraries strove to provide access to materials still rings true in American public libraries. Today we are concerned with organizing and providing access to print and non-print resources in a wide array of formats and in shared environments. Central to this organization is the library catalog. This course is designed with the needs of librarians working in smaller public libraries in mind. It serves as an introduction to the principles of organization of information, with an emphasis on the practices librarians should expect to encounter.

Topics

  • A brief history of cataloging
  • Reading and understanding catalog records
  • OCLC: WorldCat and Connexion
  • MARC format
  • Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal Classification systems
  • Subject cataloging, with an emphasis on Library of Congress Subject Headings
  • Authority control
  • The impact of electronic resources on library cataloging
  • Anglo-American Catalog Rules (AACR) and Resource Description and Access (RDA)
  • Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)
  • Emerging Metadata schemas

Expectations

There will be weekly readings and exercises, and a final project. Some participation in class discussions using the online course discussion board is required.

Instructor

Melissa Adler is a Ph.D. student at the UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies and has worked in the SLIS Laboratory Library as a Cataloger. Prior to entering the doctoral program she worked as a catalog librarian and archivist in a small academic library for three years. If you have additional questions about the course, please email the instructor at madler@wisc.edu. 

 

To register:

ONLINE - Fundamentals of Cataloging

PHONE - Pyle Center Registration Office: (608) 262-2451

FAX or MAIL - Print out a registration form

Questions? Contact Meredith Lowe or Anna Palmer