Lisa --
Books and other published materials are cataloged by
librarians and form a collection generally referred to
as a library. Unpublished documents, including
personal papers or organizational records, are
cataloged by archivists or manuscript curators and
form a collection referred to as an archives.
I am not sure why/how you would want to catalog a book
into an archives unless it was an integral part of a
larger collection of personal papers and had to remain
with the collection for contextual purposes.
Archival cataloging is intended to describe
collections and preserve the context of the items when
they were created. Library cataloging is intended to
describe items to facilitate access and retrieval,
context is not relevant.
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and and the
Library of Congress (LC) Schedules are classification
systems, not cataloging systems. They are used, in
conjunction with Cutter numbers and other notations,
to create call numbers that uniquely identify items
and locate them in physical space with other items on
the same subject.
There are pros and cons to each system. Most people
have some familiarity with Dewey from libraries in
elementary and high schools or their public library.
LC is used in most college and research libraries. In
general, smaller libraries use Dewey; larger ones use
LC. If the collection is general in nature, Dewey
works well; if it is highly specialized, then LC is
the better choice. (Using Dewey to create highly
specific numbers, often results in numbers that are
10-15 digits long.)
Cataloging involves creating a description of the item
according to a set or rules or guidelines, Librarians
generally use the latest edition of Anglo-American
Cataloging Rules. However, if the items are maps,
photographs or other visual materials, different sets
of rules or guidelines can be used to create the
description.
MARC is neither a classification system nor a
cataloging system. It is a formatting system for
cataloging using a computer (rather than a typed card)
and designed to facilitate sharing bibliographic,
cartographic, archival, etc. records. It enables the
cataloging descriptions of books, other printed
materials, maps, archival documents to be entered into
a single, unified database that is accessed by
software designed to read the records and display them
graphically in a way that resembles a catalog card of
yore.
Hope the above is some help is sorting out the terms
you've used in your message.
Whether you get a separate system for your books or
adapt your artifact system depends on the size of the
book collection and how you intend to use it. A small
collection (under 1000 items), used primarily by the
museum staff, doesn't need a separate system.
However, if the book collection grows and if you
envision making it accessible to outside researchers
then you need to consider a system compatible with
library standards.
Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI
--- Lisa Shockley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good morning,
>
>
>
> I am curious as to how other institutions are
> handling the cataloguing
> of books to their collections.
>
>
>
> Do you use Library of Congress, Dewey or MARC?
>
> Do you use some other numbering system? If so, what
> is it?
>
>
>
> We really would like to know what other institutions
> are doing. The
> number of books that we have is relatively small,
> but to be properly
> tracked in a database, each needs an individual
> number, obviously. We
> are trying to decide what is the best way to do that
> and would like to
> know if there is even an informal consensus among
> others as to the best
> way of doing that.
>
>
>
> Thank you!
>
> Lisa
>
>
>
> Lisa Shockley, Collections Technician
>
> Union Station/Kansas City Museum
>
> 30 W. Pershing Road
>
> Kansas City, MO 64108
>
>
>
> 816-460-2055
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