Details, detail, details

[Dani Vaughn-Tucker]

For those of you who catalog or have someone catalog for you, how detailed do you get in your finding aid for the OPAC? The reason I'm asking is because I've just taken over the archives and I've tried to find things using the catalog and it has been hit or miss. Some things that are listed in the catalog aren't even in the boxes or the folders are off, or what have you. So I am starting at box number 1at the very beginning of the collection and verifying the materials, checking that the catalog is accurate, and adding details to the catalog to make material easier to locate (I'm adding dates, names, what the material relates to, etc). On some level, I know it's overkill but I feel like things should be made easy. If I'm off for a week, I don't want anyone calling me to find out where stuff is, I want them to be able to go to the catalog, look it up and find it in the vault.

So, how detailed do you get?

[Courtney Yevich]

I'm a cataloging librarian as well as a lone arranger, which is possibly why I've always had some trouble following all the cataloging rules!

Like you, my main goal for any cataloging endeavor is access. While I've only written two catalog records for our archival collections, they are much longer and more detailed than our usual book or serial records. I completely ignored the rules about how many subject headings to add (one has 21!) and I didn't really pare down the summaries either. I figured the more information I put in there, the better.

More importantly, I know best what kinds of information to put in there and what terms will result in hits, because I am the one who knows how we approach reference/research at our institution. And that's exactly what you're doing - adding the terms that you know are important for your particular institution.

So I would obviously say the more detail you can cram in there, the better. I guess you could occasionally get a complaint from someone about lengthy records, but if it results in better retrieval, then who cares?

(The cataloguer in me though is reminding you that authorized headings are your friends! :)

[Deana Whitney]

I don't work with OPAC. But in my catalogs I list my file name, a general description of contents, then I try to list 3-6 names of importance in a correspondence file.

[Christina Zamon]

Ours are pretty vague but sometimes contain links to the PDF version of the finding aid. I usually don't mess too much with the OPAC since I'm concentrating on creating finding aids right now. I really should just so that students searching might stumble upon the records. You can see what I have by going to http://www.emerson.edu/library/, clicking on the Library Catalogs/FLO catalog and doing a search for "Debenham"