No. 25: Visual Materials Cataloging
22-26 July 1996
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No. 25: Visual Materials Cataloging 22-26 July 1996 |
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1. How useful were the pre-course readings? 1: Very useful, the base of the course. 2: Very, very valuable. 3: Very useful for class and will be helpful for reference and training of staff in my department later. 4: Very applicable, in fact, right on target! 5: Excellent sampling of both theoretical and practical articles. 6: Very useful  though some warning about the Sara Shatford article would have been good. It was confusing, and I was glad to hear others thought so, too. 7: Very. 8: Somewhat useful in giving an overview of issuesa bit dated. 9: The primary texts were all very helpful and we used them a lot. Some of the secondary articles were interesting (Orbach, Shatford), though some were a yawn (Yee). Many of the secondary articles were not mentioned in class, and may therefore be better as suggested readings for busy people. |
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2. Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)? 1: Very useful; possibly of more use in the future. 2: Yes! 3: Yes. 4: Yes, very useful. 5: Syllabus was integrated well into class activities and a great reference guide to use upon returning. Sample records and other material handed out will also be of use. 6: Yes. 7: Very. 8: Yes, the new materials from LC were especially useful. 9: The sheets of examples, rules, explanations were very useful and I'm sure I'll refer to them a lot. The syllabus is a keeper. The more MARC examples, the better! |
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3. Was the intellectual level of the course content appropriate? 1: Appropriate. 2: Yes. 3: Yes. 4: Yes, very stimulating. 5: Yes. 6: Yes. 7: Extremely appropriate. 8: Right on target for me. Good balance of description problems and content analysis problems. Excellent examples to illustrate the range of materials we might encounter out in the world. 9: Yes sometimes a bit over my head in complex cataloging rules, but I was never too lost. |
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4. If your course had field trips, were they effective? [The course made a day trip to the Library of Congress and toured Special Collections in Alderman Library..] 1: Yes. The trip provided a good break while also having great value for the types of information gathered from the different situations. 2: Yes. The chance to learn about decisions and policies in the context of a collection and its staff was extremely valuable. 3: Yes especially the wonderful tour of LC. The staff there and their tour were excellent. 4: Yes; visits were well integrated and related to course content. 5: Field trip to LC was greatwonderfully trained and helpful staff, great facilities, interesting hands-on exercises. Packed day, all activitites of worth. 6: Yes. The day at LC flew by. We packed a lot in but could have used even more time there. As for the tour of Special Collections, I wish we'd seen a practical demonstration of the digital camera actually digitalizing an image. It would have been pretty useful to see. 7: The trip to LC was wonderful and came at exactly the right point in the week's work. 8: Yes. The visit to LC Prints and Photographs was great. I liked seeing how they handle materials and enjoyed trying my hand at doing LC cataloging. The digital library at LC and here were inspiring and exciting. I want to go home and digitalize and mark up! 9: Very. LC was a treat and seeing UVa Special Collections was well worth it, also. |
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5. Did the actual course content correspond to its RBS brochure description and Expanded Course Description (ECD)? Did the course in general meet your expectations? 1: The class met my expectations. Perhaps there was a wider range of content than was indicated in the descriptions. 2-9: Yes. |
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6. What did you like best about the course? 1: JD. 2: The combination of approaches raising the questions, discussing decision making, evaluating the tools, and applying information to examplesprovided an excellent general overview with applied specifics. 3: Instructor. Cataloging practicum. LC tour. 4: Demonstrated the complexity of the topic and raised new issues, with new understandings, to think about and incorporate into future work. 5: JD's expertisewide breadth of knowledge about cataloging, archival practices, and technology were great. She could deal with questions thoughtfully. Classmates also wonderful. 6: All the cataloging examples, and the chance to meet the bigwigs Zinkham and Betz at LC and realize they are real people, grappling with the same problems we face. It was nice how open they were to suggestions for Graphic Materials and TGM. 7: Hard to say, everything was so well thought out by the instructor. Perhaps, seeing all the emerging possibilities for connection with digital technologuy. 8: The chance to meet other catalogers with a wide variety of interests and skills, to learn from JD and discuss options among us. Asking questions about my institutional problems. 9: Working on exercises, going over examples, going to LC, asking situation-specific (my situation at home) questions. |
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7. How could the course have been improved? 1: Shoe-horning in other issues concerning graphic material, curatorship, conservation, classification while maintaining the focus on cataloging. 2: Add more time on post-coordination of AAT terms. 3: I can't think how perhaps more cataloging exercises at the early part of the week. It's hard to sit and listen for long periods (especially in frigid conditions). 4: Would be difficult without more time; the more exercises, the better!! 5: More time. 6: Could have met in a room that didn't feel like a walk-in fridge. The table, though I didn't mention it during class, is really high off the ground. Room itself was fascinating. Content of the course was fine. 7: A few cataloging exercises with more fine arts material. 8: A warmer room! 9: A tad bit more information on what goes where in which MARC fields and subfields for those of us who haven't cataloged in a while. Working with different partners may be helpful. |
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8. Please comment at will on the quality/enjoyability of the various RBS activities in which you took part outside of class, eg Sunday afternoon tour, Sunday night dinner and videos, Bookseller Night, tour of the Etext Center or Electronic Classroom, printing demonstrations, evening lectures, &c. 1: Good lectures, content appropriate. 2: Lectures by Greer Allen and Michael Winship were both entertaining and informative. 3: Very nice. Rotunda is always a treat. 4: Only attended one (MW), and it was interesting. The speaker was a little difficult to hear. 5: Well prepared and entertaining. 7: Fine. 8: Did not attend any. After sitting all day, I needed to go to the gym (which is excellent and a good value). |
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9. Any final thoughts? 2: Do the reading and bring examples from home. 3: Wonderful course and instructor. Do the readings. Prepare questions to take advantage of this opportuntiy to discuss these issues with instructor and excellent colleagues here. 4: Need to have background in at least one area of course content (cataloging or archives or visual materials), but not all. 6: No. 7: Every RBS course I've taken has been high quality, but this was the most professionally valuable. Would strongly recommend it to any librarian/archivist with responsiblity for cataloging visual materials 8: I'm angry that my institutiton would not pay for this training which I need to do my job, but still glad I came. 9: I really enjoyed this course. JD was a good instructor and enjoyable to be around. Maybe an advanced version of this course could be offered, too. |
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Number of respondents: 9 |
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There were nine students: two were general librarians with some rare book duties (22%), two were rare book librarians (22%), one was an archivist/manuscript librarian, one was a curator of a city history collection in all formats, one was a photographs archivist, one was a prints cataloger, and one was a special collections librarian (11% each). |