LIBRARY NOTES
Heidi Hass
Shelf Talk
Wednesday, January 1, 1997
As many of you have read in the Library's 1995 Annual Report, the inventory and barcoding project has been completed. I'd like to share with you the results of this initial stage of the computerization of the Library's operations. First, the inventory was just as productive as we had anticipated. In a collection as old as ours, which has never before undergone a complete stock-taking, discrepancies abound. We are quite pleased that we are now able to clear these problems up, solving decades-old mysteries of missing, mislabeled and misshelved books. Call number areas with the highest rate of attrition were the 800s (literature) -- one of the oldest segments of our collection -- and the 600s (applies sciences), which seemed surprising until we noted that cookbooks are classified 641.5! The 700s (arts) and 92s (biography), along with the 800s, contained the highest number of books for which the library has no record; we have almost finished cataloging these items to make them accessible through our card catalog at last.
A second and not inconsiderable benefit of the project has been the unearthing of bibliographic treasures. A month the rare and valuable items we've discovered in the stacks are a 1751 edition of Erasmus' Moriae enconium (In praise of folly), published in Paris and illustrated with engravings after Charles Eisen; 23 chap books bound together in one volume, on topics as diverse as William Wallace and fortune-telling via coffee grounds, published in Glasgow circa 1850; the 3rd edition of Guy Miege's
The present state of Great Britain and Ireland 1716, with a dedication signed by the author, and a copy of
An essay in defense of ancient architecture by Robert Morris, which provided support to the neo-Palladian movement in England. The discovery of these gems certainly enlivened the routine of the project. They, and over 2800 of their fellows, have been recataloged for our Closed Stack, and rare book vault, where they are housed in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment.
FINAL REPORT ON INVENTORY AND BARCODING
(130 books per hour completed)
TOTAL NUMBER OF VOLUMES: 167,885
(Excludes some special collections including reference)
TOTAL TIME: 1,312.15 hours
| BREAKDOWN |
NUMBER |
PERCENTAGE |
| Missing Books: | 5,941 | 3.50%
| | Books without Cards: | 2,324 | 1.30%
| | Books requiring Relabeling: | 444 | 0.26%
| | Transfer to Closed Stack Z: | 2,829 | 1.60%
| | Special Problems: | 1,335 | 0.79%
| | Total Problems: | 12,873 | 7.60%
|
|