----------------------------Original message----------------------------
One more vote for "take the class." My first professional experience
(which I'm still in the midst of a decade later) was with an in-house
subject classification system devised by my (then) boss. This was before
the library cataloged on-line. After many years away from library school
-- which, pace Columbia, didn't spend an inordinate amount of time on LCSH
in its instruction -- I had to learn LCSH from scratch in order to
evaluate LCSH's appropriateness to subject access for our materials. Try
that without any formal instruction! I concur with the experience of Dan
Lucas at PAM that as a practising art librarian you will most certainly
have to look outside the "traditional" classification systems to
adequately serve your audience. But warts and all, it's still the
benchmark against which we strive to improve. I wouldn't commit it to
everlasting memory, however ...
-------------------------------- ROSS DAY ---------------------------------
Associate Museum Librarian Treasurer
The Robert Goldwater Library ARLIS/NA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 212 570-3707 // fax 2125703879
On Mon, 8 Jul 1996, Dan Lucas wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At 04:55 PM 7/3/96 EDT, Polly wrote:
> >Being in a traditional library school, I have been encouraged take
> >the traditional cataloging class (AACR2, LC subject headings, etc.). I would
> >like the take of art librarians on the usefulness of such a class to an art
> >librarian.
>
> I find that the Library of Congress does not catalog most of the art
> exhibition catalogs we get from galleries and on exchange, so we end up
> doing a lot of independent cataloging. You too could end up in a library
> which cannot afford ARLIN or OCLC, so my advice is "Take the class!"
>
> It's a lot easier to get an introduction to the rules with a teacher nearby
> to ask questions of, rather than try and figure it out from the rulebooks on
> your own.
>
> Dan Lucas, Rex Arragon Library Director
> Portland Art Museum & Pacific NW College of Art
> [log in to unmask]
>
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