Cataloging

In our consortium, we treat cataloging on three different levels

“Level I – Copy Cataloging” – With level I cataloging knowledge, you can add the vast majority of your items to the catalog. Most of the bibliographic records for your items are already in our consortium libraries.  You simply locate that record and add your holding to it.  If there is not already a bibliographic record in the consortium, you can reach out to other libraries, through the Z39.50 interface, to find a suitable bibliographic record, import it into Evergreen and add your holding.  In both of these cases, you don’t need an extensive knowledge of the innards of MARC records.

“Level II Cataloging” – here you begin to dig in to MARC records.  There will be times when you need to make additions or corrections the record.  Perhaps the Author’s name needs to corrected, or bibliographic record displays the wrong icon in the OPAC.  In Level II cataloging, you gain a useful working knowledge of bibliographic records.

“Level III Cataloging” – Sometimes you create Bibliographic records “from scratch”.  For most of our small public and school libraries, this should be a very rare occurrence – e.g. less than one percent of your collection.  Typically these new records are created for local materials – e.g. the local history manuscript, or the local travel guide. We have a select few librarians available to help you with this cataloging.  Do not attempt this yourself.

Here are the materials to “get up and running” as a new library in the consortium, or as a librarian new to Evergreen.  As always,  you should rely on your Balsam mentor and/or the Balsam support staff to help with your cataloging needs.

Start here:

• Getting Started – adding your holdings to the catalog (Level I)
• Adding Bibliographic Records to our collection
• A good record in Evergreen

Use these materials as well

• Creating Copy Templates
• Views – Ways to look at records
• Changing your Preferred Search Location

Useful References

• Glossary of library terms
• MARC Tags by hundreds
• Library of Congress MARC Standards
• Library of Congress – Understanding MARC Bibliographic
• OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards
• Getting Support