Reinvigorating the curriculum center collection

1. Reinvigorating the curriculum center collection A Case Study Presenters: Karen A. Plummer (kplumme@uakron.edu) Valerie Jenkins (valeri3@uakron.edu) Joy Ramos (drozd@uakron.edu)

2. 2001… A Curriculum center odyssey • Collection Status • Older collection • Large unprocessed gift collection from Akron Public Schools • Multiple, confusing local classification systems • Cataloging Staff • Prior to 2001, no one dedicated to curriculum materials • One paraprofessional cataloging juvenile literature but not educational/instructional materials

3. Collaboration:What do our users want? • Curriculum Center Cataloger and Education Librarian work together to identify problems • Bring in representatives from the College of Education to get first hand user impressions • Recommendations: • Classify ALL materials using standard Dewey • Add grade levels to classification number • Weed outdated materials from collection • Integrate fiction and non-fiction collections • Note: implementation showed that users really wanted fiction classed separately from nonfiction

4. Reclassification of Juvenile Fiction and NonFiction • Started with Juvenile Fiction and Nonfiction • Biggest challenge: Grade Level • Tools Used • OCLC Dewey Cutter Program – key in author’s last name, hit enter and program provides the correct Cutter Number • Library of Congress’ Classification Web – Wonderful LC to Dewey correlation tool: key in LC classification number, hit “Go” and search engine provides a list of the most relevant Dewey classification numbers • Amazon.com for grade level – often provides reading level and/or excerpts from reviews originally published in School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, etc.

5. Steps in cataloging juvenile materials • Search local online system by barcode, which is the quickest way to retrieve a title that is already processed • Call Number • Nonfiction has a Dewey Number assigned • Adjust Cutter number to reflect 4-figure table and/or • Adjust for Cutter numbers beginning with a vowel or “S” • Fiction: change “jF” and/or “jE” to “Fiction” and adjust Cutter number as needed • Update the record according to AACR2 cataloging rules – punctuation, etc. • Check subject headings: record will need LC heading and also LC Children’s headings • Assign a grade level after the Cutter number. • Examine content of book • Check information in School Library Journal or Publisher’s Weekly via Amazon.com reviews

6. Next Step:The Backlog! • Also needed to weed the instructional materials before reclassifying them, but needed resources to replace them first • Backlog: Gift from the Akron Public Schools • Primarily multi-piece kits • Not all complete • Stored in multiple places and frequently moved so pieces were separated from each other • Too much for one person so temporarily halted reclassification and expanded the workforce • Trained Valerie and Joy to catalog instructional materials and kits • Biggest question: how to expedite process?

7. How to …organize a backlog • Goal was to expedite cataloging and processing of kits containing 3 to 50+ items • Guidelines determine what to keep from education bibliographer, Dr. Steve Aby • Anything older than 10 years … could be eliminated generally. • If we had any questions, he would review the items on a case by case basis. • We had kits and pieces of kits scattered across 10-15 ranges of shelving and on book carts. • Initially tried sorting by grade and by subject • What really worked was sorting by publisher first, then subject, then grade level; this brought together the scattered pieces of a kit

8. Cataloging the backlog… Part 1 • Cataloged largest kit in a series first • Organized individual items in kit as follows: • Student textbook • Teacher’s guide/manual • Other print resources in alphabetical order • Media resources • Helped standardize subject access points • Resulted in a model record • Created a template for cutting and pasting information for other kits in the series • Allowed us to maximize usage of publishers’ standard formats between grades.

9. Cataloging the backlog…Part 2 • Set up kit items as volumes: • Start with: Student text, v.1 and teacher edition v.2 • Alphabetized remaining resources: v. 3 Alternative assessments, v. 4 Block planning guide, v. 5 Chapter review, etc. • Media items at end, v.10 DVD, v. 11 CD-ROM, etc. • Contents note: • Used contents note to list volume numbers and their respective titles. • Used this data to copy and paste into item records to identify each volume. • Physical processing was expedited by running 2 sets of labels from list of items rather than taking more time to handwrite OCLC and call number in each item, placing one set in items for this ephemeral collection.

10. Statistics…Overall numbers • Juvenile Fiction and Nonfiction Reclassed • 2002-Present: 3511 titles • New Titles Added • 2005-present: 1877 • 952 Nonfiction/Instructional • 925 Fiction • 4274 items

11. Statistics…new materials 2005-2009

12. Results…what we learned • Working together to better manage projects has served to put a process in place for future collections • Working smarter, increasing efficiency, and saving time • Upgrading skills led to staff position upgrades and reclassification • Users better served