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In that case, if there's a consensus that people are interested and don't consider detail about the capacities of a particular system to be advertising, here it is. Chris Hilton Our experience at the Wellcome Library has been as follows (numbers relate to Charlotte's queries): 1/2: cataloguers at the Wellcome Library have done both, depending on time and sorting space available. For instance, a short-term cataloguer taken on as part of a project might well be asked simply to catalogue and leave the physical sorting for later clear-up: in that case it's easier to apply temporary numbers and rearrange into the tree at the end of the process, providing the cataloguer can keep things straight in her/his head in the meantime. In general we'd say that setting out the tree first makes things slightly easier and recommend that in our manual but both can be made to work. 3/4/5: a lot of our legacy data used simple alphanumeric references, with blocks of running numbers to designate series. For instance, if SA/EUG is the collection reference (SA meaning Societies and Associations, EUG the identifier of the specific body) then SA/EUG/A might be a section and SA/EUG/A.1-40 a series within that, SA/EUG/A.41-80 the next series, and so forth, with the item references below that looking like SA/EUG/A.11. Clearly that doesn't stack properly using RefNo so our solution has been to use AltRefNo for the reference that the reader sees, which continues to be the one used in the old typed list, whilst RefNo houses a tweaked version which enables stacking. Our normal practice in generating the tweaked reference is to take the first number in a run as setting the identity of that series in the reference: in the example above, for example, the series would be SAEUG/A (we omit the first slash in RefNo to prevent all Societies and Associations building into one unwieldy tree!), the two series SAEUG/A/1 and SAEUG/A/41 and the items within them would be SAEUG/A/1/1. This is particularly useful for our older material, where we have collections distributed around a old-fashioned manuscript sequence that simply gives running numbers: where a collection's reference ends up looking like MSS.1180-1218, 1233, 2048-2069, 2802-2819, 3014-3072, 3587- 3588, 3662-3663, 4220, 4257, 4302-4306, 4487-4489, 5222-5249 and 7966 (an extreme example I admit) you need something very different in RefNo. The same principles apply using the initial number of a run a setting its identity: in that example, MS.1180 is four levels down and its RefNo is MS1180/1180/1180/1180. For new cataloguing of hierarchical collections we try to have RefNo and AltRefNo look the same (apart from omitting that initial slash) and of course new complex material now goes into a hierarchical arrangement rather than being shoe-horned into a manuscript sequence. I suppose, however, that you could carry on with the twin-reference system, one for work and one for show, if you felt that references were getting too long. We haven't had to do any very long inserts, only the occasional items which can be accommodated by calling them SA/EUG/A.11A or the like, but I would expect that long blocks could be slotted in less obtrusively if you have a twin-reference system in effect. Obviously you want to make sure that AltRefNo is the thing that readers use. In our web interface (http://archives.wellcome.ac.uk) we've masked the RefNo field so that all the reader sees is a clickable link saying "click to browse" (search on Reference = MS.1180 for an example). 6. As you can tell we adapted CALM to accommodate existing cataloguing styles (we computerised at around about the time we merged two departments, so we were dealing with modern archive material catalogued hierarchically and a completely different tradition of older material given manuscript numbers). The good news is that CALM was flexible enough to handle both. If you'd like to see our cataloguing manual which goes into more detail on these, Charlotte, I can send you a copy. Chris Hilton Dr. Christopher Hilton Senior Archivist, Department of Archives and Manuscripts Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine The Wellcome Trust 210 Euston Road LONDON NW1 2BE On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 00:41:25 +0100, Aidan Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan" <[log in to unmask]> >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 2:53 PM >Subject: Re: cataloguing large collections using CALM > > >> Dear All >> >> I for one would rather like to read about the nitty gritty of using >> applications. This does help spread information about how these packages >> are being used and with what success. No doubt others will have opinions >on >> this one. > >Exactly. People might then be stimulated to add their own contributions. >And nobody on this list is ever forced to read through a "long slab of >nitty-gritty on a particular application" if they don't want to (most >postings will get deleted). However, they might still want to refer to the >discussion at a later date - especially if it has been made readily >accessible via the Archives of ARCHIVES-NRA. >http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/archives-nra.html > >Aidan Jones, >Cumbria (Barrow)