Hi Esther,

I did a distance learning MSc in Librarianship and I think we spent about a couple of hours one study school on cataloguing (which probably came within the whole 'information retrieval' module).  I think this session only made sense to me because I was already cataloguing at the time!

I basically learnt on the job.  My first full time post was as an acquisitions assistant (also doing general library duties).  There were two of us assistants, an acquisitions librarian, and a cataloguer.  At one point the cataloguer left as the post was about to become more systems based.  Before he left he gave myself and the other assistant some cataloguing training.  We had to fill in the gap before his post was replaced - this took a long time and when they did appoint the person was in charge of a LMS changeover so never did any cataloguing.  During that time myself and my colleague learnt as we went along.  I think I did also attend a day course run by Keith Trickey at one point.

I have the impression that a lot of people don't really learn cataloguing at library school (with the exception of UCL attendees), you learn on the job, or are given in-house training perhaps with  the odd external course thrown in.

I think I would have liked to have taken a cataloguing module if I had had the chance!

Karen