Hello all and Happy Friday!
I would like to ask the collective wisdom of ARLIS if anyone has any experience to share regarding the acquisition of shelf-ready stock in an art library context?
At University of Cumbria, all in-print books are purchased shelf-ready from Dawson’s in that they are ready- classified etc and pre-made catalogue records are imported. However, whilst this seems to work satisfactorily for other subject
areas, in the library at our arts campus we notice a number of issues:
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Classifications rarely reflect the purpose for which they have been purchased. For instance, a children’s storybook bough for illustration content for our Illustration students will be classified with children’s literature (understandably!).
But as we know, creative students discover resources through speculative browsing and so often this books are bypassed as students tend to browse through ‘their section’.
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Imported catalogue records are poor in metadata with scant keywords attached which makes searching through the catalogue much more difficult for students and academic staff
Currently, we have a policy forbidding the amendment any records that have been imported or the change of any classmarks as shelf-ready is a service we pay a premium for and management are not keen on relenting. I just wondered if other
art libraries had any experience of shelf-ready services at all and if so, how they overcome the kinds of issues we have been facing?
Many thanks and best wishes
Claire
Claire Stewart
Learning Enhancement Adviser
Academic Engagement, Skills and Retention
Library and Student Services
Brampton Road Library
University of Cumbria
Carlisle
CA3 9AY
Tel: 01228 400375 (Internal: 8375)
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We welcome your feedback about the service we provide - please could you fill in our survey at
https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/cumbria/academicguidance1415
Thank you!