Some of the biggest headaches my team has to face are as a direct result of a change of LMS, changing cataloguing standards and changing user expectations happening all at once.  I think at a time like this it’s even more important for cataloguers to make sure they are informed enough and active enough to be able to be part of projects at the planning stage before resources and timescales are set.

 

Anastasia

 

 

Hi Aline!

 

Good to hear from you!

 

Cataloguing projects seem often to be about retrospective conversion, don’t they? Either that, or merging collections that are classified using different schemes, and different library management systems!

 

Good enough is such a horrible, but necessary, concept!

 

 

 

Hi my name is Aline and I work for the Fife Cultural Trust (aka public library service), I am currently in the middle of a retrospective cataloguing project of the local history collections – comes under the mid to long term bracket of project. I have been following the discussions with interest.

 

I particularly agree with Lynne’s “good enough” – although our instinct is shoot for the stars the reality of available resources / funding / time scales does mean that the perfectionist with in the cataloguer probably needs to be shelved to a degree.

 

Aline

 

 

I’m in two minds about our attention to detail, possibly bordering on perfectionism.

 

This could be a blessing – we’d know exactly what was going on, who was doing it and whether or not we were on track, but might struggle when things don’t go to plan, and might get too involved in the minutiae and try and do team members’ jobs for them rather than trusting them to get on with it themselves (albeit giving them plenty of opportunities for reporting back). This is in no way a critical reflection of our skills, but I do have that wonderful phrase “smug tweaking of cataloguing records” in the back of my mind. We probably haven’t got time, so perhaps we should accept “good enough”?

 

Hope this doesn’t sound too contentious?  

 

 

 

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