Reflection on Article Reviews

There is a lot more to learning the formal rules of cataloguing and constructing original records than I had thought. Before taking the course I believed that cataloguing was straight forward- you learn some rules, follow procedures, and presto everything is in order. After completing a good portion of the course, I am especially concerned when it comes to cataloguing nonbook sources, primary e-resources.

The three articles I reviewed, Angela Murphy-Walter’s “ The Creatures from the Back Room”, Sandra William’s “The Recent Evolution of Cataloging, and Carol Tenopir’s “A New-Old Role for Libraries, all focus on nonbook cataloguing (my article reviews posted on discussion board). Angela Murphy-Walters offers tips for librarians on how to deal with nonbook cataloguing. She writes that nonbook cataloguing is a specialized area, but there is no reason why we can’t learn it and suggests steps to follow. Her recommendation to “Just Do It”, document your procedures, and tweak as you go, hit home with me. I can not be expected to do it perfectly, and I think it is worse to not do it at all and have resources not being used to their potential or possibly lost.

Sandra William’s article reinforces the point of learning formal cataloguing rules and language of AACR2 and MARC records. Her article summed up the rationale for taking this course when she states the reason we learn the rules is because poor records simply can not be found in an automated system. For resources to be fully accessed by users through an automated system we need to create accurate cataloguing systems. Exacting cataloguing is very important now that much of the information we deal with, in the form of nonbook materials, needs original cataloguing. I see this becoming more common in the immediate future. With the many web sources, original documents being created by peers and students, and the variety of multimedia resources available, the need for original cataloguing is increasing.

The third article, Carol Tenopir’s “A New-Old Role for Libraries” was disconcerting. She attended a conference where speaker Derek Law stressed the importance of focusing on collecting non-commercial resources such as e-sources (Blogs, research papers, audio files, streamed lectures, images, staff records, etc). He states that not only do we need to start capturing these things now, before they are lost in the unregulated web world, but we need to guide creators to construct their data records in a way that they can be captured. He lays out steps we need to take when cataloguing such resources and stresses that we need to be able to discern what is worth keeping and what is not. I do not feel qualified to do this, but do appreciate the fact that much original information is going to be lost during the infancy stages of the Web. I believe things will become more regulated in the future and more standardization will happen in documenting these resources. For now, I can focus upon school/community produced resources and apply the methodology learned in this course to these original resources. I can also create records for sites commonly used by our school, and records for physical nonbook items in the school.

These three articles reinforce concerns I had about nonbook resources before I began the course. I still feel there is so much for me to learn and discuss regarding the documentation of e-resources and original documents. In the future I think we will look back and realize all the valuable information that was lost in this time. I think we, me included, have become very biased thinking books and journals are the most accurate source of information and the primary resources in need of cataloguing. The fact that books are reviewed and published is a great source of comfort to me as it gives these resources validation, however, a lot of information today ages very quickly and books take time to produce. I have been changing my own attitudes towards original materials and their importance, and will be putting more thought into capturing these resources.



Murphy-Walter, Angela. “ The Creatures from the Back Room”, School Library Journal, 46:12, (2000): 58.

Williams, Sandra Q. “The Recent Evolution of Cataloging”, Knowledge Quest, 34:1, (2005): 43-44.

Tenopir, Carol. “A New-Old Role for Libraries.” Library Journal, 134:2, (2009): 24