Grace Chen
From September 2019 to March 2020, my thoughts and dreams were full of catalogue records, spreadsheet data, stacks on stacks on stacks, and barcode stickers (stuck upon archival quality cardstock). The reason I had these stickers flitting in and out of my thoughts constantly was because the BC Archives, which is co-located with the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, BC, had just launched the Archives Library Barcoding Project, of which I was overlooking as part of my co-op work term during my UBC MLIS degree. The project was instated in compliance with the museum’s modernization strategy and coincides with the launch of the library’s new ILS, powered by Evergreen and part of the Sitka consortium. The goal? Barcode every item within the library and ensure that each item matches the correct record within the catalogue, improving collection accessibility greatly, and also providing a chance to upgrade the quality and uniformity of the catalogue records and data. At the same time, the project provided an opportunity to perform a thorough inventory of the collection and assess the collection’s health in terms of preservation.
This was a thriving time within the BC Archives Library; the daily operations of the Archives Library Barcoding Project meant a much higher amount of movement and action than the library was used to seeing, and the results were visibly obvious as more and more rows of books began showing the tell-tale signs of barcode completion: the aforementioned barcodes on cardstock were visible peeking neatly out the top of each volume, and BARCODING COMPLETE signs surrounded by happy faces and shooting star doodles.
The barcoding officially began in October 2019, and initial estimates of completion were based on vague estimates of how many items the library had that needed barcoding (including books, oversized materials, maps and atlases, microform, pamphlets and special collections materials); the amount of time it may take for the library’s team of motivated, barcode-spearing, book-loving volunteers to complete x amount of items; and the amount of volunteers the library could safely accommodate at any given time. Therefore, the initial estimate for the library’s 72,000 items (post-project update: this number nearly doubled) was tentatively set for around two years.
I am happy to report that the barcoding team, which consisted of near 30 excellent volunteers, flew through the shelves, making steady (and quick! And exciting!) progression through the entirety of the first floor of the library and was working through the second floor when work was put on hold with the rest of the pandemic-stricken world. Our last round of stats showed over 65% completion of the General Stacks (books) and 25% completion of the pamphlets, an outstanding statistic to finish my term off with.
Much of the work I was doing involved looking at, preparing, and cleaning the data within the catalogue records, which had their own problems after years of changing systems and changing staff. Immediately after the first week of volunteer action, we realized that the barcoding would progress far more efficiently if we incorporated a “pre-clean” of the shelves before sending volunteers in. This involved me getting to know the Dewey Decimal System very intimately while performing a shelf read of the rows; many adjustments to our catalogue records were needed in order for volunteers to be able to match up and barcode every book. For example, many of the books were multi-volume and required a unique barcode per volume; however, the catalogue records only showed a single holding for all the volumes. Therefore, each volume required an individual holding to be made in order to associate each physical volume with an individual barcode. Secondly, there were many instances where the library held multiple copies of a book, and similarly, the catalogue records did not reflect this multitude. The completion of the pre-clean stage meant that volunteers could barcode more, work with less disruption, and flag fewer problematic items.
While this shelf-reading seemed, at times, never-ending, the results were quite worthwhile. I came across many items that were not represented in the catalogue and therefore needed to either be freshly catalogued or its proper record needed to be found, which was the more common approach. It was often the case that there was a Dewey Decimal number-related mix-up. In some cases, the Dewey Decimal number on the book had been incorrectly written; this was easy to fix as a search for the book’s title often turned up the correct record and only required a new spine label to be affixed to the book. In other instances, the book carried the correct Dewey Decimal number, but the associated record did not. Again, a quick search for the book’s title and an adjustment to the record data could fix the problem easily. These mix-ups were the main reasons for books being marked missing in the catalogue; the book was physically not in the place the record said it was supposed to be. There was even an instance in which we discovered that multiple rows of books had been mistakenly shelved due to confusing the numeric zero for the uppercase letter ‘O’. The amount of glee that occurred after finding a book whose catalogue record stated had been missing for the last ten years is indescribable!
There were also larger puzzles that needed solving. I remember an instance in which the library held a book that had been reprinted many times in many different editions. Half these volumes were downstairs and the other half was upstairs in a completely different Dewey subject area. I ended up having to decide which area more appropriately suited the books and relocated them; however, their Dewey Decimal numbers were still rather odd as a result of having so many different editions of the book. Varying methods of differentiation had been applied, including the use of further numbers, the addition of publication years, and the addition of letters. I ended up researching the editions so that I could place them in chronological order and figure out their dates of publication (which are sometimes not disclosed when the book is self-published or published with very small publishers) before deciding on the configuration of letters and numbers that would make the most sense, re-labelling all the books, and finally reflecting all these confusing changes in the catalogue records.
In conclusion, I was delighted to have helped spearhead a project that I found quite exciting, that uncovered many library mysteries and missing items, and that would ultimately improve the quality of the collection’s searchability, access and representation, as well as track who has checked out what book and which books get requested the most. There were of course many other aspects of the project that expand out of the scope of this post, but the daily operations in regards to the records management of the library collection is well reflected.
This was a thriving time within the BC Archives Library; the daily operations of the Archives Library Barcoding Project meant a much higher amount of movement and action than the library was used to seeing, and the results were visibly obvious as more and more rows of books began showing the tell-tale signs of barcode completion: the aforementioned barcodes on cardstock were visible peeking neatly out the top of each volume, and BARCODING COMPLETE signs surrounded by happy faces and shooting star doodles.
The barcoding officially began in October 2019, and initial estimates of completion were based on vague estimates of how many items the library had that needed barcoding (including books, oversized materials, maps and atlases, microform, pamphlets and special collections materials); the amount of time it may take for the library’s team of motivated, barcode-spearing, book-loving volunteers to complete x amount of items; and the amount of volunteers the library could safely accommodate at any given time. Therefore, the initial estimate for the library’s 72,000 items (post-project update: this number nearly doubled) was tentatively set for around two years.
I am happy to report that the barcoding team, which consisted of near 30 excellent volunteers, flew through the shelves, making steady (and quick! And exciting!) progression through the entirety of the first floor of the library and was working through the second floor when work was put on hold with the rest of the pandemic-stricken world. Our last round of stats showed over 65% completion of the General Stacks (books) and 25% completion of the pamphlets, an outstanding statistic to finish my term off with.
Much of the work I was doing involved looking at, preparing, and cleaning the data within the catalogue records, which had their own problems after years of changing systems and changing staff. Immediately after the first week of volunteer action, we realized that the barcoding would progress far more efficiently if we incorporated a “pre-clean” of the shelves before sending volunteers in. This involved me getting to know the Dewey Decimal System very intimately while performing a shelf read of the rows; many adjustments to our catalogue records were needed in order for volunteers to be able to match up and barcode every book. For example, many of the books were multi-volume and required a unique barcode per volume; however, the catalogue records only showed a single holding for all the volumes. Therefore, each volume required an individual holding to be made in order to associate each physical volume with an individual barcode. Secondly, there were many instances where the library held multiple copies of a book, and similarly, the catalogue records did not reflect this multitude. The completion of the pre-clean stage meant that volunteers could barcode more, work with less disruption, and flag fewer problematic items.
While this shelf-reading seemed, at times, never-ending, the results were quite worthwhile. I came across many items that were not represented in the catalogue and therefore needed to either be freshly catalogued or its proper record needed to be found, which was the more common approach. It was often the case that there was a Dewey Decimal number-related mix-up. In some cases, the Dewey Decimal number on the book had been incorrectly written; this was easy to fix as a search for the book’s title often turned up the correct record and only required a new spine label to be affixed to the book. In other instances, the book carried the correct Dewey Decimal number, but the associated record did not. Again, a quick search for the book’s title and an adjustment to the record data could fix the problem easily. These mix-ups were the main reasons for books being marked missing in the catalogue; the book was physically not in the place the record said it was supposed to be. There was even an instance in which we discovered that multiple rows of books had been mistakenly shelved due to confusing the numeric zero for the uppercase letter ‘O’. The amount of glee that occurred after finding a book whose catalogue record stated had been missing for the last ten years is indescribable!
There were also larger puzzles that needed solving. I remember an instance in which the library held a book that had been reprinted many times in many different editions. Half these volumes were downstairs and the other half was upstairs in a completely different Dewey subject area. I ended up having to decide which area more appropriately suited the books and relocated them; however, their Dewey Decimal numbers were still rather odd as a result of having so many different editions of the book. Varying methods of differentiation had been applied, including the use of further numbers, the addition of publication years, and the addition of letters. I ended up researching the editions so that I could place them in chronological order and figure out their dates of publication (which are sometimes not disclosed when the book is self-published or published with very small publishers) before deciding on the configuration of letters and numbers that would make the most sense, re-labelling all the books, and finally reflecting all these confusing changes in the catalogue records.
In conclusion, I was delighted to have helped spearhead a project that I found quite exciting, that uncovered many library mysteries and missing items, and that would ultimately improve the quality of the collection’s searchability, access and representation, as well as track who has checked out what book and which books get requested the most. There were of course many other aspects of the project that expand out of the scope of this post, but the daily operations in regards to the records management of the library collection is well reflected.
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