You know that door near the computers on the library’s Main Floor near the Reference Desk? The one near the purple wall that says ‘212: Technical Services’? Yeahe, that door. Ever wonder what’s behind it?
That’s OK. A lot of people do.
Student A: Is that where the library people think up those long, complicated call numbers? Like PR2829.A2 P43 2004?
Student B: No, I think it’s where they go to flip through book catalogs to find new thick, heavy encyclopedias to order to make our papers harder to research!
Faculty member to him/herself: Gee, I thought it was sort of a library ER/triage center for books that have seen better days. (Vision: a group of panicked librarians gathered around a tattered volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography lying open on a table. “I need six feet of mending tape, stat!!” one shouts as she dramatically straddles the dying serial to perform CPR.)
Actually, all three of you are correct!
Er, well, sort of.
OK, here’s the deal. There’s a heckuva lot that goes on behind that door that keeps this place organized and running like a well-oiled machine. And over the next few weeks, I’m going to let the folks back there tell you a little bit about who they are and what they do and why it’s so darned important.
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Hi, my name is Tamara Jordan, and I have been the Catalog/Systems Librarian here at Columbia College for just over a year and a half now. The main responsibilities of my position are cataloging the new materials received by the library and maintaining the database that houses the online catalog. I spend a lot of quality time at my desk with my computer adding, deleting, searching, correcting and updating records for the library’s materials; in other words, I don’t get out much. But on such occasions when you do see me out in the stacks, please feel free to say hello, ask a question or tell me what you do or don’t like about the library, the collection, the online catalog, etc. I am easy to recognize—the red hair is hard to miss, and I am never without bits of paper, stickie notes or, all else failing, illegible scrawl on my palms--computers are grand, but you haven’t done a good day’s work if you leave without ink-stained hands. In fact, that is the beauty of my job, I get to work with all the cool technology AND still have the tactile experience of magic markers, spine labels, book stampers and making book fortresses around my desk!
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OK, folks. Stay tuned for more exciting accounts of "What are they doing back there...?"
