[Evergreen-catalogers] Volume Information: Classification Scheme

[Elizabeth B. Thomsen]

We were involved in this development, and although I can't comment on 
any issues of changing the way you're currently doing things, I can tell 
you what we want this for: we want our call number information to be 
divided by classification scheme and sorted into neat little boxes for 
prefix, call number proper and suffix, to make it easier for us to do 
various types of reports and data analysis.

Background:  We're a consortium of public and academic libraries with a 
mix of call number schemes.  Each of our libraries use LC or Dewey for 
some or all of their items, with most also using generic text call 
numbers like "Fiction Grisham" or "DVD Travel 342" for some areas of 
their collection.

We have a long history of doing consortium-wide collection assessment 
projects and we need to be able to do queries on call numbers across all 
libraries saying "show me all items linked to volumes that have either a 
Dewey call number that starts with 77 or an LC call number that starts 
with TR."  (Not the proper syntax, obviously, but you get the idea.) 
Based on our experiences (good and bad) with our current system, we 
wanted to be able to distinguish between Dewey and LC numbers and 
exclude the generics, and to know where the actual Dewey or LC number 
starts, which is why we wanted prefixes.

Others may not have a need for this much structure, and certainly it 
would take a work to sort things out after the fact.

Elizabeth

On 5/4/2012 1:05 PM, sarahc at zionsville.lib.in.us wrote:
> Hello, Everyone.
> I'm working on updating our local cataloging documentation and I'm
> wondering what people can tell me about the Classification
> drop-down list in the volume information.  We've just been
> ignoring it.
>
> I've dug around in the General list archives, and from what I can
> tell this setting is intended to aid in sorting based on call
> number.
>
> I think currently we're satisfied with the way things are sorting.
>   What is the advantage to using this?  And would any advantage be
> nullified by the fact that all of our previous volumes don't have
> a classification scheme applied?  Has anyone else started using
> this function mid-stream?
>
> Ours is defaulting to General right now. We use a mix of local
> call number schemes and Dewey (as do most of the libraries in the
> consortium, although the State Library uses a lot of things for
> various collections, including LOC).
>
> If I change the default to Dewey for our library, will the system
> pull the Dewey call number instead of LOC for the call number
> input box?  But would I then need to set General for all of my
> non-Dewey call numbers?
>
>
>
> Sarah Childs
> Senior Cataloger
> Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library
> 250 North Fifth Street
> Zionsville, IN 46077
> 317-873-3149 x13330
> sarahc at zionsville.lib.in.us
>
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-- 
Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchange
26 Cherry Hill Drive
Danvers MA 01923
E-mail: et at noblenet.org