Don't forget the Dewey Decimal System is your friend!

The most helpful library assistant

Summer has finally arrived after a not very fun semester of school. Since I'm out of school I've finally been able to tackle two projects I've been meaning to do-- translate a volume of Middle English poetry and organize all the books and media at my house. I'll talk about my progress and experience on the translation front soon, but today I want to talk a little about the Herculean task of cataloging every book, video, CD, vinyl record, and cat we have (fortunately we only have two cats).

The first part of the collection, books in order from right to left

This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. My father and I are bibliophiles and have amassed hundreds of book (with a strange lean towards the 900s...) and we also have a lot of VHS tapes, some of which are off-air recordings (and a couple of those were staples of my childhood). Most important are the books and at this stage I've been entering them all into a spreadsheet and preparing to make spine labels with the DDC calls. 

DDC, or the Dewey Decimal Classification, is the most familiar organization for libraries. It's based on sets of three-digit numbers, called classes or schedules, each one for a general topic. In case you were wondering, here's the breakdown: 

000 - Computer science, information science, and general works

100 - Philosophy and psychology

200 - Religion

300 - Social sciences 

400 - Language

500 - Science

600 - Technology

700 - Arts and recreation

800 - Literature

900 - History and geography

A lot of our books are in the 500s and 900s, and at the library you can usually find me in the 200s, 800s, and 900s. 

Then the calls get more specific, each number after the main class (like 900) narrows it down, and after the decimal point it gets even more specific. For example, we have a lot of books on the American Civil War, which is 973.7. 900 tells you it's history, 7 is North America, 3 is the United States, and .7 is the Civil War.

...When I say we have a lot of books on the Civil War, I'm not exaggerating.

Here are some pictures of this last couple of weeks' progress

Remember: labeling books is good, labeling people is bad.

I started by taking the books we had on our dining table and entering them into a spreadsheet. These were then crossreferenced with our local library's catalog to find the DDC. After doing that I made simple labels that I printed and affixed with some library-like tape my mother found... which I'm now out of. You can see the label-affixing progress to the left here. When done, I shelved them and they look very professional and not at all like I stole them from the library. You can get all the supplies needed for managing your own home library from thelibrarystore.com, which is accessible even by civilians. 

A day's worth of work

 Next time I'll talk about some cataloging and organization methods for books and media. Also coming soon, since this blog is a mess of topics, will be a report on the translation project I've undertaken, which will include a hopefully amusing rant on Middle English.

Until then, take care of yourself and may the good news be yours.

Gallica -- a Quick Look

This isn't much of a review, I'll probably do a longer one in the future, but here's a blog entry I made for my class on public history.

I’d like to talk about my favorite sort of public history-- archives and archival science. One of my favorite archives is Gallica, the online digitized library of the National Library of France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/?mode=desktop .

The site is in French but you don’t have to know any French to enjoy it. Many documents are in other languages, and it’s fun just browsing the collection, which spans the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The acquisition pages are very interesting (interesting to me that is, your mileage may vary). Each page for a document has the document digitized, which you can flip through on the page or download, and a box to view the acquisition details. Here’s an example:

Titre :  Recueil de poésies de Charles d'Orléans.
Date d'édition :  1401-1500
Sujet :  Orléans, Charles, duc d', fils de Louis d'Orléans.
Sujet :  Poésies.
Type :  manuscrit
Langue :  français
Format :  Parchemin. - 537 pages. - 165 × 110 mm. - Reliure maroquin vert
Droits :  domaine public
Identifiant :  ark:/12148/btv1b105325836Source :  Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 25458
Notice du catalogue :  http://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc538881Provenance :  Bibliothèque nationale de France
Date de mise en ligne :  07/03/2016

This tells you the title, the approximate date, the subject, type, language, format, who owns the rights to it, the identification link, the source, the catalogue notice (which is the same as the identification link0, the provenance, and the date it was put online. This is a parchment manuscript of the poetry of Charles, Duke of Orleans, which was made between the years 1401 and 1500 (we know it was made in the mid-1400s, that’s just an approximation for archive use), it’s in French and held in the National Library of France, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and was put online in March of 2016. It tells you everything you need to know about the document right there! The acquisition information like you might see on an information plate is hidden in there: it’s BnF. Ms. Fr. 25458, which tells you the library, the department (Ms.: manuscripts), that it’s in French, and the acquisition number, 25458. All you have to know is that string of information, and you can search for it easily (nerd that I am, I have that particular info memorized).

So, go check out Gallica, I’m sure there’s something that will interest you. And, it even has a mobile app, which I highly recommend.