A few months ago, a friend invited me to meet with her staff. She runs a respected private company in the local book industry, and over the years their book collection has grown into a valuable body of work. It has become a resource not only for their staff but also for researchers outside the company. Because of this, they began thinking seriously about organizing the collection. In other words, they realized what they truly needed: a library—and a librarian. Finding a registered librarian, however, has proven to be a significant challenge.
The consultative meeting I had with the team turned out to be both lively and productive. The staff, a mix of Millennials and Gen Zs, were eager to understand what it means to build and sustain a library in the traditional brick-and-mortar sense. We talked about purpose, systems, and the practical realities of organizing and maintaining a working collection.
To support their next steps, I put together a workflow they can use as a reference as they begin this process. I’m sharing it here on the blog as well, in the hope that it might help others who find themselves in a similar situation—organizations with growing collections that are ready to become libraries.
Phase 1 - Goal Setting
1.
Why are you setting up a library?
2.
What is the purpose of the library?
3.
What do you wish to achieve in a
year?
4.
What resources (time, money,
staff) do you need to achieve this?
5.
Determine criteria for selecting
and acquiring books, documents and resources to put in the library.
6.
Who will use the library in the
next 2-3 years?
7.
How do you see the library growing
five years from now?
Answers to these questions need to be written down because it will
serve as a guide when you begin organizing your library’s collection and
holdings. Sometime in the future, it will be valuable in your library manual,
handbook or brochure.
Follow administrative protocols and coordinate with department units
when the guide and the goal of the library are written down. Seek approval of admin
and the head of the department.
Phase
2 - Acquisition Registry, Classification
and Cataloging
1.
Assign each book, document and
resource an accession number that is alphanumeric and unique to the material.
Example: AL0001
2.
Stick or put the accession number
on the book, resource or document. Choose a special page number, at the
copyright page and at the back. Barcoded accession number is ideal, but if the
tech is not available, manual will do.
3.
Enter the bibliographic data of
the book, document, resource in the catalog. This may be a manual or digital
cataloging system.
4.
Assign a location mark - this is
usually the classification or subject code like the Dewey Decimal or Library of
Congress. But you can devise your own subject and classification scheme.
5.
Cover the book, secure documents
and resources (put them in folders, envelopes, clearbooks)
6.
Place the book, documents and
resources on the shelf
For your shelving concerns, you can devise your own. For your
cataloging and classification issues, yes, you can also create your own. You
need not follow the Dewey Decimal System nor the Library of Congress,
especially if there is no librarian hired by the school, organization or company.
The important thing is, the accession number/Barcode, location mark and
bibliographic data are consistently recorded.
Basic principles of library organization: ACCURATE. UNIFORM. CONSISTENT.
Phase 3 - Communications and Circulation Services, Inventory Process
1.
Announce new acquisitions and
inclusions to the library collection to the community.
2.
Include simple and practical ways
to inform the community ways to access the books and library resources.
3.
Do inventory twice a year. Use the
acquisition registry as main record for inventory.
4.
Mark the status of the book or
resource as: missing, lost, accounted for. Inventory is done manually.
5.
Write and submit an inventory
report. Information on the inventory report will help you assess and evaluate
your library’s systems, workflows and processes.
This is not the first time I helped a community organize a library. Below are links to previous post where I had interactions with non-librarians in setting up a library and a paper I wrote about school library organization.
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