Heythrop Library

This is what my day as a Project Cataloguer at Heythrop typically looks like!

9.30am – 1pm

I arrive at the library. Sometimes I will help turn the lights on and a couple of the computers. Usually, I get settled at my desk and survey which books I am going to catalogue that day. Right now, I am cataloguing a mixture of new donations and uncatalogued Heythrop books from offsite storage. I try to stick to one acquisition source for the day so entering the provenance tagline into each book’s item record is more seamless. I get more cataloguing done in the morning as this is when my brain is most fresh!

When cataloguing a book, I first use our library management system Sierra to search for it in our catalogue, which we share with Senate House Library. If there is an existing bibliographic record from Senate House Library, I usually make small corrections and add the table of contents into the 505-note field. If there isn’t an existing bibliographic record, I import a copy of a record from another library.

I spend more time on more obscure or older books so that I can update them to newer cataloguing standards such as RDA. If these titles don’t have subject headings, I search Library of Congress Authorities and add the appropriate ones.

I also create item records for the books and barcode them.

1pm – 2pm

Lunchtime! On nice days I’ll sit in Mount Street Gardens or Berkeley Square. When it’s rainy (which has been a lot lately), I’ll sit in the staff room or Cana Lounge at the other end of the corridor from the library.

2pm – 4pm

A mixture of cataloguing, indexing and labelling. Once the books have been catalogued, class marked, and labelled, I create boxes for them and index them on Deepstore’s online system. Deepstore then comes to collect the indexed boxes of books to take them back to offsite storage at Winsford, Cheshire.

4 – 4.15pm

Tea break! I particularly enjoy a mint tea in the afternoon.

4.15 – 5.30pm

More indexing and labelling, with some blog posting thrown in the mix. Cataloguing can take up a lot of brain power, so it can be nice to take a little break in the afternoon by focusing on indexing and working on blogging projects.

I also use this time to contribute to our Library Thing account by adding books from our acquisitions spreadsheet. This helps to keep the Library Thing graphic of new arrivals on our website updated.

5.30pm

Home time!