[Genealib] Re: Genealogy Room setup

[Witt, Gretchen B.]

The History Room is on a separate floor from the rest of the circulating
collection.  We have very few books that are duplicates - 1 in
circulating and one in the History Room and they are mostly local
history or local connections.  These books do have two call numbers, but
they are in different locations within the building itself.   RPL
includes two branches but the History Room has all the non-circulating
materials dealing with genealogy. I do the cataloging for the History
Room books and as I often add subject headings etc. - it is no great
problem to add a unique call number.  

It is my experience thus far that most of the folks coming to the
History Room like to browse the collection and find books they had never
thought would have material they needed in the sections about their
particular counties or areas of interest.  If the collection were
integrated within the larger collection this would difficult to do.
Additionally, Circulation would find it more difficult trying to discern
what materials circulate and which do not.


Gretchen

Gretchen Beilfuss Witt
History Room Librarian
Gretchen.Witt at rowancountync.gov 
 
Edith M. Clark History Room
Rowan Public Library
P.O. Box 4039
Salisbury, NC  28145-4039
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu
[mailto:genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu] On Behalf Of Anne Gometz
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 9:29 PM
To: Librarians Serving Genealogists
Subject: [Genealib] Re: Genealogy Room setup

I think this is a recurring topic and we have requests from our patrons
to redo our genealogy and local history collection "the way Rowan does
it".

However, I've never seen anyone mention the question of integrating the
collection with the rest of the library's holdings.  We have 13
libraries in our system and we buy multiple circulating copies of books
on local history and genealogical "how-to" books.  Since books without
Dewey numbers that fit into the regular pattern would be quite a
shelving problem in the circulating collection, I'm assuming that you
will have to have two call numbers.  If I'm reading Rowan's catalog
correctly, that's  what they do.  If I'm wrong, I hope someone from that
library will correct me.  Your cataloging people may or may not find
that burdensome.  At my first job, I set up a slightly modified Dewey
system to avoid that problem.

Anne Gometz

Employee of Gaston Lincoln Regional Library, but no statement here is to
be interpreted as an expression of library opinion or policy.  [Required
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