Cyclone Catalogers Join Hawkeyes and Panthers to Help Each Other With Flood of Work

11-Nov-2009

While the Cyclones, Hawkeyes, and Panthers can compete fiercely against each other in athletic endeavors, they are cooperating in the library. All of the Regents' universities have library staff responsible for cataloging; that is, describing library materials in their online catalogs so people can find what they have. As in other areas of the universities, the staffing for this area has been reduced and expertise has been lost as long-time staff members have retired.

On the initiative of the library deans, key cataloging staff members from the three institutions met in Ames this summer and discussed their staffing strengths and weaknesses to determine how they might pool their remaining cataloging resources. For instance, some Iowa State catalogers know Russian, but need help with Chinese and map cataloging; some University of Iowa catalogers know Chinese, but need help with map cataloging, and the University of Northern Iowa has an internationally-known map cataloger, but needs help with Chinese and Russian.

Rather than sending catalogers to work in different locations, the expertise will be shared largely through electronic means, using computers to create a virtual workplace environment. The cataloging that will be created will be original, meaning that no other library has previously cataloged the items. The cataloging partnership will be known as the Virtual Original Interinstitutional Cataloging Environment, or VOICE.

To identify a joint project, the VOICE libraries inventoried their holdings of Iowa maps that they had never had enough staffing or expertise to catalog. With their mutual concerns about flooding, they have chosen the National Flood Insurance maps for Iowa as their first cataloging project. Several hundred maps are involved. Training will be provided by the University of Northern Iowa in November, and then the work will be divided between the VOICE libraries. The cataloging will be put in an international database of cataloging records called OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), where it will be shared with the world.

Other libraries are considering how to pool their staffing resources for cataloging between two or more institutions. Columbia and Cornell University are developing a partnership like this called 2CUL. The University of California system is also considering how to do this.

We would develop a new name for our catalogers to represent their interinstitutional nature, but could not agree on whether they would be CyHawkPanthalogers, HawkCyPanthalogers, or PanHawkCycologers. In some sense, the rivalry continues.

Squaw Creek flood plain in Ames as shown on one of the maps to be cataloged.