Sunday, January 26, 2014

Jewish Legion anybody?

I think I should rename my blog the lost librarian. I'm three weeks into my new job, and I am enjoying it, but I've decided I can't avoid the cataloging any longer. My blog is now going to become a place where I share my cataloging issues, because people on Facebook don't deserve to be inundated with long posts.

Before I come to the first issue, here is a list of what I'm using to catalog:

1. The homegrown system which is a combination of "Shalom and Dewey."  I have a list of letters, and for most of them, a Dewey or Shalom number that corresponds.

2.  A booklet that says "use this version" which is from 1981.  I believe it is Shalom, but it says on the cover "סדר המקצועות במדעי היהדות"

3.  ULI , or more specifically Beit Berl because I know they have Dewey, unlike the universities who mostly use LC.

So, the book of the day is "We are coming, unafraid: the Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War"  Looks like an interesting book, appropriate for a History Library, so lets go catalog it.

Steps taken:

  1. Look inside the book, call number listed is 940.4, but that number doesn't appear on my list, or in the booklet I have.
  2. Look on the list, hmm 933.4 sounds good Jewish History  current. so that would be F
  3. Take a look in F...hmmm 90% antisemitism 10% hasidism....no clue...nothing from WWI
  4. Look in our catalog, do we have anything on the Jewish Legion...nope not in Hebrew and not in English.
  5. Let's try WWI in the catalog, ok the term used is "היסטוריה יהודית: מילחמת העולם הראשונה".   Ok, thats logical...where are those 16 books cataloged?
  • Six of them are under T for Textbooks, next
  • Two are under I which is Zionism, and different periods of Zionism (933.6, 933.61-63)
  • Three in Biography, one in Jews from the US, one in general History, and one in Arabs in Eretz Yisrael.
  • The last two are internally published books, so they are in another category.
So here I am, I've spent over an hour trying to figure out where this book should go in our collection.  I think I'm going to look at the Zionism books, because that is the closest to making sense...

But NO...I'm still new with the issues of Hebrew and this catalog...there are 5 books under "הגדודים העבריים" which I missed first time around because I stuck a yud in Gidud.....three are in KC.... Military organizations and units and Israeli Army.  

And so ends the first book of my Sunday.

3 comments :

Fern Chasida said...

Isn't there anyone in this new job you can ask for advice? Sounds daunting. When I need to catalog, I take it from someplace else.

Safranit said...

Ahh Fern, they haven't had a librarian here in 7 years! I went to ULI to steal the cataloging, but to come up with a location in such a homegrown system, that won't help.

Anonymous said...

Contact the National Library - they converted from Scholem to Dewey and might be able to help you unify the two classification schemes.

And I'm proud you like the Beit Berl cataloging!