Intern's Corner: Behind the Scenes at SGGL

Welcome to the Intern's Corner, where once a month we'll post about a project currently in process at SGGL! This week's Intern's Corner will be written by Sara Smith, an IMPART intern, who has been hard at work cataloging the collection.

The past few months I have been very busy creating the first database of our collection! This is a very exciting process, making our collection of books searchable and accessible to ourselves and the general public.

When I began this project, I was very new to MARC cataloging and data mapping - which are all part of creating these records for our books. With the guidance of my supervisor Dr. Joni Jones, we have steadily increased our skills and confidence in mastering the system and have entered our first records into the database! Now the process is quite seamless and records are entered into the database on a daily basis, then given their call numbers and re-shelved in our stacks.

We now have about half of our initial book collection entered into our database and the number of these records grows on a daily basis. We can now search our collection by keywords, author, title, subject headings - the list goes on and on! For instance, I just did a quick search for "Maryland" and found more than eighty books about this state, ranging from biographies, such as Fredrick Douglass or Barry Black, to community histories, including Annapolis, Baltimore, and smaller towns such as Brentwood and Easton.

The potential is amazing: as our collection grows through our own acquisitions and the kind generosity of library supporters, so will this database, rendering it more useful and informative for all those looking for information on African American history. If you would like to be part of increasing our collection holdings, feel free to suggest additional resources! For ideas see our "Book Wish List" on the side of this blog (clicking on the book's title will take you directly to amazon.com) or see the suggestions in our newsletter. And if you have any suggestions, just let us know!

We are increasingly on our way to a fully cataloged collection. We will be keeping you up-to-date as progress continues. Thank you for your support and for reading the blog - come by and visit and see for yourself!

photo source:
Appalachian State University Blog www.library.appstate.edu/blog/