Project Scope
A special collections archives vault within a medical university library containing 15k – 20k monographs in a variety of written languages. The monographs needed to be assessed for previous labeling with a barcode and
record in the ILS database. During the inventory process, any title missing a record needed to be properly cataloged. The project anticipated cataloging in English, Romance, German, Greek, Russian, and Southeast Asian languages for approximately 10% of the collection.
Workflow
Inventory review was slated to take around 6 weeks of processing and ensured that every item in the vault was barcoded and recorded in the ILS. The On-Site team created digital surrogates of every book needing a record for the second phase of the project: remote cataloging. The cataloging team then took the next 3 months to address nearly 5,000 items that were not previously accessible in the catalog.
Client’s Perspective
“We knew we had an exceptional rare book collection; however, it was a ‘hidden treasure’ since records for almost half of the volumes were absent from our catalog. This project allowed us to unlock our holdings and now enables users to discover these unique materials.”
– Polina Ilieva, Associate University Librarian for Collections and UCSF Archivist
Special Touches
While portions of the collection already had barcodes on acid-free slips to tuck into the books, Backstage was able to print new slips with a simple colophon and statement of extent for easy reference when browsing.
