Have You Hugged Your Cataloger Today?

This semester of school has certainly given me a new appreciation for what catalogers do.

The Dewey system and I? Well, we get along fabulously. It's like doing a puzzle. A very elegant, nerdy puzzle. Granted, when you get into dropping digits and zeros it gets a bit confusing. And sometimes when you look at a number, you can't really figure out the thought process that the cataloger took, but I love it. A book on breeding racehorses? 636.12. You say you're interested in civil engineering as a profession? 624.023. Doing a Dewey number really reminds me of letterboxing-looking at clues, trying to decipher them to get to the right place, and the "A-ha!" moment when you find what you're looking for. You can really tailor the number to bring out certain aspects of the work. It's fantastic!

My relationship with the Library of Congress Classification System? I want a divorce. There are 44+ volumes (compared to Dewey's sleek four) and there are no instructions (the brief instructions in Dewey seem downright verbose). Granted, it's the Library of Congress and they do pretty much what they want to do and this system obviously works for them. It was created for use only in the Library of Congress and they don't really share the rules that their catalogers use. So us mere mortal librarians (and poor MLIS students) basically have to figure it out based on what others have figured out.

I've spent the past three hours pouring over various volumes of the LoC Classification System for my final exam and I honestly feel like throwing them out the window. There are directions to look at a certain table, but no clues as to where this table is. The descriptions of the headings are vague at the best of times and the indentations screw with your head. Tables are scattered throughout the volumes, so you have to go digging in several different books to find what you need.

So hug the cataloger at your local library and thank them for making it easy for you to find what you need! 'Cause it sure as heck ain't easy to do.