September 27, 2017
by Logan Carte, Cox Scholar
I am currently working in the James H. Kellar Library on a project that consists of coding and cataloging the books into a digital database to make searching easier. This is my second year at the Glenn A. Black Lab and I have greatly enjoyed it. Everyone here is extremely friendly and it is a very comfortable, laid-back place to work. I love working on projects due to the sense of achievement that I feel once they are completed.
The digital software I have been using is called Oxygen, which allows me to input the metadata from each book in order to allow the information to be viewed online. I first begin by finding the book on a website called Librarything, which allows me to catalog the books online using their service. Once that has been done, I then move over to a second website hosted by the Library of Congress, where I am able to find more information about the book and then input that data into Oxygen. Our librarian, Kelsey, has shown me how to catalog the books by using the Library of Congress classification number, or LC classification for short. This number is then copied from the Library of Congress website and pasted into an Excel document, which is then printed off on a labeling sheet and each individual LC classification is put on the bottom of the spine of each book. Cataloging the books by LC classification has seemed to be not only the easiest way to find a particular book, but also the most effective. This is because books are grouped by their LC classification, meaning that if a person is interested in a particular subject, all of the books in that subject are arranged together to make the process of finding one much more efficient and straightforward.
My name is Logan Carte and I am currently a sophomore at Indiana University studying management with a minor in financial literacy. I began working at the GBL last fall to help fulfill my scholarship requirement by working 8-10 hours a week in the library. I have worked on a variety of tasks including coding and cataloging the books, cataloging the theses and dissertations, as well as analyzing data from different tribes. I have greatly enjoyed my work so far in the GBL and I’m looking forward to another great year!