LCCN, October 23, 2012
ISSN 2324-6464
The Scandinavia, Baltic and Central Germanic (SBCG) Section of ABA
By Lucy Barron, SBCG Supervisor
Dear readers,
The ABA reorganization of 2008 focused on uniting the acquisitions and
cataloging activities within sections based upon geographic areas of the
world. I am going to tell you a bit about the duties in my section, the
Scandinavia, Baltic and Central Germanic Section, or SBCG, in the
Germanic and Slavic Division (GS). Since most of SBCG's librarians are
performing both acquisitions and cataloging librarian duties, the
editorial team thought it would be interesting to explain how our
section may differ from others.
The Germanic and Slavic Division covers all of Eastern Europe, Northern
Europe, Southern Europe, those parts of western Europe not handled in
the African, Latin American and Western European Division, and a few
countries/territories in the Atlantic Ocean. The division is divided
into five sections: the Russia Section, which handles Russia and now
Mongolia, although the latter country was added after the
reorganization; the Germany Section, which handles Germany; the
Southeast European Section, which handles eleven countries (Albania,
Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia); the East Central European Section, which
handles eight countries (Belarus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova,
Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine); and then our section, the
Scandinavia, Baltic and Central Germanic Section, which handles thirteen
countries (Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Faeroe Islands, Finland,
Greenland, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden,
Switzerland) plus those publications emanating from the Geneva offices
of the United Nations (UN) and its constituent bodies.
In Fiscal Year 2011, SBCG purchased in combined General Acquisitions
(GenPac) and Law funds over $479,000 worth of materials which totaled
over 14,000 items. Because of our UN responsibilities, we also
traditionally have high non-purchase receipts, and last year we acquired
over 12,000 items through exchange or gift.
Our section currently contains nine full-time staff (six librarians and
three technicians), plus myself. We also have assistance processing our
work from five other librarians outside of the section or division,
including Mark Freidin (Latvian cataloging); Monique Graham (Switzerland
acquisitions and French language cataloging); Bob Roth (Icelandic and
Faeroese cataloging); Yanti Spooner (Norway acquisitions); and Lina
Zilionyte (Lithuanian cataloging). The much-valued assistance we get
from all these people exemplifies the unique talents of these staff
which could not fit into a neatly divided post-reorganization world, at
least not without some yet-to-be-perfected human cloning.
Immediately following the reorganization, we lost one acquisitions
specialist to promotion and another soon retired. A third librarian,
who had been hired just before the reorganization, was assigned to our
section in one of the new blended librarian positions. Because the
languages our section covers vary from Danish to German to Finnish to
Latvian to Kalaallisut (or West Greenlandic, an Inuit language), it
quickly became apparent that having only one or two specialists was not
optimal. The Director of ABA, Beacher Wiggins, gave SBCG special
permission to circumvent the training moratorium that existed right
after the reorganization and immediately allowed training of any
cataloging staff in the section willing to learn acquisitions.
Come back in the next mailing to find out how the section organizes
itself today...
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Lucy Barron
Library of Congress
GS: Scandinavia, Baltic & Central Germanic Section
Supervisor
