/LCCN/, Nov. 14, 2012
ISSN 2324-6464
The Scandinavia, Baltic and Central Germanic (SBCG) Section of ABA
Part 2
By Lucy Barron, SBCG Supervisor
See http://listserv.loc.gov/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1210&L=lccn&T=0&P=172 to
see part one of this article
And now to continue learning how the Scandinavia, Baltic and Central
Germanic (SBCG) Section organizes itself and gets its work done...
How do the duties break down today? The section has two full-time
catalogers: Linda Sinclair, who is also our RDA reviewer for monographs;
and Natalia Jagannathan. Natalia has a specialty in art cataloging and
lends some of her time to the Germany Section to catalog their art
materials. She also catalogs Polish materials one day per week for the
East Central European Section. For SBCG, she catalogs German materials,
especially all the art books, and anything in Russian. Natalia has also
completed training in how to catalog the Latvian books, which by special
agreement with the National Library of Latvia are cataloged using their
national records for copy. Linda Sinclair does descriptive cataloging
of the Scandinavian, German, and Greenlandic materials, but can perform
descriptive cataloging on just about anything we receive, if needed.
Our other librarians do a combination of cataloging and acquisitions,
usually in a ratio of 40/60 to as much as 50/50 percent over the course
of a year; however, the unique nature of acquisitions means that there
are dry and rainy seasons---with August and September (after we've spent
all the money) usually being acquisitions doldrums months when lots of
cataloging can be achieved. Kersti Blumenthal handles all acquisitions
from Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania, as well as all cataloging for
Finland and Estonia and serves as a Finnish and Estonian cataloging
expert for other areas of the Library. Karen Hill handles all
acquisitions from Denmark, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland.
Karen catalogs materials in German, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian.
This summer she completed an Icelandic language course and will soon
begin training with Bob Roth to take over much of the Icelandic and
Faeroese cataloging. In addition, Karen catalogs about one and one-half
days per week German and/or social sciences materials from various
sections in the two general/U.S.-focused ABA divisions as well as for
the Germany Section.
Mark Simon was new to the Library post-reorganization, even though he
had more than 20 years of music cataloging under his belt at Cornell
University. His presence was greatly welcomed and he was trained
immediately to do acquisitions full-time his first few months and
assigned the smallest plus two of the biggest countries in the section,
Liechtenstein, Austria, and Switzerland. Since that time, Mark has
resumed cataloging, working with German and German-dialect materials.
Monique Graham, from the Russia Section, now does our Swiss acquisitions
as well as our French cataloging. Nette Schou handles all acquisitions
from Sweden and Latvia and additionally catalogs materials in Swedish,
Danish, Norwegian, and German. For serials, generally Steve Folsom,
Germany Section, is available to catalog German language materials; Rose
Graves does serial copy cataloging; and I do the rest.
SBCG has three technicians---Rose Graves, Salwa Samaan, and Oksana
Klebs. They create initial bibliographic records (IBC's), check in
materials to the Section via ABA-slip, label materials, and perform
serial check-in. In addition, Rose assists Nette and Kersti with
exchange processing; Salwa assists Mark with invoices; and Oksana
assists with invoices and purchase orders as well as exchange for
Belarus and the Ukraine for East Central European section. Oksana is
also in training to learn monograph copy cataloging.
We are still looking for more help with serial cataloging, and we would
love to find monograph catalogers for Italian and Rhaeto-Romance
languages! SBCG has come a long way from the first days of the
reorganization when all of us didn't know what had hit us; and its
success has come through the diligence and hard work of all the staff
who contribute to its mission.
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Melanie Polutta
Library of Congress
/LCCN/Editor
