Re: How were holdings kept in the old days? Horn, Marguerite 02 Jun 2004 16:07 UTC
[Tales from 30 years ago at Brown University!] We had a holdings list which was separately maintained and produced in paper and microfiche once a year (real dynamic, yes!) The paper product and fiche would be located in various areas around the library... In the Periodicals Reading Room, where the kardex for the "main" library was, there was a rolodex which contained information about only those items in the periodicals reading room -- many patrons thought it was the whole shebang (and came in YEARS later, wondering where the [imagine someone rolling their arms around] thing was) For staff, individual issues were noted on a Kardex -- we had one in the "main" library; one in the Sciences Library; one in the Special Collections Library -- all mail would come to the "main" library, be checked in there and then checked in again at the remote destination. When volumes were bound, they went to serials cataloging where they were posted on a shelf list. The public had access to this specific information only during regular business hours (and only with staff intervention) ... sometimes a Reference Librarian might venture back to pry into the secret recesses of our data storage systems! we also for a while kept the card catalog up-to-date with penciled in holdings (and a system of "traveling cards" whereby we had duplicates of each main entry stored in a separate file in serials cataloging -- the student would pencil in a new holdings statement on one of the set in the back room and then go out and switch it in the public catalog). These penciled holdings reflected BOUND volumes and so therefore led to much confusion about whether we had current issues (there was a stamp which said "Current issues in Periodicals Reading Room) ... We had these traveling cards for the remote sites also; so said student would trot off to these places a couple times a week. Needless to say, I put up with this for just a few years of my tenure and then killed the traveling card system -- we killed that with the agreement that the holdings list would come out more frequently with better information in it (which is, indeed, what happened) Maggie Horn *********************************************************************** Marguerite E. "Maggie" Horn Library Systems Implementation Specialist Office of Library & Information Services System Administration State University Plaza Albany, NY 12246 voice: 518 443-5564 fax: 518 443-5358 e-mail: hornma@sysadm.suny.edu *********************************************************************** -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of STEVE BLACK@FACULTY@ACADEMICAFFAIRS Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 11:19 AM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [SERIALST] How were holdings kept in the old days? Back when libraries still had card catalogs, and even before word processing, how were periodicals holdings lists kept? Were there annotations on the cards in the catalog? Was the Kardex kept near reference? Some other method? Curious, Steve Black Reference, Serials, and Instruction Librarian The College of Saint Rose 392 Western Avenue Albany, NY 12203-1419 blacks@strose.edu (518)458-5494