Report on Harris Collection MEMORANDUM To: Christian Boissonnas From: Hana Dedina Date: December 15, 1997 Subject: Report on Harris Collection As charged, I have been working on an in-depth analysis of the Harris Collection stored in the Annex Library, and its main entry card catalog located in Olin. I have conducted:
A. Description of the card catalog It has been called a main entry card catalog. However, because the cataloging is obsolete, a subject, series, or even a publisher are often substituting the author's name or the title. Another consequence of the old in-house cataloging practice is that a title does not necessarily mean the title proper but the cataloger's variation or simplification of the real title. A part of the old general practice was also the usage of generic English titles in square brackets as surrogates for titles in non-roman scripts or for titles bound together, usually pamphlets and documents. These are the basic hindrances an online searcher must overcome when trying to hit a match. The searcher must have some knowledge of the subject and use his intuition rather than to copy rigidly the main entry from the card. The catalog occupies 40 drawers of a cabinet. The old handwritten or typed cards (63% and 21% respectively) are thicker than the LC ones (16%). 1 linear inch of this particular catalog counts for 75 cards (+ or - 5). The new grand total is: 530.6" x 75 = 39,795 cards, which may roughly represent ~ 40,000 titles. For more details see Appendix: 2. Measuring the main entry card catalog. B. Sample analysis results In order to get reliable results about the distribution of characteristics in this collection of 40,000 titles, I decided for a sample size of 800 cards and for the simple method of systematic sampling. This resulted in a solid sampling ratio of 1 : 50. The sampling error of the results is 3.5%. The tables below show the characteristics I have questioned. For more details see Appendix: 1. Sample analysis results.
See Appendix: 1. Sample analyses results (p. 21, the subject code legend). Online retrieval and problems The 62% high hit rate is the most encouraging result of this analysis. I dare to say, it would be even considerably higher if the searcher could work with real items in hand instead of the cards, or, if the items were easily available for consultation. From the total count of records retrieved, only 37% appeared with LC classification numbers (16% of them have been LC products). That means that most of the member libraries that already converted these records preferred preserving their old local class numbers (usually found in the 092 field) rather than reclassifying them. However, the idea of converting this collection has also its murky side. The most frustrating problems we are facing are:
All these problems can be overcome only if the searcher/cataloger will have instant access to the physical collection. See Appendix: 5. Sample records (examples of bad and good records). Languages 42% of the materials have been written in foreign languages. I have encountered 11 foreign languages in my sample, there may be others. A searcher/cataloger working on Harris must read and understand German and French, as these two languages represent respectively 24% and 9.4% of the materials. Subjects The collection appears to be strong in these disciplines:
Following on the descending scale are these subjects: general and Old World history, technology, political science, law, US history, medicine, learned societies' reference publications, bibliographies and catalogs, agriculture, fine arts, US local history and history of America, geography, military and naval sciences, biographies Date of publication Most of the titles, 43%, were published in the second half of the 19th century. The oldest imprint I encountered in my sample was published at the beginning of the 18th century (1709), the latest one in 1938. The time range may be even broader outside the sample. A good half of the collection are materials published in the Old World. C. Description of the collection in the Annex Volume and shelving If compressed, the collection will occupy 75 full presses of which 55 can accommodate the normal size (each press 8 shelves), 20 the oversized items (each press 6 shelves). With the exception of documents and the C.U.F. (CU Faculty) materials, all items are shelved according to the Harris call number order (each number followed by a cutter). See Appendix: 3. Harris classification outline. The documents bear distinct call numbers that are not a part of the Harris schedule. They are shelved at the very end of the Harris classes. However, they are taking up almost 30% of the whole shelf space because of their voluminous character. It has been interesting to find out that the US federal documents (the catalog cards filed separately in the main entry catalog, drawer no. 38) are not stored in the Annex, but in the Olin stacks, area J. They are in proper order, under control and loving care of Julia Stiles. Thus, we can detract these almost one thousand titles from the Harris grand total which is waiting for cataloging. See Appendix: 2. Measuring the main entry card catalog. The C.U.F. publications (with a cutter no.) fill 2 presses at the end of the collection. These are usually pamphlets and clippings of articles from journals, bound together at the beginning of this century. Physical condition The whole collection in the Annex is in very bad physical shape:
Retrieval practice The Harris finding aids in the Annex are real museum pieces, indeed. A searcher must still use the original shelflist, handwritten ledgers, as the main tool for retrieval of any title. There are 6 shelves of them, 128 volumes together, their covers falling apart as is everything else. However, because the shelflist order has changed in this century due to the effort to reclassify the collection, the searcher must also use a supporting retrieval tool, reclassification binders. These are supposed to list all the changes caused by the reclassification (many items got either an LC no., or the Aria collection no., or were sent directly to the Rare Books Dept.). The most unpleasant experience is then to find a way through these volumes and to trust what you find. As the time passed, the pages have become covered by many layers of handwritten notes in different colors. See Appendix: 4. Finding aids in the Annex (examples, only in a black and white reproduction). To perform a search par example for our survey, I prepared a list of twenty titles from the main entry card catalog, all of them with their proper Harris class numbers. I did find only ten of them. Where are the titles I could not find? Are they missing? Have they been reclassified? Or are they just badly misplaced? They should be there according to the finding aids. D. Summary of findings This survey fully confirmed that the Harris collection should not be viewed as a RECON problem but as a cataloging backlog problem which will have to be solved in-house:
E. Recommendations I recommend that these steps be taken to solve the Harris problem: 1. Evaluation of the collection from the point of view of conservation investment. (Personal advice: do wear overalls when approaching the shelves.) 2. Physical inventory of the collection, sorting, and cleaning the shelves. 3. Moving the collection to a cataloging area. 4. Cataloging:
In my opinion, a crew of 5 people could accomplish the cataloging task in 2 years up to the expense of ~ $300,000. Appendix (Available only with the paper copy) 1. Sample analysis results 2. Measuring the main entry card catalog (Olin) 3. Harris classification outline 4. Finding aids in the Annex (example of pages) 5. Sample records (card catalog records vs. OCLC) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||