Although I have worked in libraries as a volunteer, my degree is actually in teaching so I still have a lot to learn about cataloging for the Parish Library. I use World Cat a lot to get call numbers but a lot of the times those are Library of Congress numbers. So, my question is this: Is there an app or website that can convert a Library of Congress call number into a Dewey call number? Or at least a good chart?
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I use LibraryThing.com to catalog all our books. Depending on the topic, it may or may not have a Dewey number.
Next step is WorldCat.com. Often, theological works are in LC, but there is a listing of libraries on each page that you can click on for how they catalog their copy of the book.
Finally, I use OCLC Dewey Browser http://classify.oclc.org/classify2/
type in the author or title and it will usually give you the Dewey number.
Our church library books are cataloged in Dewey (some 1,400 titles), but our pastor's books (approx. 900 titles)are in LC.
You are welcome to go to LibraryThing.com and look under member name: wildernessbaptist. All of those books are in Dewey.
It is difficult to directly convert Dewey to LC because Dewey is so limited. It is adequate for my church library and I'm more accustomed to cataloging that way. But I work part time in a college library and have learned to appreciate LC for its more flexible and detailed way of cataloging/organizing, though sometimes the call numbers can get quite long! I too like to refer to loc.gov to pull the Dewey number. Or most of the time I look at the book's copyright/verso page for the call number.
Thank you all so much. Between all of those things, I rarely have a problem any more. I still have hundreds and hundreds of books to re-catalog, but it is definitely going faster!
In our small Church library we definitely don't need the long LC numbers! Mainly I was looking for a conversion to general categories and the chart someone sent is definitely helping with that!
I am wondering how the testing of TInyCat is going. Our church administration wants me to use it and I thought I'd get the opinion of some who have used it. What do you think?
Jane
TinyCat has been released, and we are using it in our church library. I really like it. It does not have all the features of more expensive products, but it has the ones we most need, and the interface is excellent. You can see how it compares to LibraryThing by looking at our LibraryThing and TinyCat pages here: www.librarything.com/catalog/GracePointeChurch and here www.librarycat.org/lib/GracePointeChurch.
I have not used many of the circulation features yet, so I will let someone with more experience speak to those.
I am just getting going with our Tiny Cat account. Is there a way to print barcode labels or spine labels from the software? I'm not finding this as user friendly as I had hoped it would be.
Jane
I spoke with the LibraryThing representatives at American Library Association's annual conference last month. Basically they told me that TinyCat is an overlay to LibraryThing which provides a different public "face" to the catalog, making it look and feel more like a traditional online catalog. All behind-the-scenes work continues to be done within LibraryThing.
I'm not the best person to respond to this particular question, since I only use LibraryThing for my personal books, but I seem to remember hearing others report that LibraryThing does not provide for printing any types of labels.
There is a new YouTube video tutorial about TinyCat which you will probably wish to view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBWa2cH6yqI
I second this. We are using LibraryThing for our church library as well and overall, I've been very happy with it. There are times, though, when I don't agree with their number and I catalog items according to where I think they should go. A good example is this: a book about dinosaurs in the context of Biblical creation came up as 398, which is Folklore! So you do have to pay attention. But for the most part, I've found LibraryThing to be extremely helpful.
Also, their on-line support is excellent. They have helped me figure out all kinds of things with prompt email responses.
Thank you so much, Nancy! I appreciate the link and other information!
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