Roxy Klassen asks the following question:
How do you catalog items that have multiple pieces? We have a good number of Small Group Study Materials. Most have a Teacher/Leader Guide; a DVD; and one or more student book/workbooks. We don't mind if the workbooks are used so I don't want to include those in the catalog. Also, how do you store them to keep them together as a set? Rubber bands, some kind of case, etc?
Replies
We catalog them as a Kit, that way everything is together and under the same barcode. I use boxes that have tabs on the lids to keep everything togehter. I scan a copy of the main book, front and back and glue that to the box, i then make a spne graphic and glue that to the box. I cover the entire box with contact paper, and process and place the labels on it. This keeps everything together in one container.
Joan Hite
Liberty Baptist Library Hampton, VA
We have gone through a number of plans for this and the one we currently have is cumbersome, in a way, but works really well. After trying the "catalog each piece as it should be and rubber-band them together", I landed on using the same Dewey number for each, even if they normally wouldn't be the same (for example, in our library, DVDs aren't catalogued according to Dewey but simply DVD + first three letters of title)
So here is an example of what we do:
248.6 MAT BOOK 248.6 MAT DVD 248.6 MAT STUDY GUIDE.
These kinds of sets are shelved in our Adult CE area, so I also add ADULT CE to the beginning of the call number. Doing it this way ensures that all the pieces will be shelved together, and there is no need to rubber band them together.
We assign one number to small group DVDs and study material, but the study guides are stored separately in numerical order in a cabinet behind the checkout desk. The DVD has a label indicating that there is a study guide, leader's guide, etc. As people check out, we pull the relating material. It's not perfect, but the only thing that our space allows and it works for us.
We use one barcode for the whole set and use a narrow plastic magazine holder, available from demco for the whole set. We put the barcode on the outside of the plastic holder and ask the patrons to take the whole set. Each item in the set has a label which says it belongs to our library with the spine label info and barcode on it. We do not encourage use of the enclosed workbook so that it is available for future leaders. Don't know if this would work for you, but it has worked well for us.
We classify these as Kits. Give it one accession number, but list all the items included in our system. If someone wants to just check out part of the kit and not the whole thing, we pull the rest of the kit and put it behind the desk. That has only ever happened once. Most of our kits are kept in the box that they came in, but some don't come that way. Those we used put in plastic boxes that are made for libraries to store collective items like that. Now, we are running out of room in that section of the library, so we just put a rubber band around them. The rubber bands do not work well. They pop and roll off etc.