Bibliographic Services — McMaster University Libraries

Current Projects

SourceOECD

Publications on topics from education to fisheries, issued by the international Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. McMaster currently receives these titles only as electronic resources from the SourceOECD website.

The copy cataloguers are importing print records (usually the only ones we can find) from OCLC and modifying them for the e-book version. In a departure from usual practice, the copy cataloguers are accepting neutral (non-Library of Congress) catalogue records. An original cataloguer will handle serial titles and monographic titles for which a complete record cannot be found in OCLC.
Lead: Wade

De-Duping

In order to free up some space in the libraries, we have kicked off a project to remove duplicate copies from the stacks. Copy cataloguers will be using lists, produced from Horizon and reviewed by both Collections and Access Services, to identify and withdraw multiple copies. Read the official announcement.
Bib Services Lead: Donna

Recently Completed Projects

Bertrand Russell Pamphlet Collection

A collection of short works by Bertrand Russell. These items form part of a larger Russell Pamphlet collection held by the Division of Archives and Research Collections. Research Collections also maintains Bertrand Russell’s personal archives and library as well as an extensive collection of Russell’s publications. To see what’s been completed so far, search MORRIS for “Bertrand Russell Pamphlet collection“.

Kinesiology Publications

An online collection of Master’s and Doctoral theses assembled by the International Institute for Sport and Human Performance at the University of Oregon. KinPubs began as a microfiche publication and now makes the dissertations available online in PDF. Sara and Lydia have created 713 brief bib records (title, local series title, and URL) for the e-content that is currently available, and Bib Services will be upgrading these to full cataloguing.

The exciting part of this project is that we won’t be manually upgrading every record. Most of the titles have been well catalogued in OCLC and need only minor (and consistent) changes. Wade has created an OCLC macro that will make these changes to a large batch of records at once. We need to overlay the existing brief records, so the copy cataloguers will be adding the OCLC number to them and creating the copy record. Then we can import the modified records to MORRIS. The final phase of the project will be traditional cataloguing for any titles not done in the batch process.

For examples of each, done during Wade’s testing, see bib #1517081, 1517112 (batch) and 1517080, 1517085 (traditional cataloguing).

Steetley South Quarry Landfill Documents

Several items about the Steetley South Quarry landfill in Hamilton-Wentworth are currently being catalogued. Books covering the Steetley Quarry, Red Hill Creek, and other local topics are highly requested, and many from the Steetley collection were utilized over the summer by a researcher in Mills. The Steetley publications were originally housed in the Urban Documentation Centre, then moved to the Map Collection. They will be part of the Government Publications CODOC collection when cataloguing is complete. Original cataloguing is required for these items since copy can not be found for this unique collection of local materials.

Thesis Brief Records

Original cataloguers are upgrading brief bibliographic records for McMaster theses to full cataloguing, with Library of Congress Subject Headings and LC classification numbers. Titles were selected for upgrading based on circulation statistics.

Highway Research Board publications

A series of reports from the Highway Research Board of the U.S. National Research Council, these publications cover topics on highway engineering and safety. We are cataloguing a historical collection dating from the 1960s and 1970s for Thode Library. Most of the titles held by Mac are found at 50-70 other libraries worldwide, based on OCLC holdings. Not rare, perhaps, but also not one of the most widely held resources.

This project is being completed by the copy cataloguers using records from OCLC and CODOC classification numbers from our local authority records.

Australasiana Collection

A collection donated by Mr. John Forster containing early materials on travel, religion, government, settlement, language, and native peoples in Australia and New Zealand.

At 57 titles, the collection is small but of significant research value and contains items found at only a small number of libraries worldwide. Among the rarities are Florentin Etienne Jaussen’s Grammaire et dictionnaire de la langue maorie; dialecte tahitien, John Savage’s Some Account of New Zealand; Particularly the Bay of Islands and Surrounding Country, published in 1807, and Charles Rowcroft’s The Australian Crusoes.

To see the complete list, search MORRIS for “Australasiana collection”.

Fore-edge Painting Collection

Cataloguing was recently completed on a collection of 60 books having fore-edge paintings. Held by the Division of Archives and Research Collections, the books form part of a donation from Mr. Robert Stevens. Chiefly English literature, the collection includes works by Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Coleridge, and William Cowper. Other items include a beautifully illuminated copy of The Book of Common Prayer and a Bible printed in 1653. Search MORRIS for “Donated by Robert Stevens” to see the full list.