Special K ING ’S BUSINESS “ flou to Do I t 55 Feature
Cataloging Audio-
Problems The more than half dozen types of audio-visual aids now in use in Chris tian education work will yield their best use only when properly organized and cataloged. This proved to be the case in libraries of books when the collections became too large for the librarian to remember the contents of each book. While collections are small the problem is not so great — until a new librarian comes along. The library world has learned, after many years of experimentation, that meth ods worked out by enterprising librar ians, submitted to their colleagues for criticism, revised according to the needs have proved to be the most satis factory. Two criteria should govern any system of classification and catalog ing: simplicity and utility. The prob lem with audio-visual materials is compounded by the variety of form in which the materials are found. In general we try to follow the method worked out for books, but we have to adapt this to each kind of aid. The Literature Outside of some a r t i c l e s in the library journals, which can be gotten at. through Library Literature (the index to magazine articles and books on library science) there has not been much published in this field. Matilda Fast published a b o o k l e t entitled Classification System for Audio-Visual Aids in 1948 (obtainable from the Biola Book Room for 50c). She used the ten groups of Dewey numbers (000 to 900) and assigned one group to each category of aids, as follows: stories, object lessons, flannelgraphs, pictures, charts, slides, films, records, and miscellaneous. Within each group the same subdivisions were worked out. The system in its attempt to ob tain uniformity limits itself in cover age. The possible number coverage is unnecessarily reduced by this method, and the different categories do not yield themselves equally to a uniform treatment.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a series of articles on the problems con nected with the cataloging of the various types of audio-visual materials commonly found in church libraries as well as in other types of libraries. Dr. Ehlert is Librarian and Professor of Library Science of the Biola Schools and was the founder of The Church Librarians Association of Southern California. Dr. Ehlert and Library Assistant Elaine Bergstrom look over some of the popular film strips which are important to the audio-visual library. Cataloging such material is vital.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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