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Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Vol. 38, No. 3, 173-185 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0961000606066578

Why appoint professionals?

A student cataloguing project

K. E. Attar

Senate House Library University of London Senate House Malet Street London WC1E 7HU, k.attar{at}ntlworld.com

Students have provided cheap successful labour for routine retrospective cataloguing projects. The current article examines a library project which went further, using university students with minimum training to catalogue its undergraduate stock from the book in hand to AACR2, level 2, allegedly to professional standard. The article discusses the faults made in MARC coding, descriptive cataloguing and subject cataloguing, noting the nature of the errors and their results. The investigation concludes that intelligence alone does not guarantee library ability, and that cataloguing beyond the creation of minimum records is not an intuitive task to be picked up without training. Hidden expenses are attached. A derisory attitude towards library skills is unjustified, and a place remains for qualified librarians to do qualified library work.

Key Words: cataloguing • project work • student labour


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