Catalog Librarian
June 2005
Rebecca Alexander
The Catalog Librarian at Washburn Law is responsible for the overall quality control and management of cataloging activities. In this role, the Catalog Librarian provides leadership in helping the library organize its intellectual resources and assists in the library's efforts to provide access to resources available on the Internet. In addition, the Catalog Librarian performs original and complex cataloging and authority control and provides reference assistance.
Reporting to the Head of Technical Services, specific duties include, but are not limited to:
- Performs original descriptive cataloging and complex copy cataloging, subject analysis, classification, and MARC encoding for materials acquired by the Washburn Law Library. Representative resources include monographs, serials, continuations, electronic resources, microforms, videos/DVDs.
- Proposes, plans and implements special projects, in consultation with the Head of Technical Services, that provide and/or improve intellectual access to the information resources available to the Washburn University School of Law community. The primary tool for access to library resources is the Innovative Interfaces-based automation system, ATLAS. This system is shared with the main library at Washburn University and other libraries in the Topeka community.
- Provides quality control of all cataloging activities by applying national cataloging standards such as Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRIs), Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Library of Congress Classification Schedules, OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Guidelines, the CONSER Editing Guide, US MARC codes and tags for bibliographic and authority records, and other relevant cataloging and classification guidelines.
- Maintains knowledge of current issues and trends in national and international cataloging standards and participates in the evaluation and implementation of new cataloging standards and technologies. Participates in formal and informal professional development opportunities to keep current with developments in cataloging.
- Assists with the documentation of cataloging policies and procedures.
- Maintains bibliographic, authority, item and checkin records as needed in the library's shared automation system.
- Assists in reviewing copy cataloging performed by other staff in the Technical Services Department and provides training/instruction as needed.
- Utilizes other Technical Services Department staff as needed to complete special projects.
- Processes weekly authority headings reports generated by the library's shared automation system and takes appropriate steps to resolve conflicts in names, series and subject headings.
- Prepares new name authority records for addition to the NACO database.
- Participates in regularly scheduled library meetings. Serves as the law library's representative to the ATLAS Cataloging Task Force. Acts as a liaison to selected law school faculty.
- Provides at least five hours of reference assistance per week at the Reference Desk. May be called upon to provide reference assistance during staffing shortages or to meet special requests.
(Reviewed: July 1, 2006)
