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Subject:        Boggs & Lewis vs Dewey vs LC
Date:   Fri, 20 May 2005 14:40:59 +1000
From:   Brendan Whyte <[log in to unmask]>





Cataloguing maps is invaluable in my experience, both for staff (esp staff
from other areas of the library who need to do relief duties) and for patrons.
But retro-cataloguing is of course a huge time and money eater.
We use the Boggs and Lewis system for our sheet maps and map attachments
(street indexes, geological notes etc), modified for Australian use, and
kept up to date by ourselves. We have developed procedures for cataloguing
staff (who don't necessarily know about maps) to use to get call
numbers/locations right for us.
We still use Dewey for our book/atlas collections.

All our books are catalogued.
All new material we buy or get donated is catalogued, but that is a fairly
recent innovation.
The maps are not all catalogued, but 60% are.
We did have a large project some years back to classify all our series maps
at a series level.
Thus we have a single record for each map series (defined arbitrarily as 5
or more maps). This allowed us effectively catalogue over half the
collection fairly rapidly. We are now working on creating graphic indexes
for each series which can be linked to the catalogue record, so it you
bring up the record on your computer, you can click a link to see the index
of holdings.

The remainder, single maps, are very slowly being retro-catalogued by copy
cataloguing.

We are finding that as stuff becomes available on the catalogue, we get
requests for it form people who would otherwise assume we have nothing and
not come and ask us. We also get enquiries about material from outside
Melbourne, and even overseas, on the basis of the material being catalogued.

If you are going to do start cataloguing your maps, I'd recommend a
series-level record for each map series as a good way to knock off a large
proportion of a collection efficiently.


We like Boggs and Lewis over Dewey for maps because it is area, not subject
based, and that is the way people use map: I want a map *of* X, not I want
a map *about* Y. And the numbers are shorter. Dewey can easily get very
long numbers, while B&L is basically 3 digits for the country, and up to 3
decimals for individual cities within that country.
It's very intuitive. Dewey can often end up with 2 different cataloguers
giving the same item completely different call numbers. Does a geological
atlas of China go under 912 for "atlases, China, geology of", 940-something
for "China, atlases of, geology" or 551 for "geology, China, atlases of"
Thus our atlas collection, using Dewey, is not easily browsable within a
small call number range.


Dr Brendan Whyte
Assistant Map Curator
ERC Library
University of Melbourne
Vic 3010
AUSTRALIA
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