-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: How to label map cases, drawer and folders?]
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 17:12:39 -0500
From: Carol Russell <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>

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At the Tobin Map Collection of the Walter Geology Library, we don't use map
folders in the drawers, except to house fragile and/or smaller-size maps,
and a few (short) series maps.

The collection is cataloged using the Library of Congress G schedule, and
arranged by LC call number. Maps can be searched using the UT online
catalog, the UTNetCat.

Maps filed in the map drawers have call no. labels in the lower left-hand
corner, with the map title written in pencil across the bottom margin of
the map.

We have a large blank cover sheet on top of each drawer. Lying on top of
the cover sheet at the front of the drawer is a printed list of drawer
contents, from top to bottom of the drawer. It is a Word document and can
be easily updated and printed as maps are added to the drawer. It is
stapled to a manila envelope, which keeps multiple pages together and keeps
the whole thing from getting lost in the drawer.

The list shows Library of Congress call number, title entry as it appears
in the catalog, plus publication date, scale, and, for multi-sheet and
series maps, a list of sheets. The sheet lists can be very useful for long
series. We add place names to the quadrangle names for series maps. It
helps patrons (and us) orient themselves in long series. For most long
series we also have a graphic index showing sheet layout.

Labels on the front of the map cases show drawer contents: a center label
with the range of LC call numbers in that drawer, and a label off to the
left side listing the geographic areas in that drawer with their range of
call nos.

It seems to work. We try to make things as much self-service as possible.

Although the collection is now arranged by LC call no., even before it was
cataloged we used the same system, with a drawer list of contents on top of
each drawer, only then they were arranged, listed and labeled with a
geographic area-subject-date-scale designation instead of by LC call number
and title etc.


Carol Russell
Map Library Assistant
Tobin Map Collection,
Walter Geology Library
University of Texas at Austin
Austin Texas 78713
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

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At 04:30 PM 10/8/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: How to label map cases, drawer and folders?
>Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 19:46:53 -0400
>From: Michael Fry <[log in to unmask]>
>Organization: UMD Libraries
>To: Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>
>
>------------------
>I'm curious if people provide detailed shelf lists or indexes for
>individual drawers and folders...
>
>Our collection of several hundred thousand maps is largely uncataloged,
>and the catalog's few
>records are vague--patrons are told what floor to go to for a map, and
>that's it. Whatever add'l
>finding aids we have--floor plans, indexes, shelf lists, drawer labels,
>my memory, etc.--are
>entirely homemade. We have ~600 drawers of maps, each of which contains
>as many as 10 folders. A
>folder, in turn, may contain a handful of maps, or it may hold dozens.
>
>My predecessor indexed--in ink--each and every map on the outside of its
>respective folder (e.g.,
>title, SuDoc, scale, date, etc.). From a user standpoint, these indexes
>are handy and useful, esp.
>when you're working with large series with lots of sheets (e.g., AMS).
> From an administrative
>standpoint, however, they're messy, difficult to maintain and utterly
>anathema to the digital world.
>To wit: I've recently acquired several AMS series, and since I've
>already made indexes in Excel, I'm
>not anxious to do the same thing by hand!
>
>But...I haven't yet imagined an alternative that I think would be as
>useful and usable as the
>current system. Printed indexes for each folder would be more modern and
>easier to maintain, but
>they wouldn't be inextricably connected to the folders themselves, and
>wouldn't be as immediately
>visible as are indexes written right onto the folders themselves.
>
>Any ideas? What do *you* do?
>
>Thanks!
>mf
>--
>Michael Fry
>Government Documents & Maps Librarian
>University of Maryland Libraries