Lydia Thompson-McKeever

Technical Services Policies and Procedures

Topic
Technical
Services
definition

Scope of
Technical
Services

Information
Library Technical Services (n.)
1.(MeSH)Acquisition,

organization, and preparation

of library materials for use, including selection,
weeding, cataloging, classification, and
preservation.
Broadly defined technical services is the provision
of services and products that provide intellectual
access to information.

The main objective of technical processing in the

school library media center is to produce complete
and up-to-date cataloging records with the district
selected automation system. All records should
adhere to international cataloging standards. The
records should optimize access to the organized
materials in the automated catalog system. Also,
all cataloged materials should be properly labeled
so that they can be easily accessed by the students
and staff. The school library media center and the
media center staff are responsible for creating
equal access to an organized collection that
supports the curriculum.
The cataloging and processing of instructional
materials supports the systematic goals to:
Use resources effectively and efficiently.
Maintain a safe and orderly learning
environment which supports all students
and staff.
Improve achievement for all students.

APA Source
Library Technical Services (n.d.) In
Online Dictionary. Retrieved from
http://dictionary.sensagent.com/libra
%20services/en-en/

Frost, Carolyn (1994) Quality in Tec

A User-Centered Definition for Futu
Environments. JSTOR: Journal of
for Library and Information Sc
35, No. 3 (Summer, 1994), pp
Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/discover/
23076?
uid=3739616&uid=2129&uid
&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=2
8251

Technical Services Handbook.html.d

State University. Retrieved from
www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/tc

Library Resources & Technical Services (LRTS) is

the official journal of the Association for Library
Collections and Technical Services. Its purpose is
to communicate thoughtful reflection on practice
as well as research. Any contribution will be
considered that takes a critical approach to the
questions and problems facing libraries with
regard to:
%
%
%

Guiding
Principles of
Technical
Services

collections (physical and electronic),

preservation (including digitization),
acquisitions (including economic elements
of acquisition and licensing),
%
continuing resources (in all media), and
cataloging and classification (of all types of
objects).
%
Our goals in HCL Technical Services
include the following:
%
Responsive and proactive service to users
through timely and efficient processing
%
Creating or making use of metadata that
ensures ongoing and effective access for
discovery and retrieval for our users
%
Supporting quick and easy access to
materials to support teaching and research
needs
%
Provision of high quality and forwardlooking acquisition and metadata services
%
Streamlined workflows that take advantage
of automated processes to support our
work
%
Maximizing use of staff skills and
language expertise
%
Ability to respond positively to fluctuations
in activity due to seasonal, staffing or
vendor changes
Development and perpetuation of effective
communication strategies with campus units.
Hay Library is committed to excellence in both
customer service to all people using
Hay Library and excellence in our profession.
Hay Library strives to exceed the expectations
of our academic and distance education
communities. Hay Library is committed to
responding to the needs of a changing educational
environment.

For LRTS Authors. (n.d.). Ame

Association. Retrieved from
http://www.ala.org/alcts/resou
hinst

HCL Technical Services. (200

Technical Services in the 21st
Retrieved from
http://hcl.harvard.edu/technic
bout/new_org_structure.cfm

Collection Development Polic

Library (2009) Western Wyom
Community College. Retrieve
http://www.wwcc.cc.wy.us/lib
ctiondevelopment.pdf

Format
indicators for
various types
of media

2. Research Support and Training

Hay Library is committed to fostering information
literacy skills and promoting
lifelong learning by providing instruction and
resources that meet the needs of learners and
promote the inquiry of information. Support and
training is available to all students
including those attending distance education sites.
3. Keeping Collections current in support of
faculty, students and community users.
Hay Library embraces the role of developing a
balanced and diverse collection which
supports the curriculum of Western Wyoming
College. In accordance with professional
standards, access is provided to a collection
demonstrating intellectual freedom and
information without regard to sex, race, ethnic
identity, age, religion or sexual orientation.
Collections are developed to support traditional
and digital formats.
Adapted from Mission, Values and Vision
Statement of Southern Oregon University.
* Some MARC fields have indicators. Here "1"
means make a title added
entry; if there were no 1XX, the 1st indicator
would be "0". The 2nd "4"
indicator means skip 4 spaces in filing, in this case
T, h, e & space.
If the title had not begun without "A", "An", or
"The" the 2nd indicator
would have been "0".
**The general material designation is used in
AACR2 for nonbook material,
e.g., $h[videorecording], $h[electronic resource.
Replaced by 33X in RDA.

McRee, Elrod. (2013, March 12). M

Special Library Cataloguing, Inc. Re
http://special-cataloguing.com/nod

Indicators: Two character positions follow each tag Understanding MARC Bibliographic
(with the exception of Fields 001 through 009).
(n.d.). Library of Congress. Retrieve
One or both of these character positions may be
http://www.loc.gov/marc/umb/um0
used for indicators. In some fields, only the first or
second position is used; in some fields, both are
used; and in some fields, like the 020 and 300
fields, neither is used. When an indicator position
is not used, that indicator is referred to as
"undefined" and the position is left blank. It is the
convention to represent a blank, or undefined,

indicator position by the character "#".

Each indicator value is a number from 0 to 9.
(Although the rules say it can be a letter, letters are
uncommon.) Even though two indicators together
may look like a 2-digit number, they really are two
single-digit numbers. The allowable indicator
values and their meanings are spelled out in the
MARC 21 documentation. In the example which
follows, the first 3 digits are the tag (245 defines
this as a title field) and the next 2 digits (a 1 and a
4) are indicator values. The 1 is the first indicator;
4 is the second indicator.
245 14 $a The emperor's new clothes /
$c adapted from Hans Christian
Andersen
and illustrated by Janet Stevens.
A first indicator value of 1 in the title field
indicates that there should be a separate title entry
in the catalog. In the card catalog environment,
this means that a title card should be printed for
this item and an entry for "Title" added to the
tracings. A first indicator value of 0 would mean
that a title main entry is involved; the card would
be printed with the traditional hanging indention,
and no additional tracing for the title would be
required (since it is the main entry).
Nonfiling characters: One of the more interesting
indicators is the second indicator for the title field.
It displays the number of characters at the
beginning of the field (including spaces) to be
disregarded by the computer in the sorting and
filing process. For the title The emperor's new
clothes, the second indicator is set to "4" so that
the first four characters (the "T," the "h," the "e,"
and the space) will be skipped and the title will be
filed under "emperor's."
Indicators: Two character positions follow each tag
(with the exception of Fields 001 through 009).
One or both of these character positions may be
used for indicators. In some fields, only the first or
second position is used; in some fields, both are
used; and in some fields, like the 020 and 300
fields, neither is used. When an indicator position
is not used, that indicator is referred to as
"undefined" and the position is left blank. It is the

convention to represent a blank, or undefined,

indicator position by the character "#".
Each indicator value is a number from 0 to 9.
(Although the rules say it can be a letter, letters are
uncommon.) Even though two indicators together
may look like a 2-digit number, they really are two
single-digit numbers. The allowable indicator
values and their meanings are spelled out in the
MARC 21 documentation. In the example which
follows, the first 3 digits are the tag (245 defines
this as a title field) and the next 2 digits (a 1 and a
4) are indicator values. The 1 is the first indicator;
4 is the second indicator.
245 14 $a The emperor's new clothes /
$c adapted from Hans Christian
Andersen
and illustrated by Janet Stevens.
A first indicator value of 1 in the title field
indicates that there should be a separate title entry
in the catalog. In the card catalog environment,
this means that a title card should be printed for
this item and an entry for "Title" added to the
tracings. A first indicator value of 0 would mean
that a title main entry is involved; the card would
be printed with the traditional hanging indention,
and no additional tracing for the title would be
required (since it is the main entry).
Nonfiling characters: One of the more interesting
indicators is the second indicator for the title field.
It displays the number of characters at the
beginning of the field (including spaces) to be
disregarded by the computer in the sorting and
filing process. For the title The emperor's new
clothes, the second indicator is set to "4" so that
the first four characters (the "T," the "h," the "e,"
and the space) will be skipped and the title will be
filed under "emperor's."
Materials/resou
rces used for
original
cataloging

Original cataloging must be done when the media

center receives items that have been produced
locally. Perhaps a class has worked together to
make a reference book on Native Americans or
local history that they then donate to the library.
Or a group of students in the high school has
developed a website about the weather. It would be

Williams, Sandra. Cataloging

(May/June 2008). American A
School Librarians. Retrieved f
http://www.ala.org/aasl/aaslp
als/knowledgequest/kqwebar
65/365williams5

very useful to add these resources to the library

catalog so other students or teachers will find them
when doing a search on these topics. Original
cataloging will be needed for these items and any
others that cannot be found through a search of
sites on the Internet.
The Continuum of Cataloging
The cataloging effort media specialists must
provide for their uncataloged items runs along a
continuum:
little effort: MARC records are purchased
from a vendor and loaded into the local
system. The media specialist must briefly
check the records for accuracy and
consistency with records already in the
local catalog.
some effort: MARC records are found in
other library catalogs, checked for
accuracy, and downloaded by the media
specialist into the local system.
more effort: CIP records are used as
templates and the media specialist
manually enters the data into the local
system.
quite a bit of effort: MARC records are
found in other library catalogs, but they
cannot be downloaded. The information
must be entered into the local catalog
manually, or by using a copy-and-paste
method.
the greatest effort: MARC records cannot
be found in other library catalogs, so
original cataloging must be done. The
media specialist then enters the data into
the local catalo
Whatever the effort needed for cataloging any
particular item, the school library media specialist
must work from a broad knowledge base. The
SLMS must have a good understanding of the
cataloging rules in AACR2, a solid foundation in
MARC format standards, and basic knowledge
about assigning subject headings and classification
numbers. When media specialists put this
knowledge to work, uncataloged and unretrievable
materials will become a thing of the past, media
center catalogs will be more accurate and more

conducive to resource sharing, and the media

center's students and teachers will be better served.
Cataloging State Library of Iowa
Original cataloging is used when copy catalog
information is not available for an item. In this
case, the librarian does all of the cataloging
necessary from scratch. Correct original cataloging
is a complicated and time-consuming process that
is bound by many rules. The primary source for
original cataloging is a publication called AACR2
or Anglo American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition.
Because of the complex nature of original
cataloging, this is usually only done in rare cases.
For example, you might do original cataloging for
unique, local history materials or items that are
newly released. In many cases, newly released
items will eventually have copy cataloging
available, so it is often in the catalogers best
interest to wait for the information.

Cataloging. (July 2011, 8). Sta

Iowa. Retrieved from
http://www.statelibraryofiowa
p/new-lib-dir-man/coll-mgmt/