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06/04/2005
Revisiting Small Library Syndrome
In the past I mentioned some problems with small library syndrome such as information being kept in heads instead of recorded on the catalogue and different cataloguing styles often with mistakes. One of the other problems associated with SLS is: weeding decisions being made that don’t really take into account the work of the organisation. Some lib’n comes along and is disapproving of finding a fusty old library and they want to make their mark so they decide to modernise and freshen the library and collection. I’ve just discovered a whole series of reports created in the 1960’s have been discarded that covered the water resources of 30 separate river valleys. The one that has been found and put back in the collection is quite ugly with a cover that is very acidic, sticky tape marks all over the cover and a glued binding that is disintegrating. It’s just that the information doesn’t date. This department is renovating an existing dam somewhere. The information in this report is integral to that work. When it was actually needed the report couldn’t be found and we had to get a copy in from another library. Luckily it was held in another library. A huge amount of the work published by gov depts isn’t held anywhere except in the dept that created it so if that copy goes missing for whatever reason it can be impossible to get the information needed. Especially when the problem is compounded by other problems I’ve touched on before such as bad catalogue records that refer to the report but don’t have an author and depts changing names so often it’s difficult to figure out the current incarnation of a dept as named 40 years ago.
Couple this with records not being removed when items are removed and the holdings not being deleted from the national database…
I think each lib’n starting out in a small library will have one area of the work they don’t like and you can almost track the years each work in a library through the years by the messes left behind.
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