Organizing Library Collections: Theory and Practice

Dr. Hoffman has written a much-needed primer for understanding the basics and importance of cataloging in libraries. Students new to librarianship and practitioners looking to refresh their cataloging knowledge would benefit from reading Dr. Hoffman's straightforward, richly illustrated narrative. The end-of-chapter discussion questions and class activity suggestions make this the perfect text for information organization courses and interactive study for practitioners. -- Karen Snow, associate professor, School of Information Studies, Dominican University As a teacher of both organization of information and cataloging in a library school program, I can confirm what she acknowledges: that this is a topic that students come to in library school with little or no knowledge of and the overwhelming number of acronyms used in this branch of LIS. So I am happy to see that the book is very straightforward in its language; it assumes no prior knowledge and explains concepts in layman's terms. -- Sarah W. Sutton, Ph.D., associate professor, School of Library & Information Management, Emporia State University Replete with theoretical and practical knowledge for both the beginning and the professional cataloger, this book covers methods, issues, and challenges faced today in organizing library collections. As technologies advance with the semantic web and linked data, catalogers are expected to usefully organize traditional materials and digital content in ways patrons may efficiently find, identify, select, and obtain resources. This text provides current information on the rules and standards catalogers follow to create metadata, subject access, and categories for successful library collections. -- Marie Keen Shaw, program coordinator, Library Technology Certificate, Three Rivers Community College, Norwich, CT