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Re: South Texas College of Law Special CollectionsClosure,12/1/00-6/1/01



Jackson:
I must admit I didn't anticipate any questions regarding my recent
posting of my Special Collections department temporary closure, but
since you have asked, I will respond.

After clarifying information and procedures with my cataloger, I must
stand with my original posting, which stated: "the catalog records for
materials stored off-site will be suppressed in our on-line catalog, and
will not display for patrons."  I do not think just a note field in the
record would work.  The note could be overlooked, or it could lead to
researcher "pleading," where the researcher tries to convince the
archivist they are that "special" case to which the rules do not apply.
Unfortunately, when the materials are boxed, and stacked on a pallet, in
a warehouse 20 miles away, resting on a rack 30 feet high, no means NO.

But let me clarify what a suppressed catalog record really means:
Persons in our library using our electronic catalog, or persons
accessing our catalog through the World Wide Web, will find no mention
of our special collections holdings during that time period.  However,
the records in our national bibliographic utility, OCLC, will still
remain.  Should questions about our special collections materials come
in through ILL, or from someone using Worldcat, the public version on
the World Wide Web of the OCLC database, staff in the library will still
be able to view the catalog records, though surpressed in the public
mode, through our Innovative catalog staff mode, which will show that
the materials are stored off-site for the time period of 12/1/00-6/1/00,
and so they will be able to inform the patron accordingly, or contact
me.

My department web page on our web site will still also contain brief
mentions of some of the materials in the department, though much of it
is still uncataloged, and researchers are asked to call ahead concerning
any research trips, so a telephone call can clarify information that
way.

So unless I am overlooking something, the only way I can imagine this
being a problem for researchers is if they cruise the World Wide Web
accessing every library's on-line catalog looking for research
materials, which would be a terribly inefficient way to do research.

Mark

Mark Lambert
Special Collections and Government Documents Library
South Texas College of Law Library
Houston, TX

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