Posts tagged with cataloging

During my summer internship at the University of Michigan's Art, Architecture & Engineering Library, I helped make historical international atomic energy reports more accessible by cataloging previously uncataloged microfiche reports. Although I expected a traditional engineering internship, the experience showed me how libraries support scientific research and innovation.

My primary responsibility was finding and recording metadata for reports so they could be discovered through the University of Michigan Library Catalog. I cataloged reports from organizations in Australia and Argentina, identifying publication details, report numbers, and abstracts while using library databases such as WorldCat. My co-intern and I also developed a standardized workflow that future interns can use to continue cataloging the collection.

The internship introduced me to library cataloging, metadata, and engineering gray literature while strengthening my research, communication, and problem-solving skills. I also attended presentations from librarians on topics including digitization, copyright, and information management, and toured several library facilities to learn how valuable research materials are preserved.

Working with historical nuclear energy reports connected to my interest in environmental engineering by highlighting how today's innovations are built on decades of previous research. Overall, the internship broadened my understanding of engineering by demonstrating that preserving and organizing scientific knowledge is just as important as creating new discoveries and that collaboration across disciplines is essential to advancing research.

To the people that knew her best, Betty Jean “BJ” Busch was irrepressible. Busch had a highly successful career as a librarian and the focus of her family's gift in her memory is her educational experience at the University of Michigan and her early work as a cataloger at the U-M Library.

Newly cataloged for our Jewish Salonica Postcard Collection: a postcard depicting a group of men in front of a narrow two-store building in Salonica (Thessaloniki), circa 1917. On the ground floor of the building was the Electrically Powered Bakery while the first floor housed the kosher restaurant of Varsano and Mosse.

Newly cataloged for the Jewish Heritage Collection: a poster announcing the premier presentation in Philadelphia of the Yiddish play Milchume kalles (The Jewish War Brides) at the Arch Street Theater. Gift of Elliot H. Gertel.

Newly cataloged for our Jewish Salonica Postcard Collection: Salonique, type de vieux juif – a historical postcard depicting an old Jewish man in traditional dress standing in the middle of a street in Salonica, the famous Balkan port-city located on the shore of the Aegen Sea. Some evidence from the picture allows us to established that it was taken between 1912-1917.

From the Jewish Heritage Collection: a trilingual postcard depicting Jacob Meir, Chief Rabbi of Salonica.

Newly acquired and cataloged for our Jewish Salonica Postcard Collection.

Newly catalogued for the Jewish Salonica Postcard Collection: Two centuries meeting – the mother and daughter, circa 1917.

A newly acquired and cataloged item for our Jewish Salonica Postcard Collection.

A historical postcard depicting the Jewish cemetery of Salonica, Greece --- newly cataloged for the Jewish Salonica Postcard Collection.