Week 4

It was NACO training all week!

I had the opportunity to attend NACO training this week, led by Adam, the principal cataloger at UW Libraries. This training is something that librarians travel to UW to attend and I am so glad that I got the opportunity to tag along. NACO training prepares catalogers to contribute to the Library of Congress’s Name Authority File, where shared Name Authority Records all live. Libraries that participate in NACO are able to edit and add new NARs to the NAF, and this training teaches the standard and requirements for doing so.

Over the course of about 35 hours across 5 days, Adam walked us through creating NARs for persons, families, corporate bodies, places, works, and expressions. I was glad to have a bit of a foundation to build from from my previous DFW experience and working with MARC records at my job, because there was a LOT of information and a lot of different rules and standards to keep track of. However, a big part of cataloging is knowning where to find information instead of trying to memorize it all, and now I have a massive binder of notes to reference alongside the knowledge of where to find things online across LC, PCC, and RDA documents.

Because I spent all week doing this training, I did not make any progress on my ETDs, but I will be going into next week with a much firmer understanding of Name Authority Records that will help me as I continue to catalog!