Special Collections News

One of the greatest things about working in Special Collections is that you never know what you might find in a box marked ‘Miscellaneous’. Today, I was pleasantly surprised to find a photograph of Lewis Carroll, initialed on the back by the author. The initials, ‘C.L.D.’, stand for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson–Lewis Carroll’s given name. It seems that Carroll’s niece, “L.M. Dodgson”, gave the photo to a friend along with a thank-you letter back in 1921, and USF Special Collections became home to this minor treasure.

Lewis Carroll’s two ‘Alice’ books have long been favorites of children and adults around the world, and USF Special Collections has many foreign-language editions of these books available for scholars and researchers. For example, we have versions in Latin, French, Swedish, Turkish, Bulgarian, Welsh, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Italian, and Greek. Also contained in the collection are 19th-century editions of Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Sylvie and Bruno and The Hunting of the Snark.

As a refresher, or an introduction to the wit and wisdom of Lewis Carroll, below is a brief excerpt from Alice’s chat with Humpty Dumpty:

‘As I was saying, that SEEMS to be done right—though I haven’t time to look it over thoroughly just now—and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—’

‘Certainly,’ said Alice.

‘And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”‘ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘

‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”‘ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’

This post is by Bob Cracolici, Cataloging Specialist in Special Collections

At the risk of sounding self-serving, I am going to briefly explain the toils of the paraprofessional and, to some degree, the professional cataloger. Our job is quite unsung: most don’t understand it or care to do it, and the end result usually goes unnoticed unless pointed out (which I will do in just a bit).

I have the great opportunity to catalog in Special Collections, which affords me the ability to work with unique collections, such as Holocaust and Genocide Studies, not the most cheerful story but an important one that must be told. In some small way, I feel I am contributing to the telling of that tragedy by continually adding to the collection. I also catalog materials in the Florida Studies and Children’s and Young Adult Literature collections, all of which has helped me gain a more well-rounded understanding of both the state I live in and the young adult population which resides there. I also dabble in cataloging Science Fiction materials of which Special Collections has quite an extensive collection, both in English and Spanish. Speaking of Latin American science fiction, along the way I have become somewhat proficient in deciphering Spanish, German, a little Dutch and I’d like to say Armenian, but alas that one escapes me.

You may know most of what I have said already, but what may not be known are the raw statistics for items added to the collection. A staff member (who retired a few years ago) once said that technical service work was referred to as the “dark side.” I suppose she meant people generally do not know what is done behind the scenes to allow a record to appear in the catalog, nor do they know how much is done. I won’t attempt to explain how things are cataloged, I most likely could do a decent job, but with RDA looming, why bother (I’ll leave the details to a wonderful RDA webinar), you most likely don’t care anyway, so what I will list here are the total amount of things that are accomplished (at least by yours truly). Well, here goes for all you unsung catalogers who toil in anonymity. In the short 3 years I have been in Special Collections, I have added to the collection 5,402 items and counting. I attempted to compile statistics on maintenance items and quickly gave up, let’s just say it dwarfs the cataloged figure. Let’s see, maintenance items, another murky subject to most, in addition to cataloging new materials existing items in the collection must be maintained, kept up to date etc. This is accomplished by doing such things as deleting records, updating holdings, changing locations and call numbers, shelf-listing, updating serials, labeling and re-labelling and the list goes on. O.K. Enough of the mundane life of catalogers. I hope, albeit tongue in cheek, I have given just a small glimpse into the life of a cataloger. Although this little story may seem like blowing my own horn, I will say I have been doing this type of work for some 30 years without a whimper, so take heart, you won’t hear from me again till 2042 or so.

Happy cataloging!!!!