Melvin J. Zahnow Library
Saginaw Valley State University
Volume 8, Issue3
Spring 2003
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Library Helps Make RERC Collection Ready for Prime Time
A crowded little room in the present College of Education building is the home of the Regional Education Resource Center. But there are big things in store for the RERC, including a move to more spacious quarters in the brand new College of Education building, where its prime location will make it the centerpiece of the college.
The heart of the Regional Education Resource Center is its collection of more than 5,000 items, ranging from textbooks and teachers manuals to videocassettes and educational software programs. These materials support the teacher education program at SVSU, as well as the curriculum development needs of K-12 teachers throughout the College of Education’s service region.
While the RERC collection contains a wealth of unique learning resources, the lack of a user-searchable computerized catalog of holdings has made it difficult for students to identify and locate materials on a particular subject. In order to improve the accessibility and use of the RERC collection, the College of Education and Zahnow Library have embarked on a project to add the holdings of the RERC to the library’s online catalog, CardCat.
The task
of cataloging and classifying this collection of over 5,000 items in such
a wide array of formats is not a quick and easy one. In order to accomplish
it, the College of Education has funded the hiring of a temporary part-time
Cataloger, Laura Peil, who is working under the expert guidance of our
Catalog Librarian, Sue Cheney.
They
are developing specialized cataloging procedures in consultation with
the College of Education that will enable users to locate items on a specific
subject cross-referenced by a variety of unique criteria, including grade
or reading level, format (such as videocassette), and more.
Upon completion of the project
sometime this summer, students and faculty will be able to use the same
familiar catalog to search for materials in the RERC collection alone,
or in both the RERC and Zahnow Library collections combined, a definite
plus given the library’s extensive holdings in the field of Education.
In addition, because CardCat is accessible via the web, teachers throughout
the region will be able to search the catalog remotely and identify useful
materials before making a trip to SVSU.
By working together, Zahnow Library and the College of Education are opening the doors of the Regional Education Resource Center and extending its valuable collection of learning resources to the K-12 community in the region.
For more information
about this project, please contact Linda Farynk at ext. 4236.
Director's
Column: What Happens When Our Journal Subscription Vendor Goes Bankrupt?
Library Helps Make RERC Collection Ready for Prime Time
Celebrate National Library Week, April 6 - 12, 2003
New CardCat Feature Enables Easy Searching for Videos, Other Specific Collections
Aversion to Microforms Cured by Arrival of New Reader/Printers!
Locate Books in Print with Reviews
Anita Dey
Linda Farynk
John Mauch
Editors
Tom Latuszek
John Mauch
David Ran