Friday, July 6, 2012

Alphabet Soup, Anyone?

I know everyone was insanely curious as to what I would choose for my next project. Fear not, I won’t keep you in suspense anymore. I have chosen…the general LGBTQ guide!
Actually, I get to do the LGBTQ in religion topic, too. When I was about halfway through the list of call number ranges to search, I realized that there was way, way too much information for a single LibGuide. With just my initial list, I have 736 books (yes, I counted—I’ll explain why later) that concern more than one part of the LGBTQQAIetc. acronym. I discussed this problem with Jess, and I decided to make sub-categories within the LGBTQ guide, as I could see very clear categories forming just by looking at the titles on my list. Religion is one of those categories; some of the others are Politics and Policy, History, and Family.
The past few days have been concerned with finding all the books that are within the call number ranges I identified during the semester. I haven’t even started chasing down the random pockets of LGBTQ-related books in literature and other categories yet. 736 is a lot of books.
And here’s why I know that number: in my infinite wisdom, I decided to copy only the titles of the books I found when I was searching the first time. More than halfway through, I got wise, and started copying the call number, too. I prefer doing things by hand, though, so when I finished the list, I printed it out and began to search every. Single. Title. On my list that didn’t already have a call number. Also, knowing that I would be assigning books to categories, also by hand, I numbered the list so that I could simply put their number on a list, and then it would be easier to add the information into the computer later. So that’s why I know there are 736 titles, and 454 of them that I have to search by hand and write down the call numbers.
Yes, I know this isn’t the most efficient way to do things, but I’m strange so this is the way I prefer.
Next week, I will finish finding all the call numbers, and then start assigning books to categories. My method for that is rather unusual too, but I’ll wait until next week to describe it. I have to keep you all hooked somehow! J

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