NATIONAL LIBRARY OF THE PHILIPPINES - WEEK 3

(JUNE 02-JUNE 05)

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A. MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCES

As honest as the day is long, I am very anxious prior to this week starting, as we are scheduled in the two most challenging divisions in NLP, the Bibliographic Services Division and the Cataloging Division. To keep it real, I am so scared to enter BSD as I know to myself that I do not have the luxury to be exposed to indexing and abstracting during our 2nd year and even in my prior internship institution. But I am so grateful to BSD for debunking and removing all of my anxiety, as they made my indexing experience fun and memorable. There, I was tasked to index historical documents using uncontrolled vocabulary. With Miss Jade’s assistance, I learned so much about what to index and what not to index. I also experienced indexing news articles using controlled vocabulary, which in our case, is the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Then on our last day, we encoded indexed historical documents in their Koha, and what was assigned to me was Sabang, Bulacan, and Sta. Barbara, Bulacan. We ended every task with self-feedback and a debriefing with our coordinating librarians.

But, above board, my experience with BSD is not as enjoyable as with the Cataloging Division. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy CD at all, it’s just that we could’ve done more cataloging tasks instead of just labeling call numbers. Luckily, our last two days in CD were dedicated to cataloging, which is challenging as the materials given to us by Miss Marbs are dissertations, and even their practice of following DDC as class number, and LC as subject heading, is confusing. But I, who enjoyed the intensity of challenge, managed to catalog “7” dissertations. 

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B. LESSONS LEARNED

Description: This is a sample of my work as I practice what Miss Jade taught us.

I am beyond words as I can’t really explain how I survived this week. It has been challenging, but I am sure that I have learned so much. This week, it reminded me of how fulfilling learning is if the fear you encountered in the process turned into something valuable, something new. This is possible when the environment you belong to makes learning fun. Like in BSD and CD. With Miss Jade’s guidance, I learned the concept of “exhaustivity”, which tells how comprehensive the materials are being indexed, as well as “specificity” by being context-sensitive, and it always establishes how detailed the meaning of the index is.

Through this process, I can conquer my fear when encountering unfamiliar words, especially when using the uncontrolled vocabulary, because there are instances where I indexed “Tao po” as topical even though it is not relevant to the materials’ content and context. On a personal level, my time in BSD helped me to reflect as we practiced self-evaluation, which made me identify what to adjust and strengthen more. Also in the Cataloging Division, Miss Marbs made sure that our experiences were challenging, but we gained something. Though I am able to tell myself that I hate labeling of call numbers, it kept me grounded as I know that, soon, I will also encounter it in the future as I deep dive into the profession. 

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C. BEST PRACTICES/FEATURES OF THE LIBRARY

Description: Encoding of index in KOHA by checking the data from Google Sheets

As exaggerated as it may sound, the Bibliographic Services Division alone is the best practice or feature NLP has so far. Every step of the process in BSD is detailed, well-oriented, and systematic. It started from orientation, then we were handed a trial worksheet, which is great as it establishes grounds and ideas on what the interns would do. Then they allow the interns to be critical in the indexing process, especially since the materials we index are historical data. Then, they introduced us to something new in a manner that neither shocked nor baffled us, including controlled vocabulary, the KWIC method, encoding for KOHA, and many more. In the Cataloging Division, it is fun and interesting, even though we spent most of our time just labeling and printing stickers, we were lucky enough to have started cataloging this week, unlike the previous interns, so that by next Monday, we can participate in their Staff Development.

Miss Marbs refreshed us with the basics of number building and free-floating subdivisions in DDC and LCSH, respectively, as NLP uses both. I am now more aware and confident in how to use the tables within Volume 1 as well as to navigate the other volumes of DDC. I also appreciate that they allow the interns to practice cataloging using the physical book for we to be familiar with its instructions instead of just relying on the web. 

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