More questions about Internal Codes...

Speaking with Rachel, regarding what would work best for the staff, and thinking about how the collection is shaping up phsyically, we've come to a couple of mutual conclusions. Firstly, both Rachel and ourselves see this collection as something that should be easy to access, use, and reshelve. We've determined that it's in the best interest for those using the collection to have all of the materials relating to, let's say furniture, together.

Using a traditional organization method, these elements are often relegated to different areas than the books that they support and/or complement. For instance, while books might be shelved first, there are journals, exhibition catalogs, and ephemera that relate to these various disciplines and genres as well. There is also the matter of class divisions - where a book about an artist would be located in a completely different location from the book on the artist's work.

As Lauren said, we have talked about a 3 or 4 letter internal code to be placed on books. This not only provides the staff with an efficiency of use greater than the traditional LC call number system, but also gathers these elements of the collection together. Books, journals, theses, ephemera, etc. are all contained in one area, and the potential to access and discover complementary research material becomes far greater.
We're in the process of refining these codes and thinking further about them. Should there be even more refinement with these, so that a number goes after the lettered code to further delineate objects? Such that, FUR1 = book FUR2 = journal FUR3= ephemera, etc..

Should this be a new field entirely, or is it adequate to enter this information into the already-existing field, "local heading 1"? This would seem to be a fine place to put them, but is it accurate enough, for descriptive purposes? Is there some sort of procedure for this type of internal coding already? Is this something that we can take liberties with, as far as the naming/selection of them goes? It would seem, since this is "our" system, that we could be responsible for their creation, as long as it is uniform...but perhaps this is just an assumption on my part.

Finally, there is the problem with, should they be in a seperate field, is it possible to print them out with the call numbers on the same item sticker, at the same time? If not, ...??!!!