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Relocating Translated Fiction in the Oxford Union Society Library
Why relocate translated fiction?We want to make all literature published in English more visible to our
members; particularly our collection of foreign fiction translated into English. All British and American fiction is kept in an independent collection in a separate room. It is catalogued, and sorted alphabetically by the classmark ‘EF.’ plus the first three letters of author’s surname. It is a popular section in which members often browse. Co-locating all fiction in English would make it more accessible to a greater number of members. It would also be in keeping with how English fiction, regardless of its original language, is displayed in public libraries and bookshops.
Moreover, I chose this project to gain more experience in collections management.
Where are the translated fiction books?Currently, translated fiction is kept in the Old Library and the Stack in the main
Dewey sequence. Literature in DDC is grouped by language then form and then period. So translations are not found together but with original language texts, criticism and/or contemporaneous works.
I used two methods to locate translated fiction: I requested a list of all items that had ‘f’/‘j’/‘l’ at #33, and ‘eng’ at #35-7 in the
008 MARC field from Sara Burnell. This showed all items in the library catalogued as fiction in English.
I ran pieces reports in GEAC to list all items in each modern foreign language group from the beginning of fiction (8*3) to the end and whittled down the lists.
Who will be affected?This will affect all members of the Oxford Union, and those studying modern
foreign languages especially. With the support of Library Committee, I launched an online survey to gauge members’ reactions. 105 members took part and 72% were in favour of the move. It helped to publicise the current collections and the proposed move. We published the results online and via Committee minutes.
We will need to publicise the change again – inhouse, in Committee and online - when the move is complete.
How will I move the books?After locating all translated fiction, I shall log each book on a spreadsheet. It
will record each item’s barcode, old classmark and sublocation, title, author, and its new classmark and sublocation. I shall send this to OLIS Help and they will switch all items to their new classmarks and sublocations.
I shall relabel and reshelve the books, and change signage accordingly. Moving the books en masse will cause less disruption and give me a clear idea of how many non-fiction books need to be relocated to the Old Library to accommodate the translated fiction.
How can we measure the move’s success?I shall record a sample group of both translated and English fiction and list
items’ barcodes, old and new classmarks, and circulation statistics pre-move in another spreadsheet. Subsequent trainees can log the circulation statistics of those items for that year and compare the results.
Adrienne Cooper, Oxford Union Society [email protected]
