Library of Things

Library of Things

Library of Things refers to useful, but non-traditional, objects that libraries have recently begun to add to their circulating collections, including telescopes, mobile hotspots, guitars, and more. For any questions on how to catalog these items, refer to OLAC’s Best Practices for Cataloging Objects in RDA and Marc 21.

Libraries can choose to use an OCLC record, or create a local non-OCLC record. If there is no OCLC record available, or a library chooses to not use one, libraries should follow rules for cataloging unique local material. Libraries may attach their item records to an existing bibliographic record with items owned by other CCS libraries, provided there is nothing in the existing bibliographic record that is specific to a single library.

Libraries may create a local record for their items by identifying their library as part of the title. This makes it possible for staff to find a library’s local records in the hit list. Brackets are not required for supplied titles of objects.

Example:

245 00 ‡aLake Villa District Library Mobile HotSpot.