Digression

I have been assuming that people know about life BC (before computers): manual issuing systems and catalogues, but for those under the age of 40 or so, here is the scene.

The Browne issuing system involved little pockets glued into the inside front cover of every book, with the author title and accession number of the book written on it. A card with the same information was kept in this little pocket. Fiction works had the author's surname at the top, then the title, accession number and so on, non-fiction had the Dewey (or other) classification number at the top, then author, title, number and so on. Readers were issued with little ticket pockets, the quantity varying according to the habit of the library (3 for children, 5 for adults maybe). Here is an Australian library manual entry:

http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/info/publib/clslibraries/manual/day#iss

I think the Gresswell's catalogue still has the equipment for sale - its used in many school libraries still, even if their catalogues are computerised.

that link didnt seem to work, but I will carry on.

On issue, the reader would present the books and their tickets, the cards would be taken from the books, put into the pockets and the due date stamped on the book's due date label. At the end of the day all the filled tickets would be put into appropriate order behind a label with the due date, and stored in channeled boxes.

When the book was returned, staff would look at the due date, find the section, riffle through to find the tickets and cards, return the cards to the books and the ticket to the reader and hey presto. Job done. Except when you inadvertently put the wrong card into the wrong book...

Renewals were done by stamping the new due date onto a slip of paper and putting it into the original card/ticket file. An ongoing argument ran about putting the renewed record into the new date file, but this meant confusion on return if the reader had failed to note the new date on the due date labe.. Overdues were done by that due date being passed and those tickets remaining in that date being sent letters of threat and encouragement.

Some excitements: when I was working in the Bethnal Green library, early 1970's, some naughty people got into the library overnight and upended the whole lot of these trays all over the floor!! the next morning, as the Senior on duty, I ordered the whole sequence to be put into one, with orphan tickets and cards put into another sequence...and we forgot about overdues for a fortnight. Other problems were caused, even as now, by people using the tickets of other family members without permission, and the wrong person being chased for lost books. Otherwise this system worked very well and depended upon electricity only as far as lighting was needed after sunset.

The dictionary catalogue was maintained by production of cards when thebook was received into stock, the main entry being the author or other (series, festschrift et cetera), and other cards for the title, and subjects. A note was made on the back of the main entry of which other cards had been made, so that they could be removed whrn the book was withdrawn. The accession number was also written on the back of the main entry...several for multiple copies.
Typewriters were used to produce the cards, with cunning grooves in the platen roll, into which the card was set, to hold it in place while typing.

The cards were filed in dictionary sequence in the catalogue drawers - beautiful items of furniture, now redundant - with observance of the word-by-word or letter-by-letter preference of the library. (the latter would have 'machine' in the middle of the usual range of Scottish surnames).

Wellington

In advance of the family move to Wellington some thought was given to my finding a job. (sister and brother still at school) My mother had a vague idea that my godmother's brother in law was something in libraries, and when she mentioned the name I fell off my chair: he was the National Librarian! Godmother wrote to him to see if a job could be found and he came up with a lovely post as a trainee in the Schools Library Service. (I never did meet Geoffrey Alley.)

The SLS was a division of the National Library Service, and had offices in the 4 main centres in New Zealand. The national head was Hector Macaskill, who ran this like a military operation. I learned a great deal about ideal management from observing him: when all the boxes of books came back at the end of school terms, everyone on the staff, including him, set to with checking the contents against lists of loans, setting aside books which needed mending or rebinding, and then reshelving them. (Imagine my horror at job-demarcation when I came to work in Surrey County Libraries in 1970!)
This was by now 1964. I am sorry to say that the swinging sixties passed me by entirely - my great musical discovery at the time was the complete recordings of Handel's Organ Concerti.

The professional body for librarians, the NZ Library Association, stepped up the drive to educate library staff and introduced its Certificate. I was on the first run of this wide-ranging course, which involved a sort of apprenticeship combined with sandwich courses at the national Library School, spread over three years. The only other qualification available in NZ at that time was a post graduate dipoloma offered by the Library School in Wellington - another branch of the National Library. Watch out for a course description next time!

catching up

Greetings, world. I have been so busy lately that I haven't found the time to sit at the computer for hours at a stretch, so its been longer than expected for the next installment of the story.

So here I was aged 18 starting work in the branch library where I had been a part-timer. Fortunately for me it was the beginning of an awareness in NZ library circles that staff needed to be trained for their job, so I was sent in to the central cataloguing office for the Auckland Public libraries on several weeks of 'work experience'. It was here that I became fascinated with classification - we were using Dewey; and cataloguing, using the ALA rules and Sears list of subject headings. How I loved the intricacies of these processes - how amazed to witness the two senior calaloguers (both women of a certain age) actually shouting at each other and throwing things in an arguement about the correct decimal places of a disputed item. Hours could be spent on a huge and comprehensive list of see and see also for the dictionary catalogue.

Back at the branch library, we had some interesting requests - a young man came in looking for a picture of an eagle with wings spread out, and after a long search I found one in an encyclopaedia. Terrific he said, I'll take it out. No you won't, its reference only. You may trace it. This was before photocopiers. It turned out that he wanted one tattoed on his back and he needed a picture to show to the man wielding the inkpen. Aaaaaargh.
Or the anxious looking man soberly dressed who came in to ask for alist of funeral direcors in the area. Feeling sorry for his undoubtedly tragic loss, I led him to a comfy chair to look at the directories. He was in fact a commercial salesman dealing in something suitable for this trade.

After a year of pottering along like this, my parents suddenly announced that we were all to move to Wellington, where my father had a new job. What next?

reminiscences

I thought I'd use this weblog to reflect on the changes in librarianship as I have lived through them. Interesting to me, if not anyone else. I won't mind if you think its boring.
I was born in New Zealand in 1946. This will explain the unfolding story.
I am told that my homeland was an undeveloped colony at this time - still attached to Mother England by trade and habit, with a comfortable colonial lifestyle which meant doing things for yourself, and not having imported goods. The Prime Minister's telephone number was in the Wellington phone book and anyone could ring him up - he usually answered the phone himself.

Mr Carnegie had laid his beneficent wand over New Zealand, so we had many public libraries, well supported by the communities as well as by the National Library Service, which sent loan collections of books to small towns, in order to vary the collections. The School Library Service did the same for schools.
My earliest memories of libraries was the weekly family visit to our branch library in the suburbs of Auckland. Television had not yet arrived in NZ, so reading was a great way to expand horizons, to get lost in a fantasy world outside the rather limited range of our country. Radio was also a great favourite in our family - many well known British series being available, probably years after they were made. My Word was a particular favourite.

At Auckland Girls' Grammar School I became a helper to the librarian, in order to avoid playing sport. She later arraanged for me to have an evening job in a branch library doing shelving and simple circulation tasks. Aged about 17 I also worked there in the school holidays, embarking on children's library services, and story hour.
Came the time to leave school - even at this selective entry school there were only two careers available: nursing or teaching, with the duffers being edged off into secretarial school. I didnt fancy any of those and University was never mentioned (to me, at least), so I carried on in library work, at the same branch in which I had begun as a shelver.
Wait for the next enthralling episode.....

first past this post

hello world. That's what I am told to say, but really this is me doing thing 3 (told to say that too) instead of weeding the garden, or mowing the lawn. Brain rather than body, I suppose. Both will benefit from a celebratory glass of prosecco later. What next.