Terms, terms, and more ter-... Hey, What’s that smell?
Usually, I dread indexing (next to cataloging, of course). Not because I don’t know how, but because I’m always so unsure if what I’m doing is correct at all. But it isn’t so difficult, really, especially when authority lists are available.
So... this week, I spent 4 days at the Indexing Section and was able to finish a good number of articles. I’m quite glad that when we got there all the scholarly journals, periodicals, and articles were already done and what were left were mostly magazines. At least indexing magazine articles are relatively easier than indexing scholarly ones.
We were told to create P-slips of the articles we are indexing just so we know how they’re created even though an online database is already available. We encoded the indexed articles after creating P-slips for them, too, just so we could familiarize ourselves with the Index to Philippine Periodicals database.
The database was easy to use once one gets to understand the function of each part. The database was pleasing to the eyes, too, which was why it wasn’t so hard to work with it. Although, I had issues with the search bar for the Headings list. It doesn’t work like the search bar for browsing articles which was why I found it a little bit irritating (just a tiny bit). I hope they’d work on that function but all in all the database was superb! Thumbs up!
Friday this week, was also my first day of duty at the archives. I was directed to the Bindery and I spent my whole day there.
When you enter the Bindery, a really weird stench would overwhelm you. Apparently, that was the animal glue called ‘cola’ (I’m not entirely sure, because no one spelled it to me and I guess I didn’t bother asking. HUHU sorry) being cooked.It is the adhesive used for binding the books sent to the office. It smells really weird but once you’re used to it, it doesn’t really matter much. It’s an effective adhesive, too, although Ma’am Emma Rey, my LIS 173 professor the previous semester told us that this adhesive is usually the food of certain insects and pests that lead to the deterioration of books. I did bring it up, but I knew as well that methyl cellulose (the adhesive we used during 173) was quite expensive.
I got to use the machine for putting lettering on the book covers. IT. WAS. AWESOME!
I really must say that this part was one of the most fulfilling parts of my OJT. It is because I get to bind a book (or a couple of books) on my own!... well, with assistance of course. XD
I finished binding 2 books that day. I’ve sewn them myself, too. And I’m telling you, sewing books was really difficult! XD