Dennis and Lorna Olson photo courtesy of Clutch Media
VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Librarians like to organize, they look at a mess of chaotic papers, books, and information, and a gleam enters their eye. Librarians especially love to organize information. This is the
story of how two library volunteers who love to organize have made such a powerful impact for the Valley City
Community.
When I started at the Valley City Barnes County Public Library 10 years ago, former Library Director Steve
Hammel, I noticed we had a few local history books, centennial books, and yearbooks. Some were catalogued, or were barcoded, but marked deleted. Meanwhile, The Barnes County Museum also had a large collection of local history. People would come in seeking information about Barnes County and Valley City, and staff struggled to find the information our patrons were seeking. We would send them to the Barnes County Museum, or the museum would send them to us. It was a frustrating mess and made for some unhappy patrons and staff. It took some time, but it was generally decided the library couldn’t function as both a warehouse for local history and serve the needs of the patrons. A partnership was formed, some might even say it’s one of a kind. The small collection of local history from the library was transported to the museum, where it can all be found in one location. Now that it was in one location, the question became how do we make these historical documents more accessible for the community? Solution, the library would set up a branch in the Museum. This meant the Museum could utilize the library’s system for book cataloging, making searching for local history information easier, and more convenient for our community. This shift created a huge mess at the museum and the issue of organizing and cataloging all the local history was mind-boggling for both the library and the museum. But all that information needed to be catalogued, and it was all original cataloging! “Oh, the Insanity!”
Every item in a library is catalogued. Catalogued means all the information about the material is broken down into separate data fields, author, title, subject, etc. This data is entered into the library’s Integrated Library System (ILS) or online card catalog. This makes it easier to find the item by searching the library’s catalog. Some people call cataloging determining the “aboutness” of the material. Remember when I mentioned Librarians like to organize information? Cataloging is organizing information about every library item. So, what’s the difference between original cataloging and copy cataloging? Most items published nowadays have an ISBN barcode. Bigger libraries pay trained catalogers to do all the data entry for those items. The VCBC Public Library’s ILS can import those records from those bigger libraries, so we don’t have to do much original cataloging. Importing these records from the bigger libraries is known as copy cataloging. Original Cataloging can be time-consuming data entry, and either requires a Masters in Library Science with a Cataloging Specialty, or years of cataloging experience. But local history items don’t have any records to import from larger libraries, because they won’t have that item in their collection. To do
an original catalog record. A Cataloging Librarian must collect the data about the item. Author, title, publisher, copyright, subject, and organize it. Many books have that information on the publication page, but not everything does, in fact some of that stuff might not have any information, so a cataloguer does some in-depth research to determine information about the items to create a record. It was the end of August, school had started, Summer Learning was over, and the library was gearing up for fall programing, when an older couple came through the library doors. They’d just come from the museum, eager to visit with the director. I can’t help but smile. I think I’ll let them use their own words to describe what they saw at the museum. Taken from their final report, “August 30, 2021, we decided to go to Valley City and visit the genealogy section of the Barnes County Historical Society to see what materials they might have. Found all in disarray after they had to change shelving arrangements because of weight load. Saw books had just been put on shelves as they were picked up, boxes of materials spread on the floor, etc. We also saw this was something we might be able to help organize.”
Dennis and Lorna Olson wanted to volunteer to catalog the local history collection at the Museum. Now previously I had said cataloging is not something anyone off the street can do. So let me give you some background information about our lovely volunteers.
Dennis and Lorna Olson are retired librarians with years of cataloging experience. Dennis was born in Marion, ND in 1940. He graduated from Litchville High School in 1958, and from Valley City State Teacher’s College in 1965. He
graduated from UND with Masters in Library Science in 1968. Over the years he’s catalogued collections at Milnor, Dickinson State College, and Bismarck Public Schools, including the opening of Century High School. He retired in 2002, but continued to volunteer in Bismarck School libraries, and catalogued the special reading collections for two elementary schools.
Lorna was born in McHenry, ND in 1941. She went to elementary school in Courteney, ND. Graduated from Northfield (MN) High School in 1959. Took classes in Library Science from Valley City State Teachers College
and Dickinson State Teachers college. She worked 19 years as Assistant Librarian at Bismarck High School. Retiring in 2002, also volunteering with Dennis at the Bismarck School Libraries.
As you can see their volunteer request was a generous one, and their knowledge of Original Cataloging best practices made them valuable volunteers. They visited Steve Hammel, and he set them up with a login to the ILS and they began the arduous process of cataloging books, music, and local history. They packed up legal boxes full of documents, carted them home, where they catalogued them and then returned them to the museum. They created vertical files, local biographies, township boxes, all with records so people could walk into the library and search for things like Kathryn or Normal School and do local history research. Dennis built bookcases for magazines, and sheet music.
The Olson’s made a total of 32 trips, from their home in Bismarck to Valley City. From September 1st 2021 to July 24th 2023. Dennis and Lorna catalogued 6,656 items. The total cost of these items was $152,373.35 (This cost is an estimate, some of these materials are one of a kind. Many items are no longer available in print so their worth in some ways is priceless.) When July 2023 rolled around, the Olson’s decided they needed to be done. After all they were retired and wanted to do some traveling.
Both the Valley City Barnes County Public Library and the Barnes County Museum are grateful to the Olson’s for all their hard work. The cataloging project at the museum is far from over, but with Olson’s diligence and attention to detail, they have started a truly wonderful, usable, and accessible collection for the residents of Valley City Barnes County, and the whole world.
If you would like to know more about the local history, visit the Barnes County Museum at 315 Central AVE N in Valley City. Or if would like to access the catalog for the Museum, please visit, vcbclibrary.org and click on Library Catalog.
Feature photo courtesy of Clutch Media.