Libraries can feel like magic. You walk into a building or look online and find all kinds of electronic resources, journals, books, audio-visual materials, music scores and more. This exhibit highlights the labor that it takes to purchase, catalog, repair, and prepare library resources for the shelf and online. Library resources are not simply ordered, unpacked, and instantly available to check out or to click on. Explore this exhibit to see what it takes to get books on shelves and electronic resources online.
Staff members from the Library Collections Services Division curated this exhibition to share the many skills it takes to bring you the information you need. We understand the complexities of ordering books and media from sellers across the globe. We use various metadata schema and descriptive standards to make resources in hundreds of languages discoverable. We have a deep knowledge about the history of the book and various media, and how these can deteriorate over time. As a team, Collections Services makes sure that the library materials you want are ready and waiting for you when you need them.
This exhibition was sponsored in part by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.
