ZAPP 10/29/09 - First Cataloging Session with Heather

This evening I had the opportunity to catalog my first Zine in 2 years. Before this though, Heather went over the whole process with me to refresh my memory. The process has certainly come a long way since. Heather brought up the wiki page devoted to this task. The wiki was incredibly thorough and Heather showed me that it basically covered most every question that could possibly come up and included outside resources such as World Cat and Zine Wiki to check for existing Zine entries.

Nevertheless, one concern that we did encounter this evening and is not in the Cataloging Wiki, regarded the format of zines. Along with multiple zine sizes, the electronic database entry form gives two options for printing style: Offset and photocopy. Heather began looking through the Mark Campos collection to show me examples of each. Rather quickly we discovered that in some situations it was difficult to tell after both Heather and Nora examined some zines up close and at different angles to allow the light to reflect off of them. Some new categories for the format metadata came up: Screen printing and Lazer Jet Printing. For the time being, Heather and Nora agreed that we ought to place Screen printing under the offset option and Lazer Jet printing under the photocopy option and note the additional detail in the description block. Otherwise, when in doubt on the format Heather suggested I search for the publisher online if possible.

After all of this, I finally got to start cataloging a Zine titled Throwrug #18

This Zine came out of Bellingham, WA during the mid to late 1990s - this particular issue was from 1997. It was essentially a rather humorous collection of film and music reviews and comics about pop culture. It also included a seance with Kurt Cobain, which I unfortunately did not have the time to read. However, I particularly found the author's piece on being invited to his 10 year high school reunion most amusing. Altogether it took me about 45 minutes to complete this: more than twice the stated average. Phew, I am out of practice! Now I have a goal to reach: 20 minutes or better. I can do this.

Summary:

6:00 PM - In the Archives
*Cataloging walk-through with heather
- looked over the cataloging wiki
- encountered issue of format: may need to include lazer jet and screen print categories
- will put lazer jet under photocopy and screen print under offset and note it in the description
- Check publisher if listed to obtain more specific format information
7:00 PM - Begin Cataloging
*Mark Campos Collection
- cataloged Throwrug #18