Pulling pre-1851 items out of other collections

Museum accreditation covers all pre-1851 printed and published materials in the collection (though not just that). The vast majority of pre-1851 books are already in the core EPB sequence, however there are some books in other books sequences that pre-date 1851 that have been left there. Our task now is to add those books to the end of the EPB sequence.

Decision making

We have decided to lean towards being liberal in allowing books into the EPBs. If one or more books in a series of volumes is pre-1851, we will take the whole run so not to split up and obfuscate the connection between these books. The one exception is when it comes to large runs of directories which can run into dozens of volumes post-1851.

If the item is missing

Add a missing macro with today’s date and change the status on the item record to missing. In the spreadsheet put the decision down as missing and highlight the item in orange.

If the item is not in fact pre-1851

When you find the book, please check it is in fact pre-1851 and belongs in the EPB collection. The spreadsheet has been generated from a Sierra search but some books may have been given an incorrect date, most likely because they are facsimilies of pre-1851 books which have been re-printed post-1851.

Record this information on the spreadsheet under “decision”.

On the bibliographic record, under the 008 field change the “Dat type” to “r” for reprint, the “Date one” becomes the date of reprint and “Date two” becomes the date the original work was published.

If there is no note on the item record, add one under “General note” (ctrl + I then n) and write “Facsimile.

You can also add the details of the printer of the re-print in the 264 field with the second indicator of 3.

Modifying the Book Record

Item record

First of all, on the item record the book will need a new shelfmark for the Early Printed Book sequences. Use this guide to judge what collection it should be in and use this document to find the next available number. This document with available numbers doesn’t update instantaneously so be aware you don’t use an already occupied number if someone else is using the document at the same time.

If the item is a bandwith, make the other items bound with the pre-1851 items into EPBs as well even if they are post-1851.

Create two new former location fields (ctrl + i then t) on the item record. In one put the former shelfmark and in the other put the name of the former collection.

In the top right-hand corner under LOCATION, change the location to the relevant EPB collection.

Under OPACMSG check that it is “f Online Request” and not under “Open Shelves”.

Check that under STATUS it is “Available” and under “ICODE2” it is “- -“ and not suppressed.

In a general note field add the following statement: Transferred to EPB: Q# 01/01/2025: Your name

After you have done this, inventory the item as usual.

Bibliographic record

First of all, check that BCODE3 is “- -“ and not suppressed and change it if it is.

Then you need to add the 903 field which is done in the format below:

|3NEWSHELFMARK:|aOLDSHELFMARK|bPrevious

Finally, previously Open Shelves material will need another change. Under “LOCATIONS” “whml” (open shelves) needs to be changed to “stax” (closed stores). This is done by clicking on “LOCATION: multi” above and changing it from there.

The colour coding on the spreadsheet is as follows: green for items successfully transferred to EPB, orange for items that are missing and yellow are for items are were found to be ineligible for a move to EPB (i.e. they turn out to actually be post-1851, either facsimiles or mis-dated.)

On the spreadsheet

This spreadsheet lists pre-1851 books outside the EPBs. Under decision, write “Moved to EPB” and highlight that row green. Under “new shelfmark” write the new shelfmark you have assigned it and add anything else under the “notes” column.