Discovery Services Procedures: Processing Orders

Processing Orders for Special Collections Collections (Finding Aid Collections)

For items that are ordered and being added to a Special Collections collection, each item with an individual price will have a short bibliographic record created upon entering the order. Items will not be individually cataloged by Cataloging, but simply added to their respective collection.

Record Creation

Acquisitions staff will create a short bibliographic record by entering as much information as available. The following is the information that should be included if found on the item:

• Title or a title given by the archivist
• Creator: Author, editor, translator, etc.
• Date of publication: Provide any date on the item.

On the POL under the Notes tab, a note will be added to ensure the items are tied to the correct location, the following note will be added:

• Part of Special Collections Name of location: Call Number of collection, Name of collection, MMS ID:
• Example: “Part of Special Collections Manuscript Collection: MS043, Mexican Revolution collection, MMS ID: 991021251919707051”

Suppressing the Record

The short bib for the individual item will also need to be suppressed. The following video shows the process for suppressing the record and locating the collection for the note marked above.

https://watch.screencastify.com/v/XZMi9ZT7jiMVg1qC1dtD

No Collection Record

If the collection does not have a record, Cataloging will create a short bibliographic record for the collection before the order can be entered. It only needs to be brief until Special Collections provides additional information or a full finding aid.

Final Step

The items will go from Acquisitions staff to process the POL and Invoice to Specials Collections.

*Please note that the term collection in Alma is a database. A collection here is a collection found in Special Collections that are reviewed by using a finding aid.