Library Catalogue – Cataloguing nearly completed

The key to any Library is the catalogue and for many years Preston Community Library has been without one so it has been impossible for users and volunteers to know what is in stock or to record book loans on a computerised system instead of paper.

This has now changed with the purchase of a Library Management System called Tinycat where we can enter details of the books we have in stock. This process started in June 2022 with the Adult Fiction books and we have now finished all the cataloguing with our team of 4 volunteers and we have have catalogued over 5,700 books.

We take the books one shelf at a time and check that they are in good condition, then using a barcode reader we scan the ISBN – the book’s unique number into the computer. This brings up the record for the book. We then add our information including a unique barcode and a Shelf Mark to show where you will find the book on the shelves. We attach the barcode label to the book and, with Adult Fiction, add a coloured spot to the spine to identify Crime Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction or Short Stories. The collections of Adult Fiction and Large Print Books have been completed.

The Adult Non-Fiction, including oversize books, have also been added to the catalogue, using our own list of Subjects and the Dewey Decimal Classification to arrange the books on the shelves.

The Children and Young Adults books, both Fiction and Non-Fiction and finally, foreign language books have been catalogued.

We are now also adding the spine labels to the books and getting them into order on the shelves.

You are now able to search the catalogue for all these books from our website.

We are now planning to introduce the new loans system before we move back to Carlton Avenue East.

Many thanks to the volunteers, Brigitte, Hilary and Ron and Shweta.

Hazel Atlass

Project Lead

Click on the image below to access the catalogue

Hopefully, the catalogue will be completed before moving back to Carlton Avenue East next year. 

We plan to introduce the new loans system later on this year. 

Many thanks to the volunteers, Brigitte, Shweta, Ron, Chris, Charles and Uma. 

Hazel Atlass 

Project Lead 

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