by Anne Welsh and Associates
How would you like to support us AND independent book shops, just by buying books?
Some of you may remember that when we started our newsletter, Beginning Cataloguing Monthly, we looked for affiliate links that share our values.
Now we’re very happy to share that with Bookshop.org having entered the UK market, we have been able to set up an affiliate “shop” at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/beginningcataloguing.
So far, we’ve added two lists:
Continue reading “Beginning Cataloguing Bookshop”
We’ve made an important change to the way we link to some online book sites.
While investigating best practice for creating our newsletter, which will launch next month, we decided to introduce affiliate links. There’s a straightforward article about how these work on The Guardian website. Essentially, each time someone clicks on an affiliate link, we make a few pence.
Don’t worry – we’re not going down the road of product placement, shoe-horning links to, I don’t know, fishtanks or phishfood ice-cream into our writing. Several major book sites to which we link anyway – Abe, Abe UK, Betterworld Books, Foyles and Waterstones – offer affiliate links, and so all we’ve done is convert those. (See our book publications page for examples). We’re also not stopping linking to places that don’t offer affiliate links. Facet, who publish books by both Katharine Schopflin and me, will always be the first place we link for those books, and we’re still linking to WorldCat and other library catalogues.
The only change, from our point of view, is that when we link to Abe or Betterworld, for example, we’ll use the affiliate links they offer.
From your point of view, you should be aware that affiliate links use cookies. You can opt out of this here.
We continue to support independent bookshops, ordering directly from them where we can. However, I find Abe helpful to find rare books and, indeed, bookshops that are new to me. The books pictured in today’s shelfie were all tracked down via them this summer, when I had to replace the collection of old books that is still locked down in my old office, while campus is closed for Covid-19. I have supported Betterworld Books since it first launched, with its regular donations of books to others. It’s my preferred way to dispose of unwanted collections of textbooks, knowing most will find good homes.
I’ve commissioned Andy Horton (BPP University), who wrote his Masters thesis on corporate book donation schemes, to write a Beginnings article on this topic. I’m also commissioning some pieces on indies. If you have a favourite independent bookshop, especially if it trades in second-hand or rare books, and would like to submit a piece to the blog, do get in touch via email to find out about how we commission and remunerate guest posts.
If you have any concerns about our use of affiliate links, you can get in touch directly via info [at] beginningcataloguing.com
Addendum, 17 December 2020:
With the launch of bookshop.org in the UK, we have set up an affiliate “shop” at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/beginningcataloguing.
Read more about it at https://beginningcataloguing.com/about-beginnings/beginning-cataloguing-bookshop.
“Having spent part of the last ten years encouraging students to publish their dissertations, I’m happy at last to be in a position to pick up my own Masters research again – 25 years later!
Thanks to @edcdcs for a research affiliation while I dig into the W&R Chambers files again, once it is safe to travel in the new year.”
— Beginning Cataloguing Instagram yesterday.
Photo by Andy Horton.
Really delighted to be welcoming Ash Green as a Beginning Cataloguing Associate.
Ash is well-known in the library community, both as a librarian and an activist. They’re currently working on their first event, combining their creative and technology skills and interests.
With over twenty years of experience, Ash has worked in Cataloguing, Classification, Acquisitions and, of course, Systems. Recently they have been involved in games development and organising and speaking at conferences on tech issues. They’ve mentored with the International Catrobat Association and have co-authored conference papers focused on the online digital reading experience as part of the Read, Watch, Play and Read With Me networks.
Recently their LGBTQ+ Lives Online web archiving collaboration with The British Library and UK Web Archive was launched. Ash is the CILIP LGBTQ+ Network Steering Group lead for the project.
You can find out more about Ash on their profile page.
Watch this space for announcements of their upcoming projects.
Want to learn the core techniques of bibliographic research? Getting into book collecting and keen to know exactly which impression of which edition of a book you’ve just purchased? Moving from modern cataloguing to working with early materials and need to get on top of format and collational formulae?
We’ve got a course for you. Beginning Bibliography has just opened for booking. 20-25 hours of learning at your own pace, with presentations, readings and activities including creating quasi-facsimiles (title page transcriptions), collation (working out the format of the book and how its pages were ordered and bound), and some paper-folding excises.
The introductory presentation is free to watch in order to help you make up your mind. Here’s the curriculum:
Continue reading “Open for Bookings: Beginning Bibliography”
Really happy to start the week by welcoming Yvonne Lewis as a Beginning Cataloguing Associate.
Yvonne is well-known in the special collections community, having held committee posts for CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group, the Historic Libraries Forum, CILIP Library History Group, the Cathedral Libraries and Archives Association and CILIP Preservation, Conservation & Heritage Sub-committee.
As well as having taught hundreds of people to catalogue in the workplace, she has supervised many work placement students in historic collections, and has, therefore, been the person who has introduced lots of people to life in heritage libraries.
Yvonne holds a degree in History from Warwick University and is a recent graduate of the Institute of English Studies (University of London)’s MRes in Book History. She has worked in special collections since graduating with her MA LIS from University College London in 1992. Her research interests and publications are centred on 17th and 18th century private libraries, book ownership, the reading experience, and maps and globes.
We are really delighted that Yvonne is joining us to co-teach Beginning Bibliography, which opens for registration this week, and whose first unit will go live in August. You can find out more about her on her profile page.
Some of you have emailed to ask if we are planning on setting up a newsletter to help you keep up with our courses – newsletters work better for you than blogs, you say, because they land in your inbox.
We hear you! This is what we’ve replied to those of you kind enough to suggest this to us.
Firstly, thanks loads for being interested in our new venture and wanting to keep up with us. To answer your question: YES, I am planning a newsletter for Beginning Cataloguing, but it won’t be up and running until October.
Why so slow?
Continue reading “Monthly Roundup for You”