Unique and Interesting Books Found during Inventory

This summer the Ort Library staff worked on the second year of a three year project to inventory the entire collection that students, faculty, and staff are able to check out. During our inventory, the staff found some books with interesting titles, covers, or otherwise unique.

The display located in the Hoska case, located on the 3rd floor showcases some of the unique books that the staff found. As an example, the staff found a book whose title is 53 words long. The title is "A Mirror for Witches in which is reflected the life, machinations, and death of famous Doll Bilby, who, with a more than feminine perversity, preferred a demon to a mortal lover. Here is also told how and why a righteous and most awfull judgement befell her, destroying both corporeal body and immortal soul" written by Esther Forbes.

Other titles include "Cinderella ate my daughter: dispatches from the front lines of the new girlie-girl culture" by Peggy Orenstein and "Deer hunting with Jesus: dispatches from America's class war" by Joe Bageant.

Stop by the 3rd floor of the library to see what other odd books were found in the library's collection. This display will be up through the end of September.

For more information, please contact Theresa Mastrodonato (tmmastrodonato@frostburg.edu or 301-687-4425).

Ort Library Staff Inventorying Collection

The Lewis J. Ort Library staff is working on the 2nd year of a 3 year inventory project that will see the entire collection of circulating items inventoried. Working in teams of two, the staff is physically assessing each book for its condition and checking to make sure the information about the book is correct. During the first year the staff inventoried over 60,000 items.

Below are some pictures of our teams at work.

The Periodicals/Single Record Project

Randy Lowe and Virginia Williams (seated in the photo to the left) are leading a project that will involve an inventory of the library's periodical collection in all formats. They called a meeting of library supervisors and periodical staff that included Pam Williams, Charlene Vassallo, Lea Messman-Mandicott, Florence Young, Liz Keller, and "Dodie" Coburn on May 13 to outline their strategy for the project and to plan for training sessions that will begin in June.

When "The Periodicals/Single Record Project" is finished, library users will be able to find all periodical formats (print, microform and/or electronic) merged onto a single bibliographic catalog record, and the library will have an accurate count of the library's periodical holdings in all formats.