Case Study:
The library that looked like it had
no books?

The library was in a historic area near a national park. They prided themselves on their vast collection of books about the area. Many of these books were written and published locally, so the catalog records for these items were unique.

When the library moved their catalog online in the 1980's, the catalogers decided that each department would enter the catalog records for their own books in the computer. Since catalogers were no longer typing up the catalog cards, it seemed logical to have each department take care of their collections online.

The catalogers in each department started creating their own catalog records. This meant:

There were often many different subject headings for the same subject
The amount of information on a given record was based only on how much the cataloger personally knew
Georgraphic areas were spelled differently
Local places had nicknames. Catalogers used "Mt. Park," "Park Mountain," "Indian Thumb" (part of the peak looked like a thumb), or "Glacier Peak" (the name of the old trail to the peak until the glacier melted).

Some older books had no subject headings at all.
Even if you managed to find one book about Mount Park and clicked on the "Mount Park" subject heading, your search might not display anything!

This was a famous mountain so library users were surprised when a very short list of books was returned.