Differing from other workteams in the library, the cataloging group is always responsible for back-office projects, operating in a low-key and ordered way everyday. At the same time, the cataloging group's duties are becoming relatively more arduous as Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Library adopts American Library of Congress cataloguing rules, which means there are no pre-existing models to follow in China.

Professionalization “This is central to our work in converting book information into a language that users can understand. In addition, our responsibilities are to reveal key themes in the books, classify them by category and provide users with fast and convenient search strategies.” said Huiling Liu, the principal of cataloguing group. She revealed that their jobs are in fact tough and challenging. “We have few formal technical skills and little communication with others in this field. We communicate with universities in Hong Kong and foreign countries, and learn from each other. However, we mainly rely on learning through our own efforts.” Three teachers in the cataloging group are not majors in library science; however, they command excellent professional skills. Jingjing Dong, who has already obtained the Level Three National CALIS Certificate in western languages cataloging said, “We never stop learning. Almost all the books in our library have been individually cataloged at source. And our goal is to become a fully professional team.” (Fig1)

  Modesty XJTLU library has highlighted British universities as development models, and catalogs books according to Library Cataloging Rules (US-MARC).  The primary development goal of the library is growing internationalization, and the cataloguing group is a practical pioneer turning this strategy into reality. In addition, teachers at XJTLU have noted that foreign library resources are costly; therefore, cataloguing group members are trying every possible method to search for free resources and databases abroad.

 Persistence Although the cataloguing group's work is cumbersome and the daily workflow is fixed, life in the team is not tedious, and new insights can always be discovered when undertaking a series of repeated tasks. "The atmosphere in our team is good ", Teacher Liu said with a smile. In the eyes of her colleagues, the richly-experienced and kindly gentle Senior Cataloger is a vibrant and cheerful "kidult". "The great team spirit is the defining characteristic of our group," said these women with one voice. （Fig2）

Contributor: Xianshu Meng

Editor: Qin Wang, Yajuan Hu