Where do I start? Building a library from the ground up!

[Cathy]

I have recently been hired by a company to organise their documents which include project information, conference papers, articles, essays, presentations and other various forms of information. I do not have any formal librarian training, however I have worked in a university library for two years and so I have great deal of knowledge on the various methods of organising library materials. I have come up with a basic structure for their small library. I have begun cataloguing all their hardcopy materials and I plan to organise their materials in a subject-alphabetical fashion. I would like to ask how one would start organising a small library from the ground up. Their files currently have little organisation and some documents are spread out across the department with different employees. I plan to take all these documents and keep them in one place where they can be catalogued properly. If their library expands in the future they will consider using different forms of cataloguing and hiring a fully trained librarian. For the time being they just need their documents organised in a logical and easy-to-search format. The company's IT department is building a program that can do a basic keyword search, so that they can retrieve the relevant information from their server. Is their anything I should keep in mind as I construct their library? What is the most efficient way of cataloguing their items? Are their different methods of organising their hardcopy and digital information? Where should I start when conducting my research on proper library management techniques?

Any advice would help me greatly. I just need to know where I should start.

Thanks!
Cathy

[Libbie Stephenson]

Hi Cathy,
I have recently been reading about the archival format PDF/A and its use in business and other organizations. One thing you might consider is converting the paper materials to this archival electronic format. If you have text files many of them can be converted using Adobe to the /A format. Apparently legacy PDF's cannot always be converted to /A but this is a known issue that Adobe is working on. You can find out more from this article: Preserving the Data Explosion: Using PDF http://www.dpconline.org/docs/reports/dpctw08-02.pdf and the standard it is based on is ISO 19005-1: 2005(E) Document management - Electronic Document File Format for Long Term Preservation -- Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1)

hope this helps. libbie

[Cathy]

Thanks Libbie! I will keep that in mind. In truth hardcopy books will probably become as rare as vinyl records. If there are any other comments on how I should organise this growing stack of documents(that gives me a mild headache every time I think about it) please let me know!

Cheers!