The training and practice cataloging that I completed during my first two weeks have proved to be a great introduction to finding records for items in OCLC and editing them to better describe the items in the French Revolution Collection (FRC). In working through my first portfolio of FRC pamphlets I learned to look for publication information in a colophon, if it is not present in the title information, which pages to check for abbreviated title information, depending on the length of the pamphlet, and became more familiar with several bibliographic reference sources such as André Martin and Gérard Walter’s Catalogue de l’histoire de la Révolution française, also known as Martin & Walter.
Through my training I have become very comfortable with the different standard MARC fields used in FRC records; punctuation in the title entry and physical description fields has become practically second nature now. I am still working on learning the standard order of notes, so that I do not need to constantly reference the FRC Sample Record. The use of a local field [902] has been very helpful in the beginning stages of determining ‘aboutness’ and is a good starting point towards assigning subject headings.