I think cataloger's block is similar to writer's block. You just hit a wall where you can't do anymore. Today I hit it, but luckily I only have 30 minutes left of work, and I'm not going to be here for the next three days. Hopefully I'll be able to recover.
What brought on this malady? Well, I was picking books to catalog from the boxes and shelves surrounding me, and I came to a book "From Qumran to the Rabbinic Revolution: Conceptions of Impurity." I'm not so sure it really fits with our collection as a history library, but I decided to see where it fits in. So from my friends at Beit Berl, I see that the call number they gave is 296.561. That is fair...it is squarely in the category of Judaism. So I look at my lovely chart provided by E (previous librarian). There are two sections which cover this call number. Here is a nice mini translation of what I have:
NA...........Judiaism (Philosophy, Halacha, Mussar, Kabbalah, Customs) 296.1 - 296.6
and further down
ND...........Judiasm (All subjects, located in the warehouse) 296.1 - 296.8
AAAAGHGHGHGHGHGHG
I know there is no space on the shelves, but how do I decide what goes on the shelves, and what goes straight to storage?
And what else is in storage?
O...................Hebrew Literature 892.4And this doesn't even cover T (textbooks) which was supposedly in someone's office, but she no longer works here.
......................General Literature 800
Q....................Hebrew Language 492.4
R...................General History.
S......................Bibliographies
V510-V609 & V632-V643...................Random chunks of the Biographies
And one other note, there are a few O,Q, R and S books on the shelves, because they were cataloged after the books were moved. Strike that S1 and S64 are on the shelf.
I have to keep repeating to myself "I am the librarian, I make the decisions..." Hopefully I can convince myself of that!