The staff at the Upper Grand District School Board’s Terry James Resource Centre (TJRC) includes a team of cataloguers. But, what are cataloguers, and what do they do?
To sum it up quickly, the Cataloguing Centre team makes order from information chaos. They support TJRC and elementary and secondary Learning Commons by making their books and other items discoverable and accessible.
They do this by creating and modifying the data in Insignia (UGDSB’s library software), including adding publisher information and search terms that describe the themes and topics in a book.
"Although cataloguing is internationally standardized, we can customize our metadata to focus on needs of an educational environment," Head Cataloguer Sandra Knapp says.
Keeping good records ensures that, when a student or staff member goes to Insignia to search for a book, they get results that are accurate, current, and relevant.
The cataloguers also process all the physical items in elementary Learning Commons and at TJRC, adding barcode and call number labels that reflect the data in Insignia and organize the items on the shelves.
Altogether, these steps help students and staff find what they’re looking for - whether that’s a resource for teaching or a book for recreational reading.
"Our cataloguing is well known and other school boards download our records to use in their catalogues," Knapp says.
How AI is playing a role in cataloguing
Knapp feels AI is more of a two-way street and can be useful in some instances.
"[It] can certainly derive metadata we have created in order to make resource recommendations, and it may also give us recommendations for subject and call number classification for cataloguing," Knapp adds.
Lauren Bull, Supervisor, Library & Media Services, says generative AI is complicating the work the TJRC cataloguers do.
"The increase in access to tools that can generate text and images has led some people and companies to manufacture and sell AI-generated books," Bull says.
"These items appear to be legitimate on the surface, but are very low-quality - a lot of narratives that don't make sense, information that is incorrect or misleading, illustrations that are nonsensical or "hallucinatory", and authors who may not even exist."
The TJRC team has created a guide to help Learning Commons staff identify these items more easily, so they can avoid mistakenly purchasing them.
New TJRC website
As we welcome 2026, we wanted to remind everyone that the TJRC website has been fully redesigned and is easier to navigate than ever before. You can still find information about the resource centre, the services offered, and all resources available.
You can also check out the Happening This Month section of the homepage for key dates and upcoming events and activities at the TJRC.
Information such as hours of operation and location can also be found on the Plan Your Visit section of the new website.
