by Zach Miller
Quick Summary
In the 1970's, student workers coded holdings data onto paper forms, and Earleen Warner (née Petersen) entered them onto tapes which eventually became the printed Minitex Union List of Serials (MULS). Over the course of the project, the students found creative ways to motivate themselves and lighten their work.
Text courtesy of Earleen Warner (née Petersen), Research & Instruction Librarian, Bethel University.
I worked for MULS, a Union List of Serials, which was under the Minitex umbrella. Student workers coded holdings data onto paper forms, and I entered them onto tapes which eventually became the printed volumes of MULS (pre-database era!). Because the work was repetitious for the students, they found ways to motivate themselves and lighten the work. One of these projects involved a cutout of a Wisconsin Badger making its way across a wall in the MULS office over to a cutout of a Minnesota Gopher as the University of Wisconsin serial holdings were added into MULS. The students also initiated the printing of MULS t-shirts. Another project was the "MULS Hit List." As students came across the titles of serials that seemed a bit ironic (e.g., Concrete Abstracts), they would add them to the list mounted on a MULS office wall. The highlight of my employment with MULS was working with my supervisor, Ceclia Boone, who continued to contribute great things to Minitex long after I left.
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