Showing papers on "Resource Description and Access published in 1967"

Cataloguing and classification in british university libraries: a survey of practices and procedures

Abstract: A survey was made by questionnaire of cataloguing and classification in fifty‐one university libraries. The returned questionnaires revealed many, differences in the classification systems, cataloguing codes, and filing rules used, as well as in the kind and amount of detail in a catalogue entry. There were wide variations in the estimates by libraries of the annual output of a hypothetical ‘average’ cataloguer. There was little uniformity in the statistical data collected by libraries of the work of their cataloguing departments. Little use was made of existing centralized cataloguing services and reasons for this are suggested. More study of user's catalogue needs is necessary. The problems of standardization must be resolved if mechanized techniques are to be fully exploited.

Centralized Cataloging in Great Britain

Abstract: THEIDEA OF centralized cataloging in Great Britain has perhaps been more talked about than practiced. It is a curious fact that the public libraries which were most active during the prewar years in promoting the notion of centralized cataloging are turning away from it while the academic libraries which were least interested in such a prospect then are now turning toward it. A centralized printed card service was begun in Great Britain in 1949 by the London firm of Harrods through its Library Supply Department. This service offered a standard 12.5 X 7.5 cm. catalog card with an entry typographically similar to the Library of Congress card and with similar tracings and other cataloging information. The service survived little more than a year. In 1949, the Council of the British National Bibliography Ltd. was formed as a non-profit-making company limited by guarantee. It had a capital of fifteen shillings and little else, besides a conviction that a national bibliography for Great Britain was needed and would ultimately prove self-supp0rting.l In 1950, the British National Bibliography began publication as a weekly list of current British books.2 In the first year, the entries followed closely the typograpical style of the Library of Congress card. They were cataloged according to the Anglo-American Catalog Rules: Author and Title Entries, 1908, with additional rules taken from the ALA Cataloging Rules for Author and Title Entries, 1949. The entries appeared in list form and they did not contain tracings or subject headings; the class number for each entry was based on the Dewey Decimal Classification, 14th edition, with some extensions and modifications to suit the requirements of a large classified subject catalog. In an attempt to offer a compromise centralized cataloging service, the entries in the weekly lists were printed on only one side of a