While cataloging has never been considered an obvious career choice for the physically active, there used to be a fair amount of legwork included in a typical cataloger’s day. The process of cataloging has historically required a number of get-up-and-find-it activities: searching the card catalog for existing copies or other editions of the work in hand, verifying headings in manual authority files, fitting the classification number into the library’s card shelflist. Catalogers had to interrupt their work with bibliographic records many times a day to leave their desks and locate pieces of information without which they could not proceed further-and then there was the time spent filing catalog cards! Though they were necessary, these steps in the cataloging process slowed the actual creation and editing of catalog records, and the plethora of tools required could present a financial and spatial challenge to small libraries.

Access via the Web

All of this changed as libraries started using bibliographic utilities as a source for catalog cards, then closed their card catalogs and began maintaining bibliographic, acquisitions, and serial holdings information in local databases. Today, with the widespread use of the Internet, the evolution of cataloging continues as not only our catalogs, but also the tools we use to create them, become accessible via the Web. While print cataloging tools are hardly a thing of the past, and we still have to acquire print or CD-ROM versions of some essential resources, much information that was formerly available only in print can now also be accessed online. This can speed up the cataloging process and helps to level the playing field for smaller libraries whose catalogers often work in isolation. Unsure about a particular subfield code? Check out the Web version of OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards. Need ideas on how to handle local processing of nonprint materials, or whether or how to catalog electronic resources? Viewing other libraries’ policies and procedures may give you valuable information on how to proceed. Since many technical services sites include links to other cataloging resources, which in turn have their own lists of links, the problem (as with other types of Internet searches) is not a lack of online sources but the danger of being overwhelmed by the information maze. With that in mind, here are some selected URLs for resources that may prove useful to the cataloger exploring the world from his/her desktop.

General Information Sites

No one site is truly comprehensive, but if you’re looking for a good place to start searching for cataloging information, the following sites have compiled an impressive array of resources. The Internet Library for Librarians at http://www.itcompany.com/inforetriever/cat.htm, maintained by InfoWorks Technology Company, contains links to extensive resources on all aspects of librarianship. The cataloging links include a section on rare materials and links to e-mail lists and library OPACs, as well as descriptive and subject cataloging tools. The Library Corporation’s Cataloger’s Reference Shelf (http://www.tlcdelivers.com/tlc/crs/) is based on USMARC documentation and other reference manuals published by the Library of Congress. The Library Land site at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/LibraryLand/ has a wide variety of links indexed by topic, with an emphasis on public libraries. If you are a school librarian, you may find the government of Manitoba’s Education and Training site, http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/metks4/docs/support/catalogue/index.html, to be of use. This resource provides detailed information on handling materials in various formats, organizing a school library, MARC tagging, and catalog card format.

Policies and Procedures

A number of libraries post their internal cataloging policies and procedures on the Web, facilitating the sharing of ideas and innovations. Learning how someone else "does it good" can be invaluable in designing or revising local workflow. In addition to maintaining links to online cataloging tools, the following sampling of sites contains useful local documentation: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/cataloging/ (University of Virginia Libraries’ Cataloging Services Department); http://www.mun.ca/library/cat/ (Cataloguer’s Toolbox at the Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Queen Elizabeth II Library); http://macfadden.mit.edu:9500/colserv/cat/ (MIT Cataloging Oasis); http://tpot.ucsd.edu/ (TPOT: University of California-San Diego Technical Processing Online Tools); http://milton.mse.jhu.edu/library/cat/catres.html (Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University); http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/ocu/#top (University of Michigan Original Cataloging homepage); http://infoshare1.princeton.edu:/katmandu/cathome.html (Princeton University Library’s Catalog Division homepage).

Description

A brief summary of AACR2 rules for monographs, with instructions on tagging the related MARC fields, can be found at the Queen’s University (Kingston, Ont.) site: http://130.15.161.74/techserv/cat/Sect02/c02a2.html. While a fulltext online version of AACR2R is not yet available, the 1999 amendments can be viewed and printed in PDF format at http://www.ala.org/editions/updates/aacr2/. To see a text list of valid AACR2 abbreviations for terms used in bibliographic records (e.g. translator, pseudonym, etc.), go to http://www.mun.ca/library/cat/abbrev.htm. Abbreviations for U.S. states as places of publication are at http://www.itcompany.com/inforetriever/cat_260a.htm. For Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRI), see http://www.tlcdelivers.com/tlc/crs/LCRI0000.htm.

If you’re working with foreign language material and need a translation of a word or phrase, try Language Dictionaries and Translators at http://www.word2word.com/dictionary.html. This site has links to online dictionaries in most languages that you are likely to encounter in the course of your work (and many that you won’t!). If you’re not sure of the language of an item in hand, you can call up the Xerox Research Centre Europe’s MLTT Language Identifier ( http://www.xrce.xerox.com/research/mltt/tools/guesser/) and enter a phrase of five or more words in the "guesser" box. Also useful in foreign language cataloging are the transliteration tables for non-Roman alphabet languages, to be found on the Princeton University Library’s site at http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/katmandu/catcopy/transtoc.html, and the Cataloguer’s Toolbox list of initial articles ( http://www.mun.ca/library/cat/tables/articles.htm).

Classification

The Library of Congress Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) home page features an outline of the LC classification. Go to http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html and click on each class number for a breakdown of the class scheme. Changes and updates to the Dewey classification schedules can be found at http://www.oclc.org/dewey/updates/new_changed_entries.htm.

If you get your Cutter numbers from the three-figure Cutter-Sanborn tables, you can find an online version at http://www.librarian.co.kr/extr/8-5cutter.htm. A table of geographic LC Cutters for countries and regions is located at http://www.mun.ca/library/cat/tables/regcoun.htm. Help with LC Cuttering and a number of other cataloging tasks is available at the Cataloging Calculator site, http://ucs.orst.edu/~banerjek/cutter.html#Instructions. Maintained by Kyle Banerjee of Oregon State University, this site includes an automatic Cutter creator for Library of Congress call numbers; enter a main entry term and a Cutter will be supplied. Geographic Cutters can also be identified in this way. The site allows the user to search for AACR2 abbreviations, MARC geographic area and country codes, and coding for MARC variable fields. Fixed field definitions for book and serial bibliographic records and for name authority records are also included.

Subject Cataloging

LC's weekly lists of new and changed subject headings can be accessed at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/cpso.html#subjects. The Princeton University Library has posted a list of LCSH pattern headings at http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/katmandu/subj/patlist.html. Wondering which free-floating subdivisions should be used with subfield v? USM Libraries maintains a list of form subdivisions at http://www.lib.usm.edu/~techserv/cat/formsubv.htm. A guide to the usage of form subdivisions, compiled by Vianne Sha of the University of Missouri, is located at http://www.itcompany.com/inforetriever/form_subdivisions_list.htm.

If you use MeSH headings, you may find the MeSH Browser http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html of interest. The Browser retrieves full MeSH records, including scope notes, definitions, qualifiers, and links to the hierarchical structure of the headings.

Instead of using a gazetteer to locate obscure U.S. geographic names, you might want to check out http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/, the site for the Geographic Names Information System of the U.S. Geological Survey. A searchable database contains information about almost 2 million geographic features in the United States, including the federally recognized name of each feature.

OCLC and MARC Tools

OCLC has made a great deal of its documentation available on its Web site. For detailed information on the application of MARC tags and indicators, go to the Bibliographic Formats and Standards at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/bib/about.htm. If you just want a quick overview of the standards, check out the Concise Input Standards at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/man/7366cis/toc.htm. Thinking of using OCLC’s Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC)? Information on creating, editing and exporting records, along with a practice area where you can experiment with records, is located at http://www.oclc.org/corc/.

A useful training tool for someone who is just learning to catalog is the LC Cataloging Distribution Service’s booklet, Understanding MARC Bibliographic. This presents a concise review of MARC tagging, with sample records in various formats and a fill-in-the-blanks exercise. A Web version of the booklet can be found at http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/umb/.

For concise versions of the MARC formats, see http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/. The concise formats include tags, indicators, subfield codes, and examples, but do not contain the field definition and scope notes and usage guidelines that are found in the full MARC formats. The MARC site also includes simple data element lists of all valid and obsolete elements in MARC21 bibliographic and authority records. MARC geographic, language, and country code lists are available at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/man/code/codetoc.htm and also on LC’s MARC site at http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc.

Nonbook Materials

A number of tools for working with material in nonbook formats can be found online. Though it may seem that electronic resources increasingly dominate the library world, catalogers are well aware that many materials in other formats still await their attention.

Handouts from an Online Audiovisual Catalogers' workshop on cataloging sound recordings, prepared by Jay Weitz, are available at: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/cts/olac/conferences/1996/jw.html. The site provides sample records and demonstrates how AACR2 rules were applied in creating them. The Gilmore Music Library at Yale University has gathered music cataloging information at http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/musicat.htm.

At another University of Michigan site is a review of the rules for cataloging cartographic materials, with examples: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/map/maps.html. The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division maintains a searchable thesaurus of topical subject headings for visual materials at http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm1/. Headings are displayed with broader, narrower, and related terms. A companion site is http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm2/, which is a thesaurus of genre and physical characteristic terms for graphic materials. Both sites also include a retrievable text file that lists all the terms in alphabetical order.

If you’re working with federal documents, the Toolbox for Processing and Cataloging Federal Government Documents at http://www2.lib.udel.edu/godort/cataloging/toolbox.htm, maintained by the Cataloging Committee of ALA’s Government Documents Round Table, will come in handy.

To see CONSER requirements for full, core, and minimal-level bibliographic records for serials, go to http://lcweb.loc.gov/acq/conser/recordreq.html. The CONSER cataloging manual is available at http://www.tlcdelivers.com/tlc/crs/manl1573.htm. Ann Sanford of the Nevada State Library and Archives maintains a page of helpful serials cataloging tips at http://www.gbis.com/~asanford/serials.htm. CONSER’s interim guidelines for cataloging online serials, including instructions for both the single- and multiple-record approaches to print and online versions of serials, can be found at http://lcweb.loc.gov/acq/conser/mod31pt1.html#interim. Northwestern University has posted an Internet Electronic Serials Cataloging Aid at http://www.library.nwu.edu/iesca/. This interactive training tool for the cataloging of electronic serials contains MARC record examples, glossaries, appropriate AACR2 rules and LC rule interpretations.

The full text of Nancy Olson’s Cataloging Internet Resources: a Manual and Practical Guide, 2nd ed., can be accessed at http://www.purl.org/oclc/cataloging-internet. This valuable resource is organized by the AACR2-defined areas of the catalog record, with citation of specific rules accompanied by numerous examples, including appropriate MARC tagging. Confused by the intricacies of the 856 field? At http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/856guide.html are the Library of Congress guidelines for use of the 856, with examples. While working with electronic resources (or with print materials about computers), you may encounter abbreviations or computer terminology you’re unfamiliar with. Go to the TechEncyclopedia (http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/) and type your term into the search box; you’ll be supplied with a definition.

Word of Caution

An exhaustive list of cataloging resources on the Web would take many times the space allotted to this column, and new ones are being added every day. As you explore, you will discover favorites on your own. Before you begin your odyssey, though, please stop by http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/cts/exercises/index.html. This site, maintained by SUNY-Buffalo Libraries, gives a variety of exercises for the prevention of repetitive strain injuries. Accessing the tools of our trade from our desktops may speed up our work, but it also makes us more vulnerable to eyestrain and soft-tissue conditions such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. So take exercise breaks, remember to rest your eyes periodically, and bon voyage!