A significant achievement in international cooperation marked the beginning of the year for the Cataloging Directorate.
The fruition of months of negotiation between LC and the British Library came in January when staff of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division began to input British Library authority headings into the Library of Congress's name authority file (NAF).
Preparation for this event began early last spring when LC staff met with representatives from the British Library to initiate discussion of cooperation in the areas of name and subject authorities. Pat Oddy, head of catalog control at the British Library, visited LC in May to set the stage. Her visit established formal lines of communications to allow the two national libraries to be able to query each other on cataloging.
Ms. Oddy's visit was followed by a weeklong visit to LC at the end of September by Alan Danskin, manager of authority control at the British Library. His visit focused on identifying differences in the application of the Anglo American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition, with regard to the formulation of corporate names and differences in the two national authority formats (USMARC and UKMARC).
John Byrum, chief of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division, is chairing a Working Group composed of Cataloging Policy and Support Office specialists Diane Humes and Lynn EL-Hoshy; network development specialist Larry Dixson; and this writer, a cataloger from the Cooperative Cataloging teams. The Working Group will plan and monitor the project's progress. This group and its counterpart at the British Library have been in continual contact via Internet since Mr. Danskin's visit.
Efforts were rewarded when the first group of personal-name headings was successfully input into the NAF in January and with the subsequent arrival of more records in greater numbers. "Now the real work begins," said Mr. Byrum. "That of automating the process so that we can start receiving the headings on Internet instead of by fax or mail. We are fortunate to have staff on the Cooperative Cataloging teams who are former inputters from the MARC Editorial Division. However, we are looking to a time in the near future when we can transfer the headings electronically, especially since this is but the first step in moving toward an Anglo-American authority file instead of what is now a national authority file."
Bolstered by the recent meetings of the Cooperative Cataloging Council, which has resulted in a renewed interest in cooperative programs both national and international, this Working Group has also entered into negotiations with the National Library of Canada to begin accepting its headings into the NAF.
In the area of subject headings, the British Library and National Library of Canada both are considering contributing subject headings to the Library of Congress's Subject Headings list (LCSH).
Plans are under way at the British Library to reintroduce LCSH into its cataloging early in 1995, and to that end, Lynn El-Hoshy has begun preparations to visit the British Library this fall to present workshops on the application of LCSH.
According to Sarah Thomas, LC director for cataloging, "Major cooperative efforts such as these with the British Library and the National Library of Canada will make quality cataloging data available to a wider audience at a time when LC's data base is being accessed by users around the world via the Internet."
