Cataloging Directorate
Annual Report

In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1998, the Cataloging Directorate and Serial Record Division (SRD) in the Acquisitions Directorate cataloged 274,890 new items and created 242,213 new bibliographic records. This represents a decrease of 4.9 percent from fiscal 1997. The directorate also produced 128,042 inventory-level catalog records for nonprint arrearage items, nearly double the 70,014 inventory-level records produced in fiscal 1997, and cleared 156,513 items from arrearages held in the Law Library, Area Studies, and Public Service Collections Directorates--more than double the arrearage reduction it had performed for other directorates the previous year. The directorate labeled 9,545 hardbound volumes.

The directorate and SRD produced 175,103 full original bibliographic records. A total of 24,880 minimal-level monograph and serial catalog records were produced; 39,265 titles were copy-cataloged; and 2,965 collection-level records were created, with 11,833 items cleared by this means. Assignment of Dewey Decimal Classification numbers declined by 2.95 percent, to 111,293 titles. CIP verifications, also called CIP upgrades, totaled 51,181. In each of these areas, production was slightly less than in fiscal 1997.

Despite modest decreases in the categories above, there were notable increases in production in several areas. The directorate cataloged 51,792 CIP records, an increase of one percent over the previous year. Production in the annotated card program for juvenile literature also increased by 6.05 percent to 4,400 records. The Japanese I Team, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division (RCCD), cleared 5,508 current items, a 26 percent increase over fiscal 1997. The Law Team, Social Sciences Cataloging Division (SSCD), completed 19,101 items, a new team record. The NUCMC Team, Special Materials Cataloging Division (SMCD), added 36 repositories to the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections. NUCMC's accessions of cataloging data increased for the fourth consecutive year, totaling 4,026, an increase of 25 percent over fiscal 1997.

In the area of authority work, a total of 7,194 new headings were added to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), representing a decrease of 11.53 percent from the previous year, and 2,167 new Library of Congress Classification numbers were established, essentially the same level as the 2,164 established in fiscal 1997. LC cataloging generated 167,441 new name authority records (NARs) and 9,713 new series authority records. The 167,441 new NARs include 64,194 machine-derived authority records created through the LC/OCLC Uniform Title Correction Project, the first large-scale project to create authority records by automated techniques.

Other statistical categories give a glimpse of the directorate's enormous workload. In the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) alone, staff handled 14,706 error reports, 11,300 items of correspondence, 2,919 telephone inquiries, and 2,099 consultation visits with catalogers and visitors. In the Arts and Sciences Division (ASCD), a special division project calling on all division personnel and some RCCD colleagues processed 4,000 duplicate copies in a single week. Despite their own high workloads, teams in the directorate helped out with special projects throughout Library Services. A notable example is the Japanese Teams' assistance in the Asian Division's five-year cooperative undertaking to compile a comprehensive catalog of the Library's 4,200 rare (pre-Meiji 1868) Japanese books and manuscripts.

The directorate's overall full cost in producing the average bibliographic record for a monograph, including Dewey Decimal treatment and authority work, was $100.46. The increase from the average cost of $87.05 in fiscal 1997 reflects both salary increases and the higher proportion of items cataloged as full or core: in fiscal 1998, 72 percent of the directorate's new cataloging records were full or core level, compared to 65 percent in fiscal 1997. The directorateþs full cost for the average full level record, including Dewey Decimal treatment and authority work, increased much more modestly, to $124.94 from $119.15.

Several projects improved the quality and utility of the MUMS files. During the week of April 20-24 more than 1.475 million records from OCLC were loaded into the PreMARC file, replacing counterpart PreMARC records that previously resided there. These PreMARC replacement records are more complete than most of their former counterparts, and name and subject headings are more nearly in AACR2 form, since many headings had been upgraded in the OCLC database. CPSO began various clean-up projects needed to ensure that the replacement records fit the LC environment and qualified for possible future distribution by the Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS).

The newly merged PreMARC and Quality Control/File Maintenance Team in CPSO completed 83,481 changes; 24,504 deletions; 2,500 new adds in the PreMARC file from the PreMARC and BOOKS files; 2,000 name authority headings; and 11,000 special project records.

The NUCMC Team undertook an important project in cooperation with the cataloging staff of the Manuscript Division to upgrade the online MUMS Mixed Materials (formerly Manuscript) file and to assure consistent and authoritative access points for personal and corporate names in the 6XX and 7XX fields.

The South Asia and Southeast/South Asian Cataloging Teams, RCCD, eliminated arrearages of South Asian monographs. The arrearage of Japanese monographs was reduced from 29,814 items to 9,742 -- a two-thirds reduction in a single year.

The History and Literature Cataloging Division (HLCD) was able to report that by year's end it had only one remaining major arrearage, the Hispanic arrearage. Even this was reduced substantially, from 5,081 items to 4,173. SSCD decreased its total arrearage by 13.63 percent. A contract provided minimal-level or core-level cataloging for 1,272 arrearage items in Central Asian languages which are written in the Cyrillic script, and a similar contract processed 1,543 items in Romance languages; these contracts were administered by the chief of ASCD and benefitted HLCD and SSCD. The Central and Eastern European Languages Team, SSCD, hosted a Soros Fellow who completely cleared the monograph arrearage of Albanian social science materials. Contractors completed the subject cataloging on over 3,000 items for SSCD's Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology Team and MLC cataloging of 300 older Italian language social science materials. A cross-cutting team led by the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages Team, SSCD, cleared 1,000 arrearage titles in German-language religion and philosophy by copy cataloging.

In SMCD, the Rare Book Team cleared 40,914 items from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division (RBSCD) arrearages and 704 items from the Law Library arrearages. The team processed 2,383 items from the American Imprints Collection of almost 17,000 books and pamphlets printed in the United States between 1640 and 1800. Most processing of the 7,000-item Pforzheimer Bruce Rogers Collection was completed, although shelflisting remained to be done.

With the exception of a few non-book items (games and serials), the team completed cataloging, shelflisting, and preservation rehousing of the Marian S. Carson Collection, over 3,000 rare books, pamphlets, broadsides, and miscellaneous Americana such as children's games and playing cards acquired in 1996.

35,224 inventory-level records were created for the items in the Copyright Paperback Collection (approximately 54 percent of the collection). These records were MARC-compatible and provided all major bibliographic access points, including subject access through genre headings. They will be loaded into Minaret and made available for public searching.

The year's major cooperative arrearage reduction project between SMCD and the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) was the 45's Project. SWAT teams created inventory-level cataloging for these 45-rpm sound recordings, utilizing resource records from the copyright cataloging data and from the Mega-Guide to Singles. The records will reside in the Cuadra STAR 'Sonic' database utilized by MBRS for inventory level records and will be accessible to researchers. The collection numbers approximately 125,000 discs; the project cleared 94,868 discs in fiscal 1998.

Inventory-level cataloging was also created for a total of 14,847 items from the Copyright Cassettes Collection, which includes rhythm and blues music, contemporary Christian music, gospel music, white gospel music, and recorded accompaniments.

The CIP Division preassigned 21,854 LCCNs, up 2.5 percent from last year; twenty-seven percent (6,302) of the PCNs were assigned via the Electronic Preassigned Card Number (EPCN) program. The CIP and PCN programs obtained a total of 72,283 books valued at $2,924,278 for the Library.

The ECIP (Electronic CIP) production system went into 'live' testing by test teams throughout the directorate, testing the publisher front end, the traffic manager, the ECIP cataloging module and the text access capability. During the year CIP data was provided for 1,038 electronic galleys. The division initiated an 'ECIP Update' newsletter for Library staff.

CIP Division chief John Celli and HLCD chief Jeff Heynen led a study to examine the possibility of using CIP records verified by OCLC to enhance the efficiency of CIP verification in the directorate. The mechanisms for transferring the upgraded CIP records from OCLC to the Library worked well, but it proved easier, faster, and less costly to have LC staff upgrade the original CIP record than to import and accommodate OCLC upgraded records. The division may want to reexamine this option after ILS implementation.

Division staff worked on the highly enhanced Dewey for Windows 1.1, which appeared in January 1998, and began preparatory work for Edition 22 of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). The Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee approved the overall editorial work plan for Edition 22 in May.

The division's staffing shortage, already critical, grew worse this year as the number of fulltime classifiers declined to seven. Although productivity increased to 9.55 items classified per hour, a slight drop in total production was unavoidable. At the end of August the division gained a new classifier trainee, Ruth Freitag, who transferred from the Business, Science, and Technology Division, and the division was authorized to hire another.

On June 17, Associate Librarian for Library Services Winston Tabb, on behalf of the Library of Congress, signed an "Editorial Agreement" between OCLC and the Library that formally extends their institutional Dewey cooperation through another DDC editorial cycle (publication of DDC Edition 22 and Abridged Edition 14). OCLC announced that DDC editor Joan Mitchell would also become executive director of OCLC Forest Press when Peter Paulson retired from that position in December 1998.

Following up on the Cataloging Management Team's decision in 1997 to adopt core level as the base level of cataloging in the directorate and SRD, CPSO worked with the director to document descriptive and subject cataloging policy and workflow procedures for core level. DCM (Descriptive Cataloging Manual) B16 was completed to support the descriptive aspects and a new SCM (Subject Cataloging Manual) instruction sheet, D440, supported the subject aspects. A new DCM C1 reflected recommendations made by a Task Group on Cataloging Priorities in July 1995, as modified by the CMT. DCM C1 incorporated the levels of cataloging applicable to each priority. All teams in the directorate were ready to implement core level in fiscal 1999.

The PCC's Standing Committee on Standards issued core record standards on the use of classification numbers in BIBCO full and core level records and approved core record standards for audiovisual materials, computer files, moving image materials, and graphic materials.

The Library's cooperative cataloging partners set new records for production in several categories in fiscal 1998. For monographs, the PCC BIBCO program saw the creation of 37,559 bibliographic records in its second year, an increase of more than 25 percent. The CONSER program created 30,856 new serials bibliographic records, including LC production. PCC institutions created 9,233 new series authorities, 2,159 new LCSH headings, 883 new LC classification numbers, and 161,446 new name authorities. The figures for new subjects, classification numbers, and NARs as well as the BIBCO bibliographic production are all new record highs. The 161,446 NARs include approximately 31,000 records created through the Dance Heritage Coalition and loaded into the national authority file in fiscal 1998.

The PCC was reorganized at the beginning of the year to merge with CONSER. The first Policy Committee meeting of the new PCC was held Nov. 13-14, resulting in development of a strategic plan to chart the PCC's course from 1998 to 2002. The first BIBCO Operations Committee meeting took place May 7-8 and included joint sessions with the CONSER Operations Committee to discuss matters of mutual interest. The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services granted the PCC membership on the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) in recognition of the PCC's importance to the development of national cataloging policy. A USMARC identification code for PCC was provided for implementation in series authority records. The PCC's Standing Committee on Training initiated the first in a series of "Cataloging Now! Institutes" to acquaint librarians with the PCC and its cataloging values.

The Library celebrated the 20th anniversary of the NACO program with a reception on Nov. 4 to thank the many LC catalogers who contributed to NACO's success. Speakers included director Beacher Wiggins and Deputy Librarian of Congress Donald Scott.

Fifteen individual institutions joined the NACO program this year; seven others joined NACO funnel projects, and the Northern California Funnel Project was established. The Cooperative Cataloging Team continued its efforts to recruit Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU); as a result, Bowie State University became NACO's first HBCU member.

Ten libraries joined the BIBCO program this year.

The Cataloging Directorate made major contributions to the Library's drive to obtain and implement its first integrated library system (ILS). The chief of CPSO had been designated ILS program director in August 1997; in April 1998, the Cooperative Cataloging Team Leader was designated an assistant implementation coordinator in the ILS Program Office and the SSCD administrative officer became administrative officer for the ILS Program. Without formal personnel actions to effect transfers, an automated operations coordinator and several cataloging policy specialists also worked virtually full time on the implementation throughout the year.

In addition, nearly 100 directorate staff members began serving part time on ILS project implementation teams in April 1998. The director chaired the ILS Bibliographic Control Steering Group, which oversaw nine implementation teams: Data Definition and Migration, ECIP/ECPN, Functional Testing, Indexing, Reports, Security/Authorization, Training, User Interface Design, and Workflow. All but the Indexing Team were chaired by members of the Cataloging Directorate. Twenty-two directorate staff members served on teams for other ILS functional areas such as inventory control/circulation, products, and public catalog modules as well. Exactly half of the 52 individuals tapped as ILS trainers were from the Cataloging Directorate. With the full support of directorate management, nearly all implementation team members volunteered to work on the ILS project, an indication of their enthusiasm for the ILS and their realization of its importance to the Library. The directorate's investment of staff resources in the ILS implementation will benefit the entire Library when the new system is implemented, on or before Oct. 1, 1999.

Directorate staff contributed data for presentations to Congress about the ILS; wrote evaluation scripts; played the lead role in identifying and analyzing bibliographic information currently maintained in MUMS and completing an initial specification for migrating MUMS data into the ILS for delivery to Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., the Library's ILS contractor, on Sept. 15. All implementation team members took the five-day ILS functional areas training course. The ILS Bibliographic Control Reports Team, among other tasks, considered how the production and team management information now provided by the directorate's statistical reporting system STARS would be supplied in the new environment and concluded that STARS should continue to be used in tandem with the ILS for at least the initial year of the ILS implementation.

Recognizing that the investment of staff resources in the ILS implementation would affect its ability to meet its arrearage reduction mandates, in March the directorate proposed revised arrearage reduction goals for books and rare books. The revised goals, which were accepted by Congress, call for arrearages of nonrare books, microforms, and print serials to be eliminated by Sept. 30, 2004. The rare books arrearage was considered in the same category as special format arrearages, with the target date reset to June 30, 2007 for reduction by 80 percent from the 1989 levels.

Directorate staff were very active at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., from June 25 through July 1, the first ALA Annual Conference to take place in Washington since 1959. The director hosted the meeting of 'Big Heads,' the Heads of Technical Services of Large Research Libraries Discussion Group, and the Cooperative Cataloging Team planned the customary Sunday evening meeting of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Participants Discussion Group. The Coop Team and CPSO conducted three SACO workshops on subject heading proposals.

The CIP Division held a CIP Publishers Workshop in conjunction with the conference. The Coop Team also organized a course on Facilitation Skills for PCC Trainers. RCCD chief John Byrum and CPSO chief Barbara Tillett spoke at the ALCTS preconference 'What in the World ... Cataloging on an International Scale.' Acting chief of CPSO Tom Yee spoke on LCSH as part of a panel presentation, "One-Size-Fits-All Subject Access Systems: Tailoring General Schemes to Meet the Needs of Specific Communities of Searchers." The director and a member of the Cooperative Cataloging Team spoke at the Forum on Natural History Cataloging Issues held in conjunction with the conference. The director also was a co-presenter on the core level standard and the impact on libraries of its implementation.

Cataloging staff demonstrated directorate automation projects, while colleagues led architectural tours of the Library buildings on Capitol Hill. Many others either attended or volunteered to work at the All Conference Reception in the Great Hall of the Jefferson Building. All Cataloging Directorate divisions invited ALA visitors to observe a cataloging unit firsthand in the 'Experience LC' program, which the assistant to the director coordinated for Library Services. ALA provided complimentary exhibit passes for all LC staff, and the directorate supported registration at the member rate for all Cataloging staff who wished to attend the entire conference.

To mark the centennial of LCSH, CDS and CPSO sponsored a champagne and cake celebration in the Great Hall on June 27.

A major highlight of the conference was the award of the Margaret Mann Citation for outstanding professional achievements in the field of cataloging and classification to John D. Byrum, chief of RCCD.

The Pinyin Task Group, appointed by the director in fiscal 1997 to guide the Library's conversion from the Wade-Giles romanization of Chinese characters to pinyin, accomplished considerable preliminary work, producing draft romanization guidelines based on pinyin for comment. As a result of widespread discussion, new guidelines are now in preparation for consideration in fiscal 1999.

In the spring, the Research Libraries Group (RLG) announced that it would collaborate with the Library in undertaking the actual conversion of LC's Chinese records to pinyin. It was anticipated that Chinese records would be converted in the year 2000. Decisions on conversion of authority records will be made after more is understood about the capabilities of the Library's new ILS.

The Pinyin Task Group also began to identify and assess the many effects of pinyin conversion on subject headings and classification schemes. Major changes were expected in the DS, G and PL schedules. Conversion of subject headings may be initiated prior to the year 2000.

The Task Group worked in close communication with the East Asian library community, the National Library of China, RLG, OCLC, and other institutions.

Several promotions to long-vacant positions took place during the year. Judith G. Mansfield became chief of the Arts and Sciences Cataloging Division on May 24, filling a vacancy which had existed since January 1995. Kio Kanda was promoted to team leader of the Japanese I Team on July 5, filling a vacancy of 16 months' duration. Victoria Behrens was promoted to automated operations coordinator in SMCD on January 5. David Reser was promoted to the position of cataloging policy specialist, CPSO, and David Williamson was appointed cataloging automation specialist in the office of the director at the start of the year. Oxana Horodecka was detailed to the CIP Division as ECIP coordinator, and at the very end of the year, on Sept. 28 Charles Fenly became the division's first permanent assistant chief since 1989. In addition, 23 directorate staff members received promotions within their career promotion plans.

Overall, however, the directorate continued to lose staff, with little prospect of hiring replacements. Following the loss of twelve senior catalogers and eighteen technicians in fiscal 1997, the losses in fiscal 1998 were difficult to absorb: twelve more senior catalogers and six cataloging technicians left the directorate, a decimal classifier was promoted into a noncataloging position, and the total number of office staff and library technicians (clerk messengers) decreased by five. Only three entry-level catalogers were hired and four others transferred into the directorate from elsewhere in Library Services. The retirements or promotions of two automated operations coordinators and five team leaders further reduced time available for cataloging as catalogers were called upon to carry out the duties of the vacant positions.

The directorate began a program of staff reallocation to adjust the imbalances of staffing and workload which have resulted from staff attrition over the past six years. In the first phase, several staff members were voluntarily reassigned. There were limits to what voluntary reassignments could accomplish, however, as divisions found their workloads so heavy that they could not release staff even when other divisions in the directorate offered transfer opportunities. At the end of the year the Cataloging Management Team had a consensus that only increased hiring of staff from outside the Library would enable the directorate to balance staff and workloads and meet its mandates for arrearage reduction and cataloging of current receipts.

The two Physical Sciences Teams in ASCD were merged into a single team, eliminating a GS-13 team leader position to improve the directorate's supervisor-to-staff ratio, simplifying distribution of physical science materials, and affording opportunities for clearer communications within the team. Two other reorganizations were still pending at year's end. A reorganization in CPSO, which would eliminate two GS-13 supervisor positions and abolish unnecessary functions, was approved by the Librarian of Congress and bargained with AFSCME Locals 2910 and 2477; final implementation of the reorganization involving 2477 bargaining unit members awaited action by Human Resources. The CIP Division completed a management plan for its reorganization and expected to move forward with it in the next fiscal year.

Director Beacher Wiggins continued as a Facilitative Leadership instructor and led the Facilitative Leadership Next Steps follow-up effort in Library Services. He served as the Library Services coordinator for the Combined Federal Campaign, in which the Library exceeded its goal by more than $50,000 and won a Combined Federal Campaign Pacesetter Award. He was assisted with CFC recordkeeping and processing by his executive secretary, Barbara Williams. Barbara Williams also compiled the directorate's portion of the LC telephone directory, kept track of training and travel allotments and On-the-Spot cash awards given in the directorate, and worked on the design of the staff Cataloging Directorate Web home page.

David Williamson spent much of his first year as cataloging automation specialist in completing the software for the ECIP and EPCN programs. He then began rewriting the software in a programming language that would ensure its compatibility with the LC ILS. He also demonstrated ECIP and TCEC, the suite of productivity-enhancing utility programs for the bibliographic workstation (BWS), for participants at the ALA Annual Conference. He oversaw the replacement of STARS personal computers in ASCD, HLCD, and RCCD, with replacements for SMCD and SSCD to come next year, to ensure that STARS would continue to be viable for the next two years, until after ILS implementation. He also served on several ILS implementation teams.

The assistant to the director, Susan Morris, drafted the directorate and Library Services annual reports, contributed to statistical reports for the ILS implementation project and arrearage reduction initiatives, and coordinated the Experience LC program within Library Services. She edited the Facilitative Leadership column for Library Services News. She compiled the Library-wide updates for the ALA Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference. She also chaired the ILS Bibliographic Control User Interface Design Team and served as assistant Bibliographic Control Steering Group leader.

The Cataloging Reference Librarian, Harold Boyd, was permanently reassigned to the Office of the Director by year's end. He chaired a small group of Cataloging Reference Collection reference specialists who completely revised the policies and procedures for the collection, which had not been updated since 1983.

The directorate encouraged staff development by supporting classroom training and by numerous demonstrations and fora for staff. The Cataloging Forum presented sessions on Facilitative Leadership (with the Deputy Librarian of Congress), Electronic Resources for Cataloging, and Seriality; CPSO conducted several information fora, including "Whither AACR2?" on Nov. 12 and a presentation on the PreMARC replacement process in April. The Subject Cataloging Working Group sponsored presentations on various LC classification schedules and on cataloging juvenile materials.

Staff attended a multitude of courses, including Diversity Awareness; ECIP Traffic Manager Training; Encoded Archival Description (EAD) courses; the one-day Facilitative Leadership course for non-supervisors; Four Dimensional Time Management; French; Fundamentals of Writing; Getting a Grip on Grammar; GroupWise basic and advanced training; Human Resources Institute classes; Internet Mail in GroupWise; LCC in MINARET; Retirement Seminar; Sexual Harassment Awareness; Spanish; Voyager Functional Areas; Web Version of MINARET; and courses in Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Staff members traveled to Dublin, Ohio, for the OCLC Institutes "Metadata: An Introduction to Applications" and "Knowledge Access Management: Tools and Concept for Next-Generation Catalogers." Staff also enrolled in courses at the USDA Graduate School, the Smithsonian Institution, and local universities.

Directorate staff also taught a huge range of courses for their LC colleagues, including Facilitative Leadership and TPAIO courses as well as tutorials focused on cataloging. For groups outside the Library, directorate staff taught at the FLICC Federal Library Technicians Institute; the FLICC Law Classification and Cataloging for Federal Librarians Institute; the one-day workshop, "New Schemes for New Regimes: Understanding and Implementing JZ and KZ" in connection with the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in July; two PALINET (Pennsylvania Library Network) workshops on name and series authority records and AACR2 review; the seventh three-day NACO series training institute at LC; and three days of NACO series training for 18 catalogers in Chicago.

The directorate was represented at eighteen research and professional conferences in addition to ALA Midwinter and Annual conferences, from the Council on Library/Media Technicians Conference in Washington to the Colloquium on Academic Library Information Resources for Southeast Asian Scholarship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The staff of the Cataloging Directorate are to be commended for maintaining high production levels throughout fiscal 1998, balancing production demands with research and special assignments, and contributing to the Library's mission and well-being in many areas. Thanks to their professionalism, hard work, and commitment to improving their skills, the directorate enjoyed many accomplishments in fiscal 1998 and is poised to achieve much more in the future.