The Digital Tables of Contents project creates machine readable TOC data from surrogates of the actual TOC, and by using scanning and optical character recognition (OCR) as well as original programming written by project staff, materials are subsequently HTML-encoded and placed on a server at the Library. In the process the underlying MARC records are also modified to include links to the TOC data.
This project originally concentrated on printed monographic publications in the fields of business and economics (particularly, the areas of small business and entrepreneurship) with the expectation that techniques developed by the project could be extended to other materials, resources permitting. The scope of coverage for the project continued to expand and now includes all subject areas, well beyond the project�s initial focus on important business books. The project's traditional emphasis on Economics, Political Science, Technology, Computer Science, and Bibliography is still reflected in ogoing selection and in the enhanced records available. It continues to select books on small business and entrepreneurship as always. At year end 2000, the total number of Digital TOCs reached 2200. As the number of records created has grown, the project has also implemented more automated and regularized quality control procedures to insure that links work properly and that data is available.
Both the MARC records themselves and the linked TOC data may be viewed through a Web browser by accessing the Library's online catalog access options, available at http://catalog.loc.gov . In addition, The pervasive availability of Web indexing and search software also makes catalog and TOC records available from almost anywhere through the World Wide Web, thus providing unique entrée to the catalog of collections at the Library
Here are samples of these various displays:
A sub-set of this project has added the annotations with reviews from "Outstanding reference sources: the 1999 selection of titles" and from "Outstanding reference sources: the 2000 selection of titles" to a small group of LC bibliographic records. These compilations were prepared by the Reference Sources Committee, Reference and User Services Association, ALA. These titles appeared in May 1999 and May 2000 issues of American Libraries. In the record's enhancement, the quoted review is added to the record in a note field within the body of the catalog record. The project is ongoing, and is operating with the expectation that BEAT will be able to continue to include this data in LC cataloging records. However, the data is used by permission of ALA, and approval must be obtained before summaries can be included in records in the future.
Questions about the project can be addressed to Bruce Knarr, project chair, at [email protected]
This page updated January 09, 2001
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