Library Technical Services

Technical services are all the behind-the-scenes duties that keep a library running

This page:
Generally | Acquisitions and Collection Development | Cataloging and Metadata | Subject Cataloging: Classification | Subject Headings and Other Controlled Vocabularies

Generally

• Technical Processing Online Tools - A great site for everything to do with library technical services (Formerly: The Top 200 Technical Services Benefits of Home Page Development and Technical Services Unlimited) [tpot.ucsd.edu]

Acquisitions and Collection Development

• AcqWeb - Information sources for the acquisitions librarian
• Against the Grain - Not much content online, unfortunately
• Alibris for Libraries - Used and hard-to-find books

Conference:

• Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge

Weeding:

• Awful Library Books - Blog about books that should be weeded from your library
• CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries (Texas State Library and Archives)

Cataloging and Metadata

Library of Congress:

• Library of Congress Cataloging and Acquistions - LC portal
• LC Cataloging Tools - MARC code lists, Library of Congress Rule Interpretations, geographic names, non-Roman scripts
• General, Descriptive Cataloging - Policies
• Cataloging Distribution Service - Source for LC manuals and electronic products
• Standards - Resource description standards, digital library standards, information resource retrieval protocols, information resource retrieval standards

Cataloging Directories:

• Cataloger's Learning Workshop (Library of Congress)
• Cataloging @ Yale
• Cataloging Documentation on the Web (U. of Oregon)
• Cataloging Resources: MARC Cataloging (MIT)
• Department Manual (Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University)
• Library Cataloguing Aids - by Lynne LeGrow, Halifax Regional Library
• Princeton University Cataloging Documentation
• Technical Processing Online Tools (TPOT) (UC San Diego)
• USM Bibliographic Services (University of Southern Mississippi)

Cataloging Tools and Miscellanea:

• ALA-LC Romanization Tables - How to handle languages that don't use the Latin alphabet
• Cataloging Calculator - Figures out Cutter numbers, country codes, etc. (Kyle Banerjee)
• Cataloguing Cheat Sheets (J. McRee Elrod)
• Geographic Cutter Table for U.S. States and Regions (Adam Schiff)
• "Many Intricate and Difficult Problems that Torture the Mind": Words of Wisdom for Art Catalogers in the Real World by Kathy Corcoran
• RBMS/BSC Latin Place Names File: Latin Place Names Found in the Imprints of Books Printed Before 1801 (Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, ACRL)
• "The Whimsy of Cataloging" by Richard A. Murray

Bibliographic Utilities:

A bibliographic utility is a huge database of library cataloging records for books, recordings, videos, etc. with data about which libraries own them. OCLC is the world's largest bibliographic utility. (If you've read this far, you probably already knew this.)

• OCLC home page
• Worldcat - OCLC's public interface
• Librarian's Toolbox - OCLC's most popular pages and forms
• Top 1,000 titles in OCLC
• Find an OCLC Library
• SkyRiver - An upstart new bibligraphic utility providing MARC records to libraries, but so far no interlibrary loan capability
• Open Library - Not exactly a bibliographic utility, Open Library is trying to make a database with a web page for every book known

Authorities:

See also

• Subject Headings and Other Controlled Vocabularies below

Controlled vocabularies for personal names, organization names, etc.

• Library of Congress Authorities - Search LC's lists of subject, name, and title authorities
• LC Linked Data Service - Subject headings, authorities, MARC codes, etc. that computers can use
• Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) - Name authority (personal, corporate) records from major national and research libraries
• WorldCat Identities - Information about names in the WorldCat database (people and organizations who are authors and/or subjects)



Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR):

FRBR represents a new way of looking at cataloging.

• What is FRBR? by Barbara Tillett, Library of Congress. Also, a presentation by Ms. Tillett
• FRBR and the History of Cataloging - A good introduction by William Denton
• MARC and FRBR (LC)
• OCLC research on FRBR
• The FRBRization of Humphry Clinker - An interesting experiment in applying FRBR to a work with a number of editions
• FRBR Blog (William Denton)
• Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records - The IFLA report that started it all
• Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) - Related standard

Resource Description and Access (RDA):

The new cataloging code

• RDA Basics - A nice introduction
• RDA Questions and Answers (Stanford)
• Resource Description and Access (RDA) - Links to training materials and documentation (Pennsylvania State University)
• RDA in MARC (Library of Congress)
• GMD Mapped to Content Type, Media Type, Carrier Type, and Unit of Extent (RDA Canadian Knowledge Exchange, RDACake)
• RDA Vocabularies (Open Metadata Registry)
• RDA Toolkit (subscription)
• RDA Background - Diagrams showing relationships between entities. This page does not require a subscription.

Library of Congress and RDA

• Resource Description and Access (RDA) - LC's page for documentation, training, FAQ, etc.
• Core Elements for RDA at the Library of Congress
• RDA Record Examples
• Testing Resource Description and Access (RDA) (Library of Congress)
• Library of Congress Documentation for the RDA Test

MARC:

MARC has been the standard for encoding and transferring bibliographic data electronically since the 1960s. BIBFRAME may yet replace it.

• MARC Home Page (Library of Congress)

MARC Manuals, etc.

• OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards Manual - OCLC's manual for MARC bibliographic
• Understanding MARC Bibliographic - A basic guide (LC)
• Value Lists for Codes and Controlled Vocabularies (including tags 336-338, which were added for RDA) (LC)
• MARC Tag of the Month (Follett)

BIBFRAME:

• Bibliographic Framework Initiative - General information and links to more (Library of Congress)

Cataloging Mailing Lists:

• Autocat - Library cataloging and authorities
• RadCat - Where radical cataloging is discussed

Typos in Catalogs

These sites (all from the same dedicated group of typo-fighting library superheroes) list common typos found in library catalogs. Use them to check your own catalog

• Typo of the Day for Librarians - Read the blog, then check your catalog for the typo of the day. The LibTypos wiki has an archive of common typos that have made the list already
• Typographical Errors in Library Databases - A long list by Terry Ballard. You might want to start with the most common ones
• Libtypos-L - If you're really serious about typos, you may want to subscribe to this mailing list (Yahoo Groups)

Metadata Schemas:

See also

• Open Archives
• Cataloging the Internet
• Metadata for Web Sites

Other ways of describing data besides RDA and MARC, often developed in organizations other than libraries

• Archival Description (Library of Congress)
• Encoded Archival Description (EAD) - Used by archivists for finding aids
• Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) - Often used with EAD, below (Society of American Archivists)
• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
• ONIX - Used by the publishing industry
• RBMS Bibliographic Standards Committee (Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, ACRL)
• Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials
• Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) - Used for electronic editions of scholarly texts
• VRA Core - Metadata standard of the Visual Resources Association

Metadata Guides

• Introduction to Metadata (Getty Center)
• Metadata Reference Guide (MIT Libraries)

Subject Cataloging:

Web Directory:

• Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications (BARTOC)

Classification

• OCLC Classify - Look up a title and see how libraries have classified it in Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classifications

Mapping Dewey and Library of Congress classifications:

A service of QuestionPoint

• Map Dewey (DDC) Classification to LC (LCC)
• Map LC (LCC) to Dewey (DDC) Classification

Library of Congress Classification:

• Library of Congress Classification PDF Files
• Library of Congress Classification Web - Full classification and subject headings lists. Available by subscription. (LC)
• Library of Congress Classification Outline (LC)
• Library of Congress Classification - Weekly lists of updates; policies (LC)
• Hierarchical Interface to LC Classification (HILCC) - An experimental project to produce a hierarchical menu using LC classification and subject terms
• Library of Congress Classification Linked Data

Guidance for Specific Classes

• G: Cartographic Materials: Special Instructions and Tables of Subdivisions
• G: Cartographic Materials: Geographic Cutter Numbers (Tables G1548-G9804)
• KBM, KBP: Notes on the Design of Subclasses KBM (Jewish Law) and KBP (Islamic Law)

Dewey Decimal Classification:

• Dewey Decimal Classification (OCLC/Forest Press)
• Summaries: DDC 22nd Edition
• Dewey Decimal System: A Guide to Call Numbers (University of Illinois Library)
• Dewey Decimal Classification Linked Data - Look up individual numbers [dewey.info]
• 025.431: The Dewey Blog
• What's So Great About the Dewey Decimal System? (Straight Dope)

National Library of Medicine Classification:

• NLM Classification

Web Directory of Classification Systems:

• Classification Sources (MARC Code List, Library of Congress)

Subject Headings and Other Controlled Vocabularies

• Controlled Vocabularies - Descriptions of, and links to, controlled vocabularies maintained and used by the Library of Congress
• Subject Headings and Genre/Form Terms - Gateway to official sources, PDF files and regular updates (Library of Congress)

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

• Library of Congress Authorities - Including subject authorities
• LCSH Authorities and Downloads - Database with URIs for each subject term and the ability to download terms in various formats
• Library of Congress Classification Web - Full classification and subject headings lists. Available by subscription
• Library of Congress Subject Headings - Weekly lists of updates; policies (LC)
• Library of Congress Subject Headings Manual - Forms of headings, free-floating subheadings, etc.
• LC Linked Data Service: Search Authorities and Vocabularies - Search form for LCSH and other thesauri. A "Suggest Terminology" tab allows you to suggest changes
• Spanish Subject Headings - Equivalents of LCSH devised by Oakland Public Library and San Francisco Public Library

LCSH Subheadings:

• Free-Floating Subject Subdivisions (Library of Congress)
• Free Floating Subdivisions (Library of Congress Subject Cataloging Manual, section H 1095)
• Form Subdivisions (University of Southern Mississippi)

Genre Terms (used with LCSH):

• GSAFD Genre Terms - OCLC-built thesaurus based on Guidelines on subject access to individual works of fiction, drama, etc.
• Genre/Form Headings at the Library of Congress - Latest news on the development of these headings
• Cartographic Materials Genre/Form Headings
• Moving Image Genre-Form Headings (Library of Congress)

Other Subject Heading Lists and Thesauri:

See also

• Subject Cataloging in Science and Technology
• Art & Architecture Thesaurus (Getty Museum)
• BISAC Subject Codes - Headings used by bookstores (Book Industry Study Group)
• Canadian Subject Headings (Library and Archives Canada)
• DTIC Thesaurus - The thesaurus used by the Defense Technical Information Center; not just military terms, though
• ERIC Thesaurus - Emphasis on education and related subjects
• Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) (Getty Museum)
• Getty Vocabularies - Includes the Art & Architecture Thesaurus and Thesaurus of Geographic Names, above, and others
• ICPSR Subject Vocabulary (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)
• Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) (National Library of Medicine)
• NAL Agricultural Thesaurus (National Agricultural Library)
• RBMS Controlled Vocabularies - Descriptive terms (Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, ACRL)
• Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM) - Subject and genre/format terms used by the Library of Congress for its prints and photographs
• Transportation Research Thesaurus (National Transportation Library, U.S. Dept. of Transportation)
• Unified Astronomy Thesaurus

Web Directories of Subject Heading Lists and Other Controlled Vocabularies:

• Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes (LC)
• Subject Heading and Term Source Codes
• MARC Field Index to Source Code Usage - Sources for subject terms that can be used in MARC records
• Online Thesauri and Authority Files (American Society of Indexers)