The IFLA Conference 1967

Abstract

JAMES E. SKIPPER, Associate Librarian of Princeton University, provided an introductory statement on the Shared Cataloging Program, which is surely the greatest and most speedily implemented development in librarianship this century. The conference studied the international implications of this programme under the guidance of three other speakers. Mr Skipper briefly outlined the activities of LC in the matter of cataloguing, preceding and following the printing and distribution of catalogue cards in 1901. The attempt to improve the availability of cataloguing information, ‘cataloguing‐in‐source’ in 1958, was admirable in principle but too complex in practice. It was found that the larger academic and research libraries were able to obtain catalogue copy for only 35% to 50% of the titles added to their collections, because these books had not yet been catalogued by LC at the time copy was needed by another library. As about 16% of the total expenditure in other larger libraries goes on cataloguing, and it costs from three to six times as much to catalogue a book locally rather than using LC copy, and there are problems of obtaining and cataloguing books (especially those in foreign languages and unusual characters) from many countries, the Association of Research Libraries were encouraged to attack the problem of cataloguing again. The result was provision in the Higher Education Act of 1965 which authorized the appropriation of funds which could be transferred to LC for developing a more comprehensive cataloguing system. Thereby LC (a) became globally comprehensive in acquiring currently‐published materials of scholarly interest; (b) was to create a bibliographic record within three or four weeks after books were received; (c) was to distribute this bibliographic record by printed catalogue cards or by other means, i.e. in machine‐readable form.

Citation

Harrod, L.M. (1967), "The IFLA Conference 1967", Library Review, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 175-177. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb012482