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The Cataloging Directorate of the Library of Congress achieved extraordinary success in the face of unprecedented challenges in fiscal year 2002. The year began in the aftershock of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, closely followed by the discovery of potentially fatal anthrax spores on Capitol Hill. It seemed as though the year would be dominated by these tragic events and the frustrations of delays in hiring and continual loss of staff. In fact, however, the real story this year was the exemplary way in which the directorate overcame these difficulties to produce more catalog records than ever before, provide leadership to the national and international cataloging communities, foster professional development and advancement, and collaborate with other units for the benefit of the entire Library.
Production and Productivity
The Cataloging Directorate and Serial Record Division (SRD) achieved record high production in fiscal 2002, processing more than 300,000 items for the first time in their history. Staff cataloged 310,235 bibliographic volumes on 291,749 bibliographic records, at an average cost of $94.58 per record including fringe benefits and overhead costs--a significant improvement over the average cost of $122.60 per record in fiscal 2001. In addition, the Cataloging Directorate created 41,776 inventory-level records for arrearage items.
Production of full and core level original cataloging, the category of work of greatest value to other libraries, totaled 199,586 records, an increase of 12.99 percent over fiscal 2001 despite a decrease of 5.37 percent in the number of hours worked in this category. Copy cataloging production increased to 49,576 records, 56.63 percent more than in fiscal 2001. A total of 4,259 collection-level cataloging (CLC) records was completed, including 3,790 by the NUCMC Team, Special Materials Cataloging Division (SMCD), for manuscript repositories throughout the United States. Other teams cleared 16,481 items using CLC, more than twice the level of the year before. The Decimal Classification Division assigned Dewey numbers to 110,290 books, and 42,937 titles in the Cataloging in Publication program received CIP verification. Minimal-level cataloging (MLC) increased a dramatic 65.18 percent from last year, to 38,328 records, while the staff hours spent on MLC increased only 12.58 percent.
Production of authority records was also very high in fiscal 2002. The Cataloging Directorate and SRD created 88,475 new name authority records, a decrease of 3.71 percent from fiscal 2001, and changed 44,823, compared to 249,252 name authority changes in fiscal 2001. Both decreases reflect the fact that the pinyin conversion project, which involved a great deal of authority work, was essentially complete. The number of new series authority records increased 7.61 percent over the previous year, to 8,279; new subject authority records totaled 7,365, an increase of 6.23 percent; new Library of Congress Classification (LCC) proposals numbered 1,837, which was 11.94 percent higher than the year before. The 192 LCC changes during the year represent a decrease of 20.33 percent from fiscal 2001, and changes to subject authorities decreased almost 40 percent to 7,574, decreases that also reflect the wrapup of the pinyin conversion.
This extraordinary production occurred despite several major impediments: the Library's anthrax-related closure for a week in October, heightened security measures, the two-week Voyager software upgrade, and temporary staff relocations to permit ergonomic furniture upgrades and recarpeting. Although overtime was offered to staff for much of the year, it was not the decisive factor in achieving record-high production; in fact, the total number of hours worked decreased for every category of cataloging except MLC. The increased production reflected increased productivity, careful monitoring of arrearages and work on hand, the judicious use of contracts, and streamlined and innovative workflows. Productivity increased through full implementation of the core-level record as the base level of cataloging for all teams and the use of data from the 955 field of every bibliographic record to strengthen individual accountability.
Contract cataloging was very fruitful this year. The Arts and Sciences Cataloging Division (ASCD) cleared 1,564 titles using Marcadia, the automated copy matching service operated by the Research Libraries Group and MARC Link, Inc. The Marcadia matches, returned from the RLIN database, were processed using Encoding Level 7 copy cataloging procedures, in which name and series authority work is done according to MLC guidelines and LC Subject Headings present in the copied record are accepted with the assurance that they were constructed according to current practice. The resulting bibliographic record is assigned an encoding level of 7 so that it will not displace the original member record in the OCLC database. In addition to the Marcadia contract, the directorate had contracts with ten individual experts, who focused on cataloging arrearage materials so that teams could keep up with current receipts.
To streamline workflows, the German and Scandinavian Languages Team (GSL), Social Sciences Cataloging Division (SSCD), organized an 'assembly line' to process older items that were about to age into the arrearage. A library technician searched the items for OCLC copy and referred them to a contractor if copy was found. If no copy was found on OCLC for an item, a higher-graded cataloging technician then searched it for RLIN copy. If neither OCLC nor RLIN yielded copy, the item was forwarded to a contractor or a senior descriptive cataloger. This approach ensured that best copy was found and used, accommodated the training needs of one contractor, and helped to process items with no copy as efficiently as those with copy.
The Music and Sound Recording Teams, SMCD, implemented a new workflow using the OCLC RetroCon batch automated searching service for the approximately 30,000 new CD-ROM sound recordings received each this year. The new CD workflow cost about $3.07 in direct labor salary costs per matched record, including creation of necessary authority records. If all the work were performed in-house at LC, the estimated cost would be $9.79.
The Dewey Exceptions Task Force was chartered by the Workflow and Documentation Issues Group, at the request of the director for cataloging, to identify the exceptions to normal workflow that had been instituted over time because of special circumstances in the Decimal Classification Division (Dewey) and to recommend whether to continue or discontinue each exception. The task force's recommendations led to hiring two additional technicians for Dewey so the division could make the printouts it needed, freeing up time formerly spent on this task by higher-graded staff in the cataloging teams. In addition, barcode scanners were obtained for all Dewey staff, and the division began exploring the impact of having classifiers input Dewey numbers directly online.
Cataloging teams employed numerous other means to increase production, including training students to perform some aspects of end-stage processing; allowing catalogers to do shelflisting and end-stage processing if they volunteered to do so; and routing out-of-scope items and serials as efficiently as possible.
Arrearage Reduction
The directorate's nonrare print arrearage stood at 128,750 items on October 1, peaked in May at 168,651 items, and by the end of September had decreased to 134,607. In addition, the directorate processed 102,607 arrearage items for other directorates. Although the need to keep current with new receipts demanded most of the directorate's resources, during the year significant inroads were made in certain longstanding arrearages, including those in Hungarian, Latvian, Yiddish, Judeo-Persian, and Judeo-Arabic; MLC in Spanish; Qu‚bec provincial documents; and materials on Latin American history. Catalogers in ASCD and the History and Literature Cataloging Division (HLCD) collaborated to process approximately 800 of the 1,300 Latvian arrearage items during the year. The Education, Sports, and Recreation Team (ESR) of SSCD eliminated its arrearage of Romance-language materials.
The directorate and SRD received 367,509 items for cataloging (including new titles, added volumes, and added copies) and processed 372,932 items, or 101.5 percent of new receipts. One division, SMCD was able to process more items than it received. That division completed 44,495 items, or 110.6 percent of its receipts. All the cataloging divisions put in a fine showing, with HLCD completing 94.3 percent of its receipts and ASCD, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division (RCCD), and SSCD each completing more than 97 percent of their new receipts. The directorate ended the fiscal year with 187,493 items on hand, including arrearage items.
The Rare Book Team, SMCD, cleared 16,639 items, including 14,833 items for the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, 940 for Law, 244 for Prints and Photographs, 2 for Music, 13 for the Manuscript Divivision, 11 for the African and Middle Eastern Division, and 596 for the general collection. Technicians on the Music and Sound Recordings III Team contributed 2,769 of the total items cleared with their participation in the Copyright Paperback project. More than 500 rare serial items were cleared from the SRD arrearage. Work completed by the Rare Book Team included: Shapiro Bruce Rogers ephemera (ca. 2,950 items from this type and book designer); ca. 150 items from Abraham Lincoln's descendants, many with his provenance; Katherine Golden Bitting gastronomy ephemera (208 items from the turn of the 20th century); 194 theatre programs cataloged from the Batchelder, Heyl, and Minz collections.
Aftermath of Terrorist Attacks
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, occurred in the last month of the previous fiscal year and affected cataloging activities throughout fiscal 2002. The Cataloging Directorate, with all other units of the Library of Congress, responded in the early weeks of the new fiscal year by preparing evacuation plans and means for communicating with staff in the event of an evacuation or other emergency. Mandatory computer security awareness training was begun, and staff learned new safety procedures for opening mail. Several members of the directorate, including four on the Law Team, SSCD, volunteered to participate in the Health Services Office's three-phase Baseline Survey of Staff Health related to intermittent mail handling. An HLCD employee was called up to active military service in Afghanistan.
The Computer Files and Microforms Team, SMCD, as part of its contribution to the Library's Web preservation project, MINERVA, cataloged The September 11 Web Archive, a collaboration between the Library of Congress, the Internet Archive and WebArchivist.org. This remote-access electronic resource presents a digital archive of Web sites relating to the events and immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The discovery of anthrax in the Senate Hart Office Building required the Library to close from October 18 through 24 for anthrax testing. The cataloging divisions thus lost one full week of production. Furthermore, the Library suspended acceptance of deliveries from the United States Postal Service from October 18 until the beginning of March, while an offsite postal testing and irradiation facility was built. The impact of the five-month hiatus in mail deliveries was felt most sharply in the divisions that receive books directly (CIP, RCCD, and the Romance Team, HLCD, which receives materials from the Rio de Janeiro field office), but all teams instituted greater security precautions and were vigilant for evidence of damage to irradiated materials that might have been missed in the acquisitions units. Damage was noted in the LC ILS.
Cooperative Cataloging Programs
The chief of RCCD and the Cooperative Cataloging Team (Coop) continued to serve as the secretariat to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). In fiscal 2002, the PCC celebrated its tenth anniversary. During this decade, member institutions contributed more than 350,000 bibliographic records and more than 1.2 million name and series authorities to the international pool of shareable cataloging created according to mutually agreed standards. As a result of PCC activity, more than 74,000 subject headings were incorporated into the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and more than 8,000 numbers into LCC.
PCC members created 162,363 new name authorities in fiscal 2002, compared to 143,031 the previous year, an increase of 13 percent; 10,044 new series authorities, an increase of 6.74 percent; 3,165 subject authorities, an increase of more than 20 percent; and 2,551 LCC proposals, an increase of nearly 25 percent. Original cataloging from CONSER, the serials component of the PCC, totaled 30,160 records, in contrast to the 14,445 produced in fiscal 2001. In the BIBCO program for monograph bibliographic records, members created 82,014 bibliographic records, an increase of 12.17 percent over the 73,115 monograph records created in fiscal 2001.
The NACO component for name authority work expanded with the training of seventeen new NACO libraries, the retraining of eleven libraries, and the creation of three new funnel projects (Mississippi Project, Mountain West Project, and the Minnesota Funnel Project) that collectively added twenty-seven new member institutions.
Three new libraries joined BIBCO: Duke University, State University of New York Buffalo, and the Smithsonian Institution bringing the number of participants to forty-six. BIBCO concentrated on finishing the BIBCO Participants' Manual. To prepare for implementation of new rules in AACR2, CONSER and BIBCO developed a training workshop for cataloging integrating resources.
International membership in the PCC reached a new high. Forty-three institutions outside the United States, working individually or in funnel projects, contributed a total of 30,206 new name authority records (18.6 percent of total PCC production); 12,579 revised name and series records (27.3% of total modifications); 955 new subject authority records (30.2%); and 19 revised subject authority records (4.3%). The Singapore Integrated Library Automation Services (SILAS), already a SACO participant, joined NACO. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) took part in a special project to resolve pinyin conversion issues. HKUST also became a CONSER member, joining the National Library of Wales as the only member institutions outside North America. Expansion training in England, Scotland, and South Africa attracted new institutions to NACO, however. To encourage the growth of the PCC in South America, the Coop Team leader organized a teleconference for LC staff and librarians in Brazil and the Taller sobre Encabezamientos de Materia LCSH / Workshop on LCSH for Librarians from Latin America, a bilingual workshop held at the Library of Congress May 20-24, attended by 17 librarians from eight countries. Faculty included the chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) and two cataloging policy specialists.
Streamlined review processes enabled PCC contributions to increase while the number of hours worked in the Coop Team fell by 29.16 percent from the previous year, to only 11,506.5 hours. SACO, the component of the PCC for subject authority work, profited from accelerated handling of LCSH subject proposals. The major innovation was making interactive subject proposal forms available on the PCC Web site. To facilitate evaluations of training sessions an interactive training evaluation form was posted to the appropriate PCC Web sites. Several studies measured the cost-benefits of NACO and the reduced LC expenditures resulting from more documentation being freely available to participants on the PCC Web site. This year, the Descriptive Cataloging Manual (DCM) Z1, and the LC Guidelines Supplement to the MARC 21 Authority Format, 2002 ed., were made available exclusively for PCC partners, in PDF format.
Pinyin Conversion
The LC Pinyin Task Group disbanded, having substantially achieved its goal of converting LC's authority and bibliographic records from Wade-Giles to pinyin romanization. Final versions of the Chinese romanization guidelines and procedures for establishing headings for Chinese place names were formulated, with input provided by librarians at other institutions.
Labeling
The directorate continued to perform labeling of hardbound books, with the help of detailees from the Binding and Collections Care Division, to enhance the security of the in-process collections and shorten total throughput time from receipt to shelving of the item in the Library's stacks. To explore the impact of incorporating labeling into the duties of regular staff, the directorate tested two different workflows in a labeling pilot project from May 19 to July 25. Production and staff reaction were positive, and the directorate planned to expand labeling to softcover books in the next fiscal year. Work continued to establish a Cataloging Directorate position description that would include labeling with other duties to support a GS-7 grade.
Staffing and Personnel Management
The directorate continued to lose staff as the Library's hiring processes did not keep pace with retirements. At the end of the fiscal year, the Cataloging Directorate had 518 employees, twenty-four fewer than when the year began. Two chiefs, an assistant chief, four team leaders, an assistant team leader, eight catalogers, a Dewey classifier, two professionals in the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, an automated operations coordinator, eight technicians, and three office staff retired, two catalogers resigned, and one was reassigned to another directorate. In addition, the directorate was saddened by the deaths of Gail Maniscalco, a cataloger on the Business and Economics Team, SSCD, and of Geraldine 'Frankie' Hunter, a cataloging technician in the HLCD who died very soon after retiring. One cataloger was promoted to become the first automated operations coordinator for the Cataloging in Publication Division (CIP), and one team leader accepted a year-long appointment as CIP's acting assistant chief. Although the directorate was able to hire a net total of seven technicians and three office staff, it gained only two catalogers during the year, one authorized for the Medical Sciences and Biotechnology Team, ASCD, from an earlier year's hiring plan, and one who was permanently reassigned to GSL, SSCD, after being detailed to that team from another Library Services directorate the previous year. Cataloging resources were drained further by the need to promote catalogers temporarily into vacant team leader positions.
The directorate was authorized to hire two decimal classifiers and 44 catalogers from outside the Library under the fiscal 2002 hiring plan, which would add at least one cataloger to nearly every cataloging team. Continued delays in the recruitment and hiring process prevented the divisions from filling any of these positions by year's end, however. The authorized selecting officials and subject matter experts in the directorate completed their work on position descriptions and job analyses, but no vacancy announcements were posted until August, and only seven of the 34 authorized vacancy announcements were posted by September 30. The directorate looked forward to completing all its authorized hiring in fiscal 2003.
The directorate continued its review of duties and position descriptions in recognition of the impact that the LC ILS, other new technology, and the explosive growth of research-quality electronic resources have had on all cataloging work. In fiscal 2000, the director had asked the chief of SMCD to lead two small groups of team leaders to review the position descriptions for catalogers and technicians. The resulting new GS-9 cataloging technician position was added to the existing GS-5/8 ladder by the beginning of fiscal 2002, permitting promotions for technicians who demonstrated expert proficiency in four of the following areas: shelflisting, IBC creation, CIP verification, copy cataloging, training, inventory control, database maintenance, and distribution of materials. Twenty-four technicians received promotions to the GS-9 by the end of the year, an indication of the enormous skill and experience that the cataloging technicians contribute to the directorate.
The revision of the cataloger positions was complicated by the requirement that professional position descriptions be input to the Library's new automated personnel management system. The cataloger position review group worked throughout fiscal 2001 and early 2002, reviewing current position descriptions, defining new responsibilities, drafting text for revised position descriptions, and inputting text to the automated system. The successful result was a new GS-13 senior cataloging specialist position, certified in April, that featured expertise in cataloging, automation, training, problem solving, and a subject or language area; experience in consultation with other professionals; and a demonstrated commitment to professional development. Senior GS-12 catalogers could apply for promotion by submitting a portfolio of accomplishments to their supervisors. By the end of the year, seventeen catalogers had been promoted to senior cataloging specialist in the directorate, in addition to three in the Serial Record Division. To ensure fairness in promotion decisions, the director for cataloging reviewed all GS-13 promotion portfolios submitted during the year.
A GS-13 senior decimal classification specialist position was also certified in April. At year's end the revision of position descriptions for automated operations coordinators, team leaders and assistant team leaders, secretaries, and chiefs and assistant chiefs continued. Work included reviewing current position descriptions, defining new responsibilities, drafting text for revised position descriptions, and inputting text to the automated system.
Cataloging Policy
The Cataloging Directorate continued to provide leadership in the creation and implementation of cataloging policy within the Library of Congress and in the national and international library community through the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) with input from the production divisions. CPSO also supported the effectiveness of all cataloging staff at the Library of Congress through guidance, advice on cataloging policy, and maintenance of bibliographic, authority, classification, holdings, and item records, and developed and supported national and international standards for structure and content of bibliographic, authority, classification, holdings, and item records through cooperative endeavors. During the year CPSO celebrated the virtual completion of the LCC law schedules, prepared for implementing significant changes in the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd Edition (AACR2), supported the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, contributed to LC metadata policy, and began a project to test one model for a virtual international authority file.
The LCC law schedule (Class K) was essentially complete at the end of the year, after thirty years of development in consultation with the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Advisory Committee for LC Law Classification and colleagues around the world. The CPSO law classification specialist, Dr. Jolande Goldberg, received the Joseph Andrews Bibliographic Award, the AALL's highest bibliographic honor, for her work on the LCC law schedules.
The impact of implementation of the new schedules at LC includes the discovery of undocumented but major holdings of rare materials, the reclassification and change in divisional custody of law materials classified with other disciplines because no proper place for them existed, and the training of many staff members to use online classification schedules. An interlibrary collaborative project to digitize rare and important early works in the field of law for the World Wide Web emerged, and fundraising to realize it began.
The chief of CPSO continued to serve as chair of LC's Metadata Policy Group. The directorate, SRD, and the processing units of the Public Service Collections Directorate implemented AACR2, Chapter 9, recast as 'Electronic Resources.' A senior staff member from the National Digital Library/American Memory was detailed to CPSO specifically to address metadata issues and the cataloging of digital materials.
The chief of CPSO continued as the Library of Congress representative to the Joint Committee for Revision of AACR, which was very active this year as a major revision to AACR2 was finalized. Policy specialists in CPSO prepared drafts for chapters and other sections of AACR2, including electronic resources, continuing resources, the appendix of initial articles, the Introduction, incorporation of principles, the topic of authority control, and the Appendix of major changes. CPSO staff also proofread the entire 2002 revision of AACR2 twice (before and after final changes). The director for cataloging, on the advice of CPSO and PCC libraries, determined that LC would implement the redrafted AACR2 Chapter 12, previously 'Serials' and now 'Continuing Resources,' on December 1 of the next fiscal year, to allow more time for training and for inclusion of the revision in Cataloger's Desktop.
The Music Cataloging Advisory Group (MCAG) began work to eliminate the Music Cataloging Decisions (MCDs) as a separate body of commentary on AACR2 by drafting language to merge the seventy-two existing MCDs into the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations.
Several members of the directorate participated in the review of the International Standard Bibliographic Description for monographs (ISBD(M))and for continuing resources ISBD(CR), led by the chief of RCCD under the auspices of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
In subject cataloging policy, among the largest projects of this year were the reformulation of headings for battles and the change from the heading 'Handicapped' to 'People with disabilities,' with revision of many related subject headings. The CPSO Subject Heading Editorial Team (SHED) continued its project to enhance access to geographic place names, adding field 781 to more than 2,000 authority records tagged 151 to authorize the use of the place named in the 151 field as a geographic subdivision. More than 33,000 authority records have been enhanced in this way since the project began in 1999; the project has reached place names beginning with 'Sa.'
As a step toward establishing a much needed Database Management Team in CPSO, the SHED team leader tested the Voyager BatchCat bibliographic file maintenance software, which corrects subject fields in bibliographic records following changes to subject authority headings.
Classification Web, an online Cataloging Distribution Service product incorporating LCC, became available this year, after much input from CPSO concerning both functionality and display. Use of a PDF form for classification proposals became mandatory. The online LCC became the authoritative version, and printed quarterly updates were discontinued with Update 284, as was the production of looseleaf pages for this particular printed form of LCC.
The Library of Congress, the Deutsche Bibliothek, and OCLC, Inc., started a proof of concept project to test one model for a virtual international authority file, starting with personal names. If successful, this model could be the foundation for a global linked network of national and regional authority files for names of persons, corporate bodies, and uniform titles including series. The chief of CPSO led the project and publicized it in numerous venues worldwide. The project was a work item in 'Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan.'
Electronic Resources Cataloging/Library of Congress Action Plan
The director, his assistant, and two division chiefs served as the Library of Congress Action Plan Steering Group (LCAPSG) to facilitate work for 'Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan,' a set of twenty-nine work items that resulted from the Library of Congress Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium held in November 2000 (fiscal 2001). The work items support six broad objectives, including increasing the availability of standard cataloging for digital resources; enhancing access and display across multiple systems; collaboration with metadata standards communities to improve bibliographic control of selected Web resources; developing automated tools for harvesting and maintaining metadata; training and continuing education to improve bibliographic control of selected Web resources; and support for research and development on emerging metadata standards and the challenges of interoperability. Approximately half the work items in the plan are led by Library of Congress units, while the rest are led by external groups. The LCAPSG shared progress on the action plan at several fora at the ALA Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference and through journals and a Web site.
The Computer Files and Microforms Team, SMCD, welcomed four experienced catalogers on 120-day details to learn descriptive cataloging of electronic resources. The insights gained from these details would serve the directorate well as it planned for more extensive training in the next fiscal year.
The Children's Literature Team, HLCD, provided input to planning of the International Children's Digital Library, a cooperative project with the University of Maryland and a private firm, the Digital Archives, to make the text of outstanding children's literature available online. The team also updated the cataloging for materials selected for this project.
Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team
The chief of RCCD continued to chair the Library's inter-divisional Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT), which initiates research and development to increase the value to users of cataloging products. During the year BEAT enriched more than 40,000 catalog records with electronic tables of contents (TOC). It also enhanced online bibliographies and provided direct access from the Library of Congress Online Catalog to full electronic text of more than 7,000 working papers and research monographs.
BEAT used three successful approaches to including TOC data in catalog records. In the ECIP TOC project, catalogers copy TOC from Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) galleys into the body of the bibliographic record. Nearly one third of all ECIP records (5,817 of 18,082) completed this year included TOC data. The Digital-TOC (D-TOC) project places files of TOC data on a Web server with reciprocal links to the LC catalog records for the publications. This project produced 3,247 D-TOC records in fiscal 2002. Weekly production increased from the original target of fifty items to 150 or more by year's end, with the D-TOC records on the Web visited more than 800,000 times.
The ONIX-TOC project begun in late fiscal 2001 expanded this year. ONIX is a protocol used by some publishers to communicate book industry product data, often including TOC data, electronically. The directorate's cataloging automation specialist obtained ONIX files for the entire runs of two major publishers and extracted the embedded TOC. To date, this project has created 31,246 ONIX TOC records, at the very low cost of approximately ten cents per record.
The ONIX Descriptions project, launched this year, creates records containing publishers' descriptions of books. These descriptions are placed on a Web site and reciprocally linked to bibliographic records in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. The project created approximately 27,600 records in fiscal 2002.
Also initiated this year was the Web Access to Works in the Public Domain project, which links bibliographic records for selected works that LC holds in print to full text electronic copies in trusted repositories. The initial implementations of this project resulted from cooperative agreements with the University of Michigan for materials digitized in its Making of America project, and Indiana University for works in its Wright American Fiction, 1851-1875 project.
The Web Access to Publications in Series project continued to provide access to the full electronic texts of social science working papers and discussion papers in monographic series by linking to the electronic files from the serial record in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Linking to the electronic versions offers more timely, comprehensive, and cost effective access. In fiscal 2001 and 2002, the project provided access to the full electronic texts of 7,044 individual monographs in 93 series. The project also identifies series not currently in the LC catalog and creates records for them. Twelve of the records noted here were for series not previously represented in the LC catalog, and their links have provided access to 1,678 individual titles.
The BECites+ project enhances printed library bibliographies by placing them on the Web in electronic form, adding annotated citations, tables of contents, indexes, and back-of-book bibliographies cited therein. Completed during this year were two bibliographies on Thomas Jefferson and five separate parts of a large-scale undertaking on Immigrant Arrivals to the United States. Other bibliographies begun included African-Americans in Business and five that focus on access to primary research resources or materials heretofore unavailable in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.
Cataloging in Publication
The Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Division terminated the conventional paper-based Preassigned Card Number (PCN) program; launched a special retrospective claiming project; enhanced the division's ability to respond to publishers' inquiries by telephone and email; and examined the possibility of using OCLC records to enhance the efficiency of CIP post cataloging. Most significant, the number of publishers participating in the ECIP program more than doubled to 2,222, and the number of participants in the Electronic PCN program (EPCN) increased to 15,036.
During the anthrax-related closure in October and the five-month suspension of United States Postal Services deliveries to the Library that followed, CIP staff went to great lengths to keep publishers informed of the Library's mail situation and to encourage them to participate in ECIP as an alternative. To make it easier for publishers to participate, the requirements for ECIP galleys were eased somewhat, and the Web pages for ECIP and Electronic PCN were augmented with links to an email 'help desk' for publishers to email questions to the division. The division also implemented a comprehensive set of telephone message scripts to respond to the most common questions from publishers, a project that began in fiscal 2001 but gained greater urgency because of the mail situation. The number of publishers participating in ECIP more than doubled, from 1,066 in fiscal 2001 to 2,222 at the end of fiscal 2002. More than a third of all CIP galleys--18,082 out of 53,733 galleys in all--were submitted electronically in fiscal 2002, making ECIP cataloging one of the directorate's principal workflows. The total number of conventional and ECIP galleys was slightly lower than the 54,840 received the previous fiscal year, probably because of delays in receiving mailed applications. Average throughput time for galleys improved to 10.5 business days from 12.2 the previous year, with 80 percent of all galleys completely processed within fourteen business days.
The division terminated the paper PCN program on January 1, as planned and announced the previous year. For fiscal 2002, the division processed 22,687 EPCN applications and established 4,406 EPCN publisher accounts, an increase of 29% in each of these figures over fiscal 2001; including paper PCN, total PCN assignments numbered 23,351. Planning continued on the New Books project, which will enrich catalog records for forthcoming titles with a wide range of information, including tables of contents and images of book jackets. In consultation with the CIP Advisory Group which meets during each ALA Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting, the division decided to facilitate development by limiting initial services for partner libraries to an email capability and limiting publisher participation in the initial phase of the project to those who participate in ECIP. Further progress on the New Books project awaited recruitment of developers and other project staff.
In an effort to make CIP verification more efficient, the division tested a model for importing upgraded CIP records from the OCLC database, using a record-by-record approach rather than bulk import.
Using overtime funds, CIP claimed 29,895 outstanding books from 194 publishers, giving emphasis to titles that were relevant to national security and the war on terrorism. The claiming process attempted to obtain outstanding copyright deposits and CIP books at the same time. The division received 210,063 books for searching and initial bibliographic control, including approximately 155,400 received from the Copyright Office.
Dewey
The Decimal Classification Division increased its production by 1.49 percent over fiscal 2001, assigning Dewey numbers to 110,290 monographs in English and other Western languages. The increase was accomplished despite a reduction of 6.28 percent in the number of hours worked, as the team leader, program assistant, division chief, and the primary decimal classifier in history all retired, leaving the division with only six classifiers. Dennis McGovern, ESR team leader, was appointed acting chief on February 18. The Dewey team leader position was filled by several classifiers on temporary promotions.
Editorial work on Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) Edition 22 and on Abridged Edition 14 continued on track to meet the targets set for their publication in summer 2003 and January 2004, respectively. Two meetings of the Dewey Editorial Policy Committee took place at the Library, Meeting 117 on December 3-5 and Meeting 118 on May 15-17. The Decimal Classification Division staff worked intensively to prepare and mail voluminous exhibits in advance of each meeting as well as to compile minutes and other clean-up work after each meeting concluded. The Editorial Policy Committee continued its work in a series of electronic meetings during the summer, which also involved extensive preparation by division staff.
In January, OCLC Forest Press made Abridged Edition 13 available in WebDewey (TM), the online version of the Classification, and published People, Places, and Things, which provided Dewey numbers for more than 50,000 of the most frequently used Library of Congress Subject Headings. The assistant editors did considerable work on both products. This year the assistant editors also began to map broad categories in the LCC to comparable categories in the DDC, in order to facilitate Dewey libraries' participation in QuestionPoint, the successor to the Collaborative Digital Reference Service. They continued a heavy schedule of research and consultation, including travel to Spain, Scotland, and Vietnam, where an assistant editor spoke at a workshop and led a discussion on the impending translation of the DDC and AACR2 into Vietnamese.
At the beginning of the fiscal year, OCLC Forest Press support shifted from 'gift fund' to 'revolving fund' status, in accordance with the revolving fund legislation for the entire Library which took effect on October 1. This change required the division to apply a new method of reporting status of funds.
Support for the LC ILS and Automation
The directorate contributed strongly to the upgrade of the LC ILS to the Voyager 2000.1.3 release. The automated operations coordinator in HLCD coordinated ILS testing on Windows 2000, and the SSCD automated operations coordinator was detailed halftime to the ILS Program Office to lead the installations, while other directorate staff assisted with installations and training for the new release. During the actual upgrade from February 15 through March 3, the cataloging module was unavailable for input-update, and with the exception of CIP galleys, which were processed in a separate interim database, there was no production for nine business days. Staff used the downtime for a variety of professional development and cleanup activities, or used previously earned compensatory time. Cataloging Directorate volunteers continued to staff the ILS Help Desk throughout the year.
During the year, the Windows 2000 operating system was installed on all personal computers, and preparation begun for the switch from token-ring connectivity to Ethernet.
Beginning in December and continuing the rest of the year, ASCD received ergonomic furniture upgrades and recarpeting. The ergonomic upgrades protect health and safety for staff and productivity for the Library, but pose a major workload for a division's management team, automated operations coordinator, and automation liaisons, as temporary work space must be identified, personal computers broken down, moved, and reconfigured, and other furniture and furnishings moved to the temporary space and back again to the permanent workstations after the upgrade.
Training and Outreach
The directorate conducted an impressive array of training courses and workshops at LC and in other settings throughout the world. In addition to the LCSH workshop for Latin American librarians, the Coop Team and CPSO collaborated to offer two subject cataloging workshops at ALA Midwinter Meeting and two at the ALA Annual Conference, as well as NACO Series Institutes and other NACO and SACO training. Library of Congress staff served as faculty at the ALA preconference, 'Knowledge without Boundaries,' and at conferences of the American Theological Library Association conference, Association of Jewish Libraries, Catholic Library Association, Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, and Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL).
One of the most notable training efforts of the year was the East Asian Art Cataloging Workshop and Chinese and Japanese Rare Book Cataloging and Korean Romanization Sessions at the Library on April 1 and 2. The participants included forty-three Library staff members and 92 members of CEAL from other libraries, some of whom traveled from Australia, Canada, and Hong Kong to attend the workshop, which was offered free of charge in conjunction with the 2002 Annual Meetings of CEAL and the Association for Asian Studies, Inc., in Washington later that week. The leader of the Japanese I Team, RCCD, co-chaired the workshop, which covered descriptive cataloging, subject cataloging, establishment of geographic names, and other authority control, all with a focus on East Asian art materials. Three separate half-day sessions focused on Chinese and Japanese rare book cataloging and romanization of Korean characters. Four catalogers from prominent United States art museums spoke at the workshop, along with members of the Coop Team, the Japanese I Team, and policy specialists in CPSO.
For Library of Congress employees, Cataloging Directorate staff taught or assisted in classes offered by the Library Services Technical Processing and Automated Instruction Office, including 'ILS skillbuilders' and courses in shelflisting and Classification Web. They also participated in less formal educational presentations, such as the 'LC's Digital Future and You!' series. The Romance Languages Team, SSCD, provided a cataloger for five weeks to train staff in the New Delhi Field Office, African-Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division, in subject cataloging of social sciences.
Collaboration with Other Directorates
The Cataloging Directorate and Serial Record collaborated actively with other Library of Congress units in countless ways during the year. In addition to clearing more than 100,000 items from arrearages held in the Public Service Collections Directorate, Area Studies Directorate, and Law Library, the directorate contributed staff resources to the Baseline Inventory Project, with the assistant chief of CPSO serving as co-manager, a senior technical advisor detailed as full-time resource person, and several other staff contributing large amounts of time. In the Serial Records Duplicate Project, the CPSO Premarc/Quality Control and File Management Team merged 29,000 more records, bringing the project total to 63,000 records. The team also processed approximately 21,500 records in response to error reports and changes to the database requested inside LC and by outside libraries; corrected pinning and linking errors reported by the Collections Access, Loan, and Management Division; and worked on various inventory control pilot projects.
Catalogers worked regularly in the Rare Book, Manuscript and Asian Reading Rooms, to assure coverage during regular staff meetings or on weekends. A cataloger on the Central and East European Languages Team, SSCD, helped the Library acquire 35,000 Slavic books from the Viktor Kamkin Bookstore in Rockville, Md., following its closure. As a special project, Cataloging Directorate staff edited the bibliographic records produced in the Prints and Photographs Division for the Prokudin-Gorskii Project. The leader of the Children's Literature Team, HLCD, was appointed to the Librarian's National Advisory Board in July and in August began a detail to the National Book Festival Office to help plan the Festival scheduled for October of the next fiscal year.
The director for cataloging and a cataloging team leader served on the Library's negotiating team for the new collective bargaining agreement with the Professional Guild (American Federation of Federal, State, and Municipal Employees Local 2910), while two catalogers served on the Guild's team.
Cataloging staff worked on the Library Services Copyright Business Process Reengineering Coordinating Team that considered possibilities for closer coordination between Library Services and the Copyright Office. The team was chaired by the chief of ASCD.
Catalogers contributed to the Mariinsky Theater Archives Project by serving as interpreters at meetings, conducting research to establish musical and literary authorship of certain holdings of the Archives, evaluating the incidental music in the Archives and summarizing its possible usage (after preservation) for the Library.
Conclusion
The staff and managers of the Cataloging Directorate turned in a superb performance in fiscal 2002. They overcame great obstacles and gallantly accepted new and unexpected tasks to master an ever-increasing workload, raise cataloging production to record-setting levels, establish a safer and more secure environment for the Library's collections, and provide learning and professional growth for themselves and their colleagues throughout the library community. The people of the Cataloging Directorate are to be commended for their unsurpassed skills, energy, and dedication, and they are to be congratulated on a splendid year.
Appendix I: Office of the Director
Beacher Wiggins, director for cataloging, continued his work on the Library of Congress Action Plan Steering Group which led the Library's participation in 'Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan.' He was a member of the American Library Association Council and represented the Library of Congress on the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Section on Bibliography. He was the steward of the arrearage reduction goal in Library Services' annual program performance plan (AP3). He led the Library's negotiating team for the new collective bargaining agreement with the Professional Guild, which included articles providing for a voluntary leave bank, an optional 'maxiflex' work schedule of four ten and one-half hour workdays each week, an extension of the 'flexband' hours until 8:00 P.M., and the first telework program at the Library of Congress. After the new agreement was signed in April, he served on the Library's Joint Telework Committee that oversaw the development of telework pilot projects to commence in the next fiscal year. As a member of the Collections Policy Committee, he proposed and led a task force to review current policy regarding the acquisition, retention, and cataloging of publications of 50 pages or less, in order to balance the Library's collections development needs with its capacity to process and store these materials. On September 1, Mr. Wiggins became acting associate librarian for Library Services.
Judith A. Mansfield, chief of the Arts and Sciences Cataloging Division, was named acting director for cataloging, effective Sept. 16. Ms. Mansfield was also the Library Services Copyright Business Process Reengineering Coordinating Team leader, responsible for the work of five groups that considered possibilities for closer coordination between Library Services and the Copyright Office in labeling, selection, cataloging, serials processing, and processing of sound recordings and moving images. This cooperative effort sought to maximize the benefits of the Copyright Office's business process reengineering (BPR) effort for both organizations. Ms. Mansfield was also a member of the Library of Congress Action Plan Steering Group.
Susan Morris, assistant to the director, served on the Library of Congress Action Plan Steering Group. She prepared minutes of the Cataloging Management Team meetings and meetings of other groups; compiled the annual reports of the directorate and Library Services; planned staff briefings and prepared briefing documents before and after ALA meetings; and served on the Kluge Center Staff Advisory Group. She wrote articles for The Gazette and was a reporter and facilitative leadership columnist for Library Services News. She prepared the Cataloging Directorate's submissions to the AP3 (annual program performance plan) process, drafted language for the FY04 Management Decision Package requesting additional support for arrearage reduction, and took a lead role in the strategic planning process for Library Services. In the fall she identified 200 outstanding CIP titles related to Afghanistan or terrorism to facilitate claiming.
David Williamson, the directorate's cataloging automation specialist, continued as the directorate's Web master. He led a Library Services group that drafted a revised position description for automated operations coordinators; led the Cataloging Directorate's contributions to the service unit review of frontline automation support; and maintained a database of 955 data to support individual accountability. He worked throughout the year to obtain ONIX files from publishers and developed the software that converts these files to digital tables of contents and descriptions. He was a member of the PCC Standing Committee on Automation Task Group on Automated Classification and served on the LC ILS data policy groups, 'Little Loaders' and 'Data Cops.' Both Ms. Morris and Mr. Williamson were members of the Cataloging Management Team, the LCCN Editorial Advisory Board, and the LC ILS Cataloging Technical Group.
Cataloging Reference Librarian Harold S. Boyd maintained the Cataloging Reference Collection and led the orientation sessions for new cataloging reference specialists. In addition, he chaired the Steering Committee for the collection and produced minutes of each meeting. Mr. Boyd began to apply new security and mail handling precautions in opening direct shipments of materials for the Cataloging Reference Collection. Mr. Boyd was artistic director of the Library of Congress Professional Association's Ballroom Dancing Interest Group and was a member of the LC Chorale.
The office of the director did not have a permanent secretary during the entire year. In the first half of the year, Shirley Gorham, program assistant to the Director for Acquisitions, provided secretarial coverage to the Director for Cataloging as well the Director for Acquisitions. From March through September, Karen Billett held a temporary appointment as program assistant to the Director for Cataloging. Work continued to develop a new position in the director's office that would combine secretarial and personnel administration duties.
Appendix II: Staff Changes
This appendix lists changes for staff graded at GS-9 or higher.
Appointments of One Year or Longer
- Dennis McGovern was appointed acting chief of the Decimal Classification Division on February 18.
- Sophie Rigny was appointed cataloger in the Biomedical Sciences Team, ASCD, on April 29.
- William Vernigor was appointed acting assistant chief of the Cataloging in Publication Division on July 28.
Retirements
- Edite Abolins, leader of the Germanic Team, HLCD, retired March 8.Carolyn Alexander, a senior technical advisor on the Law Team, SSCD, retired January 11.Darlena Biggers, a technical advisor in ASCD, retired June 28.
- Claudia Coleman, an editor on the Subject Headings Editorial Team, CPSO, retired April 5.
- Rosalee Connor, a Dewey classifier, retired June 25.
- Mary "Louie" Elder (Rare Books Cataloging Team, SMCD, retired September 7.
- Charles Fenly, assistant chief of the Cataloging in Publication Division, retired May 3.
- Milada Gessman, assistant leader of the Music and Sound Recordings III Team, SMCD, retired January 11.
- Audrey Hamilton, a post-cataloger on the CIP Cataloging Team, retired May 3.
- Gloria Hendrix, a Premarc/quality control specialist in CPSO, retired September 7.
- Geraldine 'Frankie' Hunter, a cataloging technician in HLCD, retired May 3.
- Alfred Hyson, administrative officer, RCCD, retired January 11.
- Paul Maher, automated operations coordinator for JACKPHY languages, RCCD, retired May 3.
- Walter McClughan, Dewey program assistant, retired January 31.
- Naomi Moore, a post-cataloger on the CIP Cataloging Team, retired June 14.
- Ichiko Morita, chief of the Social Sciences Cataloging Division, retired April 19.
- Ruta Penkiunas, Coop Team leader, RCCD, retired June 14.
- Sandra Pierce, a cataloger on the Anglo-American II Team, HLCD, retired November 1.
- Joseph Powell, a cataloger on the Law Team, SSCD, retired January 11.
- Virginia Schoepf, the Dewey team leader, retired January 1.
- Frank Seidlinger, leader of the Anglo-American II Team, HLCD, retired June 14.
- Cheryl Sims, a MARC verifier in RCCD, retired September 7.
- David A. Smith, chief of the Decimal Classification Division, left the Library on February 28 (actual retirement date, May 3).
- Lyle Smythers, a cataloger on the Children's Literature Team, HLCD, retired in June.
- Betty Stevens, a cataloger on the Physical Sciences Team, ASCD, retired June 28.
- Jane Sylvester, a cataloger on the Rare Book Team, SMCD, retired January 31.
- Charlotte Uthoff, a cataloger on the Romance Languages Team, SSCD, retired December 28 after an extended absence.
- Theodore Wiener, a cataloger on the Hebraica Team, RCCD, retired November 1.
Reassignments and Resignations
- Alaa El Talmas, a cataloger on the Middle East and North Africa Team, RCCD, resigned April 5.
- Emanuel Magro, a cataloger on the Religion, Philosophy and Psychology Team, SSCD, resigned January 31.
- Stuart Stone, a cataloger on the Romance Languages Team, SSCD, was reassigned to the Acquisitions Directorate in August.
- Michael Womack was permanently reassigned to the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages Team, SSCD from the Manuscript Division.
Deaths
- Geraldine 'Frankie' Hunter, a cataloging technician in the History and Literature Cataloging Division, died a short time after retiring in May.
- Gail Maniscalco, a cataloger on the Business and Economics Team, Social Sciences Cataloging Division, died March 28.