![Steven Herman, chief of the Library's Collections Access, Loan and Management Division, in the new Fort Meade facility.](images/collections.jpg)
Steven Herman, chief of the Library's Collections Access, Loan and Management Division, in the new Fort Meade facility. - Gail Fineberg
During 2003 the size of the Library's collections grew to nearly 128 million items, an increase of 1.7 million over the previous year. This figure included more than 29 million cataloged books and other print materials, 57 million manuscripts, 13.7 million microforms, 4.8 million maps, 5 million items in the music collection, nearly 14 million visual materials, 2.7 million audio materials and more than 1 million items in miscellaneous formats.
Integrated Library System. The Library of Congress Integrated Library System (ILS) performs routine library functions such as circulation, acquisitions and serials check-in. It also provides access to the Library's online public catalog. In 2003 the focus was on improving system performance and enhancing access to collections via the Library of Congress Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). As a result, the number of simultaneous OPAC users was increased by 64 percent.
Arrearage Reduction/Cataloging. At year's end the arrearage in special formats was 20,145,910 items, representing a total reduction of 43 percent since the Library's arrearage census of September 1989. During the year the Cataloging Directorate and Serial Record Division cataloged a total of 287,988 bibliographic volumes, at an average cost of $115.56 per record. Production of full- or core-level original cataloging totaled 185,363 bibliographic records, a slight decrease from the previous year's record high of 199,586. Cataloging staff also created 42,465 inventory-level records for arrearage items, 49,576 copy cataloging records, and 34,696 minimal-level cataloging records.
With the Library serving as the secretariat for the international Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), member institutions created 167,163 new name authorities (a 3 percent increase over 2002 production); 9,324 new series authorities (7 percent decrease); 3,509 subject authorities (11 percent increase); and 74,793 bibliographic records for monographs (9 percent decrease).
Secondary Storage. Linked to the Library's arrearage reduction effort is the development of secondary storage sites to house processed materials and to provide for growth of the collections through the first part of the 21st century. With support from Congress, the Library opened the first module of a climate-controlled, high-density book storage facility at Fort Meade, Md., in November 2002 with an estimated capacity to house 1.2 million monographs and bound periodicals. During 2003 approximately 750,000 volumes were transferred. The facility received more than 5,200 requests for item retrieval and reported a retrieval success rate of 100 percent.
Construction began on Phase 1 of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) in Culpeper, Va., scheduled to open in 2005. The facility will house the Library's recorded sound, videotape and safety film collections.
Important New Acquisitions. The Library receives millions of items each year from copyright deposits, federal agencies, and purchases, exchanges and gifts. Notable acquisitions during the year included the oldest known intact Indian book, a birchbark scroll in Gandhari on Buddhist psychology dating from as early as 200 B.C. and a complete set of Curtis' Botanical Magazine and a landmark of botanical literature. Both were made possible by gifts from the Madison Council, the Library's private sector advisory group, and others.
In 2003 the Library completed the purchase of the only known copy of the first map to use the name "America," by cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. Funding for the purchase came from funds appropriated by Congress and from private contributions from the Discovery Channel, Madison Council member Gerry Lenfest and others. In addition, the Library's Veterans History Project received more than 40,000 items documenting the experiences of the nation's veterans and their families.
The Library also acquired the following significant items and collections in 2003: "Bibliothèques des Enfants," a very rare miniature library for English children learning French, issued by John Marshall in the early 19th century; microfilm and digital copies of 4,000 pages of manuscripts from Timbuktu, Mali; the papers of former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the late Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii), and trailblazing historian Carter G. Woodson; an extremely rare relief model of Utah Beach that was used in the preparations for the amphibious D-Day landing at Utah Beach, Normandy; original kinescopes from the "Ed Sullivan Show" (1948-1971); and a unique collection of audiotape interviews with Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the outspoken daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.
The Library marked the acquisition of its first major digital collection—the September 11 Digital Archive (911digitalarchive.org)—a joint project of the City University of New York Graduate Center's American Social History Project and George Mason University's Center for History and New Media. The Library also acquired several online subscription databases, including Web of Science (1997+), which provides unprecedented subject access to more than 8,000 scholarly journals worldwide.