Page 114 - Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians, 2nd Edition

100 Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians
In mi crofiche for mat, there are Na tional Un ion Cat a log on Mi cro -
fiche and The Mu sic Cat alog on Mi crofiche. In print for mat, there are
Na tional Un ion Cat a log: Books, Na tional Un ion Cat a log: Au dio-
vi sual Ma te rials, and Na tional Un ion Cat a log: Car to graphic Ma te -
rials. All these pub li ca tions cover bib lio graphic re cords of ma te ri als
cataloged by the Library of Con gress from 1983 to the most cur rent
year. Ref erences for earlier ma terials have the same ti tle but with a
different date as part of the ti tle.
Figure 7.1 is a page re produced from the Na tional Un ion Cat a log.
For ex ample, the book Through Rus sian Eyes by Gromyko can be found
on this page. From the Li brary of Con gress en try, you can copy not
only in for ma tion for de scrip tive cat a log ing but also the sub ject head-
ing and clas sification num ber as well. No tice that both the LC num ber
and the Dewey num ber are printed as part of the bib liographic re cord
for the con venience of libraries us ing ei ther sys tem. The Library of
Congress, which needs the LC num ber for it self only, adds the Dewey
Decimal num bers to ap proximately two-thirds of the books as a ser vice
to the library com munity, help ing to re duce the ef fort and cost for cat a-
loging in Dewey li braries.
For Dewey li braries, the num ber af ter the dec imal point is sep arated
by an apos trophe mark ( ' ), called a prime mark. This is done to meet the
needs of li braries of var ious sizes. For ex ample, Dewey num ber
973.922' 092'4 is listed for the book by Gromyko in Fig ure 7.1. This
means that a small library with few books on this topic may use 973.922
as the clas sification num ber, while 973.922092 may be a more suit able
number for a larger library hav ing a larger collection on this topic. For an
even larger library, or a li brary that has a large col lection of his torical
materials, an even more spe cific num ber 973.9220924 may be the best
choice. Note that the au thor num ber is not listed and there fore needs to
be as signed by the lo cal cataloger, ei ther ac cording to the rules of the
Cutter ta ble or any other local sys tem the library may use. This Dewey
number is used as a whole on the catalog card or on the computer da ta-
base without the prime marks.
Automated libraries can sub scribe to the Library of Con gress cat a-
loging re cords on MARC (ma chine read able cataloging) tapes. More
often, li braries will share MARC tapes with other li braries through a
consortium ar rangement. When us ing the MARC da tabase as a copy
cataloging source, the copy cataloger matches the ma terial on hand to