Application of the corporate cataloguing technology for the retroconversion of card catalogues

Abstract

The corporate cataloguing technology has been widely used in Russian libraries to make bibliographic records (BR) of the electronic catalogue (EC). When selecting the proper sources of BR borrowings, many libraries have managed to reduce time and labor expenditures involved in making EC records. The paper provides examples of the most successful Russian corporate library information systems of the federal and regional level.At the same time, most libraries have not solved the problem of reflecting information about the entire library stock in EC, which negatively affects the quality of EC services for users. The experience of federal libraries in solving it is considered. The main described methods of retrospective conversion of card catalogues are: manual keyboard entry, scanning of catalogue cards, recognition of scanned cards, BR making, and records borrowing from authoritative sources.The purpose of this article is to study the effectiveness of using corporate cataloguing technology to perform retrospective conversion of card catalogues. To achieve this goal, the search for bibliographic records of documents published before 1991, and reflected in ECs of the Russian State Library (RSL) and the Russian National Library (RNL), in the LIBNET Corporate Cataloguing System (CCS), in the ARBICON resources and in the IRBIS-corporation was conducted in SPSTL SB RAS EC.Based on the search result, it has been determined that the most acceptable sources of records borrowing are the electronic catalogues of RSL, RSL and the LIBNET CCS. The advantages and disadvantages of using ready-to-use BRs from the aforementioned sources have been defined. It has been fixed that when choosing the source for borrowing while conducting catalogues retro-conversion, it is necessary to take into account the collection specifics, records compliance with the requirements of a concrete library, compatibility of automated library-information systems, readiness to pay for borrowing services, EC availability, and convenience of search.