Union Catalogs for Slavic Publications in American Libraries, 1931–1980

Abstract

This article traces the development of a union catalog for Slavic Cyrillic publications held by North American libraries. The Slavic Union Catalog, begun by the Library of Congress in 1931, went through several iterations and two micro-publications. It was conceived initially as a supplement to the National Union Catalog, but after World War II became a critical project for Slavic studies funded by the United States Air Force and the CIA. Such outside funding was critical to the development of the catalogs, for Library of Congress funding waxed and waned over the decades. During the Cold War era and before the advent of bibliographic databases, online catalogs, and the Internet, the Cyrillic Union Catalog and its supplement, the Slavic Cyrillic Union Catalog, were primary reference tools for Slavic scholars working in the United States, but they are used less often today. Included are the results of a usage survey in 2012 among Slavic librarians and a random sampling of both catalogs for overlap with WorldCat. The emphasis of this article is on tools for bibliographic control of monographs, not serials.