UNION CATALOGUES AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY LENDING DIVISION

Abstract

Because of the concentration of inter/ending on the British Library Lending Division, union catalogues primarily play a supportive role in Britain. All union catalogues now held at the Lending Division have their origins in the National Central Library (NCL). The main one is the Union Catalogue of Books (UCB) which is an amalgamation of the NCL's Outlier Union Catalogue (OUC) and part of its National Union Catalogue (NUC). With the creation of the British Library Lending Division and its policy of acquiring all ‘worthwhile’ English language books it was decided that it would no longer be necessary to have a central author/title catalogue of recently published English language books. Only details of foreign language books and pre‐7972 English books are therefore now added to the catalogue. Other smaller catalogues used are: the combined regional ISBN list, the pre‐1801 Catalogue, the Conference Catalogue, the Government Publications Catalogue, and the Slavonic Union Catalogue. The Lending Division does not maintain a catalogue of serials, the British Union Catalogue of Periodicals (BUCOP) is used to locate titles or parts not in stock at the Division.