Cataloging Services Department

From left to right, standing: Lowell Ashley, Margaret Sealor, Vicki Avera, and Tom Baker. Seated: Suzanne Pilsk, Carolyn Hamilton, Sherry Kelley, Diane Shaw, and Meg Brinkhuis

The online library catalog is the heart of the library and the basis for all other library services including development of the collections and reference services. It consists of catalog and authority records that are created following complex sets of rules. Searching the online catalog results in high user-satisfaction even though the searcher knows nothing about the cataloging rules. That is the job of the catalogers: to make and apply the rules that organize human knowledge. This is the romance of cataloging, and its challenge. Cataloging Services' task will always be continually to organize information so that searchers can find answers to questions they have asked, and, just as important, to questions they have not asked.

To this end, the Cataloging Services Department has created approximately 500,000 records for the 1.2 million items housed in the collections of the Libraries. Cataloging Services staff make it possible for users to find particular authors, works, or subjects and other related authors, works or subjects by their call numbers and locations in the various branch libraries. This simple task for the user has complex cataloging work behind it. For example, when searching for works by John Creasey, the user will be directed to his pseudonyms, Gordon Ashe, Michael Halliday, J.J. Marric, and others. Or, when looking for works about Ceylon, the searcher will be directed to Sri Lanka. The user may not know these variants and does not need to. The cataloger provides the information through catalog and authority records.

Department members create catalog records or adapt existing records in OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) and the online library catalog in SIRIS (Smithsonian Institution Research Information System). OCLC is the world's largest bibliographic database, serving 25,000 libraries in 63 countries. The department participates in NACO (Name Authority Cooperative Program), an international project with 213 participating libraries. Through NACO, catalogers create original authority records for inclusion in the national Name Authority File, providing important information about names of authors and their variants.

Cataloging Services

From left to right, standing: Nicholas Schliapin, Bess Missell (now in Systems Dept.), Amy Carlson, Sheila Riley, and Kelly Jones-Petska. Seated: Kent Boese, Marlee Grantham, Bev Johnson, Maureen Daley, and Regina Green.
A staff of 18, divided into Original Cataloging and Catalog Management sections, carry out the tasks of cataloging, database maintenance, and authority control. Lowell Ashley, Thomas Baker, Carolyn Hamilton, Margaret Brinkhuis (temporary), Suzanne Pilsk, Margaret Sealor and Diane Shaw are members of the Original Cataloging Section. The Catalog Management Section is headed by Sheila Riley. Section members are: Amy Carlson, Kent Boese, Maureen Daley, Marlee Grantham, Regina Green, Beverly Johnson, Kelley Jones-Petska and Nicholas Schliapin.

A number of cataloging services are performed externally by library contractors under the supervision of the department. Vicki Avera is the Cataloging Projects Manager for these and other special projects. Sherry Kelley is head of the department.

For more information about the Cataloging Services Department, please see our World Wide Web Home Page at: www.sil.si.edu/cathp.htm.

Sherry Kelley

Highlights

create 2,600 authority records annually
perform 4,000 database maintenance actions annually

Trade Literature Project

To date, Department and contract staff have created some 50,000 bibliographic records for these valuable materials used by historians and staff who curate museum collections. The Libraries' remarkable collection of 285,000 trade catalogs representing approximately 35,000 companies provide excellent primary source materials for the study of industrial development and social history.

African Art Indexing Project

Funded by the Getty Grant Program, 12,000 records of published information relating to African art have been added to OCLC and SIRIS as of September 1997. Additional project goals are to update the African art subject thesaurus and to create new subject headings for the Art and Architecture Thesaurus and the Library of Congress Subject Headings. The records in SIRIS are available electronically to an international audience.

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