• General Bibliographies

• National Bibliographies

• Trade Bibliographies

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES

• You’ve already been using one with Balay’s Guide to Reference Books

• Any bibliography will typically provide--in some sort of arrangement--a listing of books or articles on a specific topic

• Some selective in nature--others will list anything and everything

BIBLIOGRAPHIES FOR THE LIBRARIAN

• Books for College Libraries an excellent guide published by the people who bring us Choice--Association of College and Research Libraries

• Now third edition (1988)--prev. eds. publ. in 1967 and 1975

• A “recommended core collection for undergraduate libraries” with 1000 students, 100 faculty, 10 fields of study

• Covers about 50,000 titles

BOOKS FOR COLLEGE LIBRARIES

• Six-volume set arranged by LC classification number--sort of

• Each volume devoted to broad discipline (Humanities, History, Social Sciences, etc.), then broken out by LC number

• No annotations; just basic cataloging info. No price or in-print status, either

SAMPLE ENTRY: BOOKS FOR COLLEGE LIBRARIES

• NA210-340 ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE • Badawy, Alexander. ?1.5215 • A history of Egyptian architecture.--Giza:

Studio Misr, 1954-. v. : ilus. (part col.), map, plans. Vols. 2-3 have imprint: Berkeley, University of California Press. 1. Architecture--Egypt--History. I. T.

• NA215.B3 LC a 55-4746

READER’S ADVISER

• Increasingly pricey work; now at some $500 for six volumes

• First published in 1921 as The Bookman’s Manual

• Good brief biographies and generally reliable listing of books with annotations

• Works listed should be in “modestly sized libraries”

READER’S ADVISER

• Thirteenth edition brought major revision: expanded to six volumes from previous three

• Volumes divided by discipline • Only in print titles are listed • CD-ROM version in Crown Lab; but

only one user at a time

PUBLIC LIBRARY CATALOG

• One of H. W. Wilson’s many similar collections, including Fiction Catalog, Children’s Catalog, etc.

• Lists nonfiction books published or distributed in U. S. that are in print

• Arranged by Dewey number • Latest compilation has some 7500 titles and 4000

analytical entries (such as short stories or plays within collections)

PUBLIC LIBRARY CATALOG

• Katz generally criticizes these “committee” sort of works, and somewhat justifiably

• Rather conservative in selection • Quotes from reviews provide most of the

annotations, though there are some other notes • Update cycle makes it more useful than most; a

large, bound volume followed by four annual supplements

REFERENCE SOURCES FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED

LIBRARIES

• Pretty much what title implies • If Balay’s price tag too large to swallow ($275),

try this source ($40) • Balay covers some 16,000 titles; this source,

about 1900 • Introductory material within each discipline

rather helpful • Annotations a bit more opinionated than Balay

AMERICAN REFERENCE BOOKS ANNUAL

• Attempts to review all reference books published in English within a given year; sole exception is encyclopedias or highly specialized works

• Probably the best first place to go for a quick review of a recently published reference work--taking into account its publication schedule

AMERICAN REFERENCE BOOKS ANNUAL

• ARBA will occasionally list other reviews of the work with date of review--though inconsistent with this

• In a given year, reviews the largest number of reference books by far when compared to journals like Choice or Library Journal

BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES

• Difficult concept for average patron to grasp • A listing of other bibliographies; a

bibliography that will tell you where other bibliographies exist

• Result: the source is “twice removed” from the original publication

• Really a good research practice: finding one good bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INDEX

• Typical H. W. Wilson-style index, but with a twist, in that it indexes bibliographies

• Covers both books as well as bibliographies that appear at the end of articles

• Article bibliographies must have at least fifty citations

NATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES

• There is no “universal bibliography”; a listing of everything published anywhere throughout time

• As Katz points out, we’re at least getting closer to a universal bibliography of things published today

• National bibliographies at least try to cover material within a country

NATIONAL UNION CATALOG

• Currently published on microfiche; which makes what was previously cumbersome to use in book form now downright ridiculously insane

• Contains holdings of Library of Congress plus some 1500 other libraries--hence title of UNION list

• Has author, title, subject indexes with a register number for full cataloging information

NATIONAL UNION CATALOG

• To find out where book actually is, must use Register of Additional Locations, which is arranged by LC number!

• To further confuse matters, the date a work winds up in NUC depends on when book was acquired by Library of Congress or another library--not its date of publication

NATIONAL UNION CATALOG--WHY USE IT

• ?• Maybe useful for non-Roman alphabets that

you’ve given up trying to search for on a computer or for titles that contain too many diacritical marks

• Useful for when you want to use insanity defense at a trial

• Basic Lesson: Use OCLC, FirstSearch, or other online utilities!

RETROSPECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHIES

• These are not on syllabus and you don’t have to know them!

• Sabin’s Bibliotheca Americana started publication in 1868 and included books pertaining to and published in the United States; completed in 1936

• Problem: he included books up to the date of publication of the volume he was working on; uneven coverage resulted; generally 1500 - 1892

RETROSPECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHIES

• Evan’s American Bibliography is chronologically arranged from 1639 imprints until 1800; publ. 1903-59

• Relied on many secondary sources; resulted in ghost entries; critics say one entry in ten never existed or had serious errors

• Later picked up by Shaw & Shoemaker’s American Bibliography

CUMULATIVE BOOK INDEX

• One of the more reliable bibliographies; published since 1898

• Covers books published in English regardless of country of origin; in reality, non-U. S. books are more of a selection than anything else

• Remains somewhat useful for its subject access to older books and what they originally cost; though FirstSearch all but replaces former use

NATIONAL UNION CATALOG, PRE-1956

IMPRINTS• Date reflects when National Union Catalog (print

version) started incorporating other libraries’ holdings

• Popularly called Mansell, after the British publisher who undertook the task in 1967; they had earlier practice with British Museum General Catalog of Printed Books

• Not simply photocopying the entries of the LC’s catalog--many duplicate entries weeded out

NATIONAL UNION CATALOG, PRE-1956

IMPRINTS

• Biggest problem was weeding out works with slightly different collation or imprint

• Main sequence editing ended in June 1979 at volume 685; editors came across 3.25 million more cards in process

• Wound up publishing 69-volume Supplement • As a whole, 12.5 million entries in 700 libraries

NATIONAL UNION CATALOG, PRE-1956

IMPRINTS

• Arrangement is by main entry; generally, this means author’s last name

• Now available on microfiche moderately priced---at $11,500

OCLC

• Started in 1966 as Ohio College Library Center, with the hiring of medical librarian Frederick G. Kilgour

• Objective: making resources of participating libraries available to others, as well as reducing cataloging costs on a per-unit basis

FIRST OFFLINE

• Initially an offline system up August 1970 with libraries sending IBM cards to a central processor and getting catalog cards back in 2 weeks; first included on Library of Congress records

• October 18, 1971 marked beginning of member library input when LC records not present

• Total system: 54 Ohio libraries

OCLC GROWS

• In 1973, OCLC decided to let non-Ohio libraries in, and also asked that libraries cluster into groups so that OCLC could deal with libraries on an organizational level rather than an individual level

• Result: organizations such as ILLINET

GROWTH BY THE MILLIONS

• Service hit the million record mark in 1974 and has kept growing since

• In December 1977, name changed to OCLC, Inc. (Online Computer Library Center), and non-Ohio libraries granted a say in governance

• In 1979, Interlibrary Loan (ILL) subsystem up and running

NOT JUST LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

• National Library of Medicine records tapeloaded in 1979; British Library in 1985; National Library of Canada in 1987

• Library of Congress name authority files added in 1983; subject authority files in 1987

BUT, LC IMPORTANT

• Primary source of cataloging material remains the MARC tapes from Library of Congress

• Library of Congress initiated Machine Readable Cataloging in mid-1960s and began MARC Distribution Services in 1969

• Anyone can take a MARC tape and load it--just requires some programming of a “front end”!

SOME OCLC PROBLEMS

• Had one of the largest bibliographic databases in the world, but no really easy way to search the system--particularly for non-catalogers

• Reference librarians forced to learn cumbersome command language

OTHER EARLY OCLC PROBLEMS

• There was absolutely, positively no subject access; as primarily a cataloging system, assumed you hand book in hand and were ready to catalog it

• Was down on Sundays • So-called “dirty database” courtesy of

user-contributed records

THOSE WONDERFUL DERIVED SEARCH KEYS

• TITLE SEARCH 3,2,2,1 • Hunt for Red October hun,fo,re,o • Powershift pow,,, • AUTHOR SEARCH 4,3,1 • Gore Vidal vida,gor, • AUTHOR/TITLE SEARCH 4,4 • Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy clan,hunt • With every search followed by pressing the F 11 key!

REVAMPING OCLC

• Talks started as early as 1983 to revamp the system

• New telecommunications network, easier editing of records, etc.

• One major new addition: OCLC Reference Services, with launch of EPIC service in January 1990--which finally provided subject access to OLUC (Online Union Catalog), although as a separate service

PRISM SERVICE

• Launched after testing on November 12, 1990 at Ohio University

• Improved searching/editing plus new PASSPORT software

• Major enhancement: Ability to BROWSE by title with the

• SCA TI command • KEYWORD searching finally introduced April

1993; subject field finally searchable!!!!

END-USER STILL LEFT OUT

• All of the above did little to help the end-user

• World’s largest database still unsearchable in 1990 without a subscription to the EPIC service; at a time other libraries had online catalogs up and running

• Solution: FirstSearch

FIRSTSEARCH

• Launched in October 1991 with six databases, including WorldCat

• Designed with end-user in mind • Web version introduced two years ago • Has proven so successful that EPIC service is

now dead • State of Illinois grant gives libraries free use for

some databases

USING FIRSTSEARCH

• Purchased in “pay as you go” per search or single payment (flat fee pricing)

• Web version allows both user-friendly, menu-driven interface, though without ability have very complex searches

POWERFUL COMMAND LANGUAGE FOR END-USER SYSTEM

• All three boolean operators used

• W and N proximity operators used; but numbers used in opposite place from DIALOG!

• information n2 science

• library w2 science

OTHER FEATURES

• Browse Index feature allows you to check a word- or phrase-indexed field, selecting a term from an alphabetically-arranged listing

• History feature allows you to look at all existing sets and combine them with AND, OR, or NOT

• Results listing offers a RELATED SUBJECTS option

TRADE BIBLIOGRAPHIES

• Designed to allow the book trade (booksellers, librarians, etc.) know what is coming out or has been recently released

• Usefulness greatly diminished by automation

AMERICAN BOOK PUBLISHING RECORD

• Monthly with annual cumulation • Arranged in Dewey Decimal number order;

gives cataloging record of all books issued that month/year

• Also appears as Weekly Record, only arranged by main entry

• Covers titles published in U. S. or distributed in U. S.

THE BOOKS IN PRINT FAMILY

• Books in Print

• Books in Print PLUS [CD-ROM version]

• Publishers Trade List Annual

PUBLISHER’S TRADE LIST ANNUAL

• Has gone “Jenny Craig” over the years--much slimmer than in previous years

• Originally some four volumes; now down to one or two

• Contains reproductions of catalogs from publishers

• Publishers pay to be included--thanks to Web, fewer elect to

BOOKS IN PRINT

• Gathers information submitted by publishers of what’s in print--if there’s a mistake, it’s often the publishers’ fault

• Comes out once a year; usually in October • Sets of volumes arranged by author and again

by title • Separate subscription for Subject Guide to

Books in Print

BOOKS IN PRINT

• Publishes Books in Print Supplement in March • Forthcoming Books in Print published

bimonthly and lists what’s due to come out; it’s safe to throw away older copies of FBIP

• A true trade bibliography--though obviously a necessity in libraries

BOOKS IN PRINT INFO

• Latest set contains: – 1,350,190 active titles – 57,600 U. S. publishers

• So-called BowkerPower database allows publishers to submit information directly to Bowker

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED?

• Books not published/distributed in U.S.

• Freebies

• Music manuscripts, librettos, etc.

• Books distributed to members of an organization

• Sacred works and various Bible editions

BOOKS IN PRINT PLUS

• CD-ROM version comes in two flavors: WITH REVIEWS and without

• When originally released in its DOS version it was the first “killer app” for libraries--a compelling reason to invest in the growing CD-ROM technology

• Monthly updates means it’s more up to date than even Forthcoming--which it incorporates

BOOKS IN PRINT PLUS WITH REVIEWS

• Features full-text reviews from twelve journals--many published by Bowker, such as Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal.

• Also includes ALA journals Booklist and Choice

• Have varying retrospective dates, depending on journal. Oldest is 1985.

BOOKS IN PRINT PLUS WITH REVIEWS

• Latest update claims some 290,000 reviews

• Given coverage, not every book is going to have a review!

• No substitute for something like Book Review Digest or Book Review Index--but certainly a user-friendly start