:: :: University of Virginia Library

For an argument for archival standardization see Lydia Lucas, "Efficient Finding Aids: Developing a System for Control of Archives and Manuscripts," American Archivist 44 (1981):24-25. The movement for a national data base of manuscript holdings began with the formation in 1977 of the National Information Systems Task Force. See Richard H. Lytle, "A National Information System for Archives and Manuscript Collections," American Archivist 43 (1980):423-426 and idem, "An Analysis of the Work of the National Information System Task Force," American Archivist 47 (Fall 1984):357-365.

[3]

Anne Jamieson Price, The Use of Computers in Humanities Research (Washington, D.C.: The Office of Scholarly Communication and Technology, 1986), 19-20; for an account of the early discussion of common data bases for editorial projects, see the account of the general discussion following the final session of "Modern Technology and Historical Editing: National Historical Publications and Records Commission Word Processing Conference" (held in May 1981 in Philadelphia) presented in Kathleen Waldenfels, "'Goodbye Gutenberg,'" Newsletter of the Association for Documentary Editing 3 (1981):1-2. The DEST Handset Scanner, for example can read documents letter by letter into different fields of a data base, thus permitting selective entry of information on the page instead of reading a whole page into a text file.

[4]

The Emma Goldman Papers, at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California at Berkeley, has been in existence since 1980 under the directorship of Dr. Candace Falk. With grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and several private foundations, the Goldman Papers will publish with Chadwyck-Healey, Inc. a comprehensive microfilm edition and four-volume index and guide of Goldman's writings and correspondence as well as government documents pertaining to her.

[5]

Michael Gorman and Paul W. Winkler, eds. Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed. (American Library Association, 1978); Seymour Lubetzky and C. Sumner Spalding, Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (American Library Association, 1967).

[6]

For a wide range of examples of AACR2 formatting, see Florence A. Salinger and Eileen Zagon, Notes for Catalogers: A Sourcebook for Use with AACR2 (White Plains, N.Y.: Knowledge Industry Publications, Inc., 1985). A useful, systematic approach to formatting can be found in Malcolm Shaw and others, Using AACR2: A Diagrammatic Approach (Phoenix: The Oryx Press, 1981).

[7]

For an excellent overview of the problems faced by many institutions which attempted

to adopt AACR2, see Judith Hopkins and John A. Edens, eds., Research Libraries and Their Implementation of AACR2 (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1986).

[8]

Three articles appeared in American Archivist 49 (1986) which serve as an excellent introduction to MARC AMC: Nancy Sahli, "Interpretation and Application of the AMC Format" (9-20); Katharine D. Morton, "The Marc Formats: An Overview" (21-30); and Steven L. Hensen, "The Use of Standards in the Application of the AMC Format" (31-40).

[9]

According to a survey of 261 repositories conducted by the Society of American Archivists in 1987, a full 37% of archivists say that they do not plan to use MARC AMC. See Lisa B. Weber, "Automation Survey Results," SAA Newsletter (September 1987):4-5.

[10]

Ronald J. Zboray, "dBASE III Plus and the MARC AMC Format: Problems and Possibilities," American Archivist 50 (1987):210-226.

[11]

MicroMARC:amc (Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections).

[12]

Library of Congress, Authorities: A MARC Format (Library of Congress, Processing Services, 1981); Update no. 1, June 1983 and Update no. 2, June 1986. For important back-ground reading on authority work, see: Robert H. Burger, Authority Work (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1985); James R. Dwyer, "The Road to Access and the Road to Entropy," Library Journal 112:14 (September 1, 1987):131-136; Mary W. Ghikas, ed. Authority Control: The Key to Tomorrow's Catalog: Proceedings of the 1979 Library and Information Technology Association Institutes (Phoenix, Az.: Oryx Press, 1982); Lorene E. Ludy and Sally A. Rogers, "Authority Control in the Online Environment," Information Technology and Libraries 3 (September 1984):262-266; Dan Miller, "Authority Control in the Retrospective Conversion Process," Information Technology and Libraries 3 (September 1984): 298-292; Arlene G. Taylor, "Authority Files in Online Catalogs: An Investigation of their Value," Cataloging and Classification Quarterly 4 (Spring 1984):1-17; Catherine M. Thomas, "Authority Control in Manual versus Online Catalogs: An Examination of 'See' References," Information Technology and Libraries 3 (December 1984):393-398; Mark R. Watson and Arlene G. Taylor, "Implications of Current Reference Structures for Authority Work in Online Environments," Information Technology and Libraries 6 (March 1987):10-19.

[13]

Lucia J. Rather, "Authority Systems at the Library of Congress," in Ghikas, Authority Control, 158; Lawrence F. Buckland, The Role of the Library of Congress in the Evolving National Network: A Study Commissioned by the Library of Congress Network (Library of Congress, 1978).

[14]

Sally McCallum, "Evolution of Authority Control for a National Network," in Ghikas, Authority Control, 57-58.

[15]

The guide most documentary editors consult for indexing has long been Sina Spiker, Indexing Your Book: A Practical Guide for Authors (University of Wisconsin Press, 1954). Though it offers sound general advice, it hardly serves as a how-to manual for subject assigning in an age of electronic information retrieval. For an overview of how subtle the field of indexing has become see the journal, The Indexer; sample articles can be found in Leonard Montague Harrod's excellent Indexers on Indexing: a selection of articles published in the Indexer (R. R. Bowker Co., 1978). Other starting points for indexing include: G. Norman Knight, The Art of Indexing: a Guide to the Indexing of Books and Periodicals (London; Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1979); Jennifer E. Rowley, Abstracting and Indexing (London: Clive Bingley, 1982); Donald B. Cleveland and Ana D. Cleveland, Introduction to Indexing and Abstracting (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1983); Jessica L. Milstead, Subject Access Systems: Alternatives in Design (Orlando: Academic Press, 1984); K. G. B. Bakewell, Classification and Indexing Practice (London: C. Bingley; Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1978); Harold Borko and Charles L. Bernier, Indexing Concepts and Methods (New York: Academic Press, c1978); Timothy C. Craven, String Indexing (Orlando: Academic Press, 1986); Everett H. Brenner and Tefko Saracevic, Indexing and Searching in Perspective (Philadeophia: National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services, c1985).

[16]

For example, the index of Samuel Sewall, The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729, M. Halsey Thomas, ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973) does not list all occurrences of the word "beer" in the text.

[17]

For understanding the process of constructing thesauri, see: Helen M. Townley and

Ralph D. Gee, Thesaurus-making: Grow Your Own Word-Stock (London: Deutsch; Boulder, Co: distributed by Westview Press, 1980); Alan Gilchrist, The Thesaurus in Retrieval (London: Aslib, 1971); Maxine MacCafferty, Thesauri and Thesauri Construction (London: Aslib, c1977); and F. W. Lancaster, Vocabulary Control for Information Retrieval, 2nd ed. (Arlington, Va.: Information Resources Press, 1986).

[18]

Educational Resources Information Center, Thesaurus of ERIC descriptors, 10th ed. (Phoenix, Az: Oryx Press, 1984). The newest edition of the Library of Congress's Subject Headings, now in three enormous volumes, does attempt to incorporate headings in a format more like a traditional thesaurus, although it still has a great many problems with "natural" language references.

[19]

See Joan K. Marshall, On Equal Terms: A Thesaurus for Non-Sexist Indexing and Cataloging (New York: Neal-Schuman, 1977) and Mary Ellen S. Capek, A Women's Thesaurus: An Index of Language Used to Describe and Locate Information By and About Women (Harper and Row, 1987). For the vast literature on LCSH's problems, see Pauline Atherton Cochrane, Critical Views of LCSH—the Library of Congress Subject Headings: A Bibliographic and Bibliometric Essay; An Analysis of Vocabulary (Syracuse: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Resources, Syracuse University, 1981).

[20]

For a further discussion of the Goldman Papers indexing system (based upon an earlier data entry program), see Ronald J. Zboray, "Microfilm Editions of Personal Papers and Microcomputers: Indexing the Emma Goldman Papers," International Journal of Micrographics and Video Technology 5 (1986):213-221. Editors wishing to draw upon thesauri other than LCSH should consult: Carol A. Mandel, Multiple Thesauri in Online Library Bibliographic Systems: A Report Prepared for Library of Congress Processing Services (Library of Congress, 1987).