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The following article reviewing history of JACKPHY cataloging at LC that
appeared in _LCCN_, v. 15, no. 3 (Oct. 2007) might be of some interest to
Eastlib subscribers.
Hideyuki Morimoto
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> LC CATALOGING NEWSLINE
> Online Newsletter of Bibliographic Access
> Library of Congress
> Volume 15, no. 3 ISSN 1066-8829 October 2007
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> FROM RLIN TO LC ILS FOR MIDDLE EASTERN AND EAST ASIAN LANGUAGE
> CATALOGING
>
> On Aug. 27, 2007, the Library of Congress completed its
> project to implement online cataloging of materials in Arabic,
> Hebrew, Persian, and East Asian languages and scripts directly in
> its own integrated library management system, the LC ILS. Staff of
> the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division and the
> African/Asian Acquisitions & Overseas Operations Division now
> create catalog records for materials published in the "JACKPHY"
> languages (Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Hebrew, and
> Yiddish) online in the LC ILS. Users can search and retrieve
> JACKPHY-language records using either romanized or original script
> search terms and may use defined searches or keyword searching.
> This improvement delivers easier, timelier access to a significant
> part of the Library of Congress collections: in fiscal 2006, ten
> percent of LC's total cataloging of new books was for JACKPHY
> languages.
>
> The Library provided cataloging in machine-readable form for
> JACKPHY materials for more than twenty years through collaboration
> with RLG, the former Research Libraries Group. Because the Library
> of Congress's legacy cataloging system (MUMS, the Multiple Use MARC
> System) could accept and display only the roman script, Library of
> Congress cataloging and information technology staff worked with
> RLG from 1979 to 1983 to develop a cataloging capability for
> nonroman scripts in RLG's bibliographic utility, RLIN. An LC
> cataloger created the first online JACKPHY catalog record--
> consisting of a romanized full record in the machine-readable
> catalog for a Chinese title and a corresponding catalog card with
> both romanized and original characters--in June 1983. The record
> was not completed in the RLIN utility until September of that year.
> Even after the Library of Congress implemented its integrated
> library system in 1999, online cataloging of JACKPHY script
> materials involved a complicated workflow in which LC cataloging
> staff created catalog records with both original-script and
> romanized characters in RLIN, and LC information technology staff
> imported those records into the LC catalog the next day. The
> original-script characters in the records could not be viewed in
> the Library of Congress Catalog.
>
> Two milestones paved the way for the transition to cataloging
> of JACKPHY materials directly in the LC ILS. First, in November
> 2005, the Library completed an upgrade to the LC ILS that for the
> first time enabled library users to view records containing East
> Asian, Arabic, and Hebrew characters in the LC online catalog in
> the original scripts. The upgrade converted the LC database of
> bibliographic information to Unicode, a character encoding standard
> designed to support the interchange and display of all modern
> languages and scripts. In upgrading to the Voyager with Unicode
> software (the commercial software from Ex Libris Group that the
> Library uses for its integrated library management system), the
> Library migrated 13,807,655 bibliographic records, 15,031,357 MARC
> holdings records, and 6,858,768 authority records to the newly
> Unicode-compliant system. Users were thus able to search and
> display Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Persian, and
> Yiddish characters and scripts in the Library of Congress online
> catalog, but staff still did not create or update JACKPHY records
> in LC's local system. Second, in May 2006, RLG merged into OCLC,
> Inc., to form a single bibliographic utility. OCLC, Inc.,
> announced that it would close the RLIN utility on Aug. 31, 2007.
> This change necessitated a transition for JACKPHY cataloging from
> RLIN to either the LC ILS or OCLC WorldCat. The Library of
> Congress Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate
> conducted comparison tests of cataloging in the two systems and
> concluded that JACKPHY cataloging in the LC ILS was more efficient
> and offered timelier service to catalog users. After close
> consultations with OCLC, the Library's cooperative cataloging
> partner institutions, the Council on East Asian Libraries, and LC's
> reference units, in July the Library announced its decision to
> implement JACKPHY cataloging in the LC ILS for monographs (books,
> microforms, and electronic resources). Cataloging of serials in
> the JACKPHY languages continues to be performed in OCLC because the
> latter is the database of record for CONSER, the Cooperative Online
> Serials program, which the Library of Congress supports through
> cataloging, training, and administrative oversight.
>
> In preparation for the move of JACKPHY cataloging from RLIN to
> the LC ILS, the Library's information technology staff updated all
> staff workstations. The LC Integrated Library System Program
> Office has developed a software application, "Transliterator," that
> automatically pairs romanized character strings with their
> original-script counterparts. The Transliterator program also
> automatically renders romanized Hebrew into the original script,
> greatly reducing the labor needed to upgrade older records that
> contain only romanized character strings. The current version of
> Transliterator also renders original Chinese characters into their
> romanized equivalents. The Library of Congress continues its
> efforts to improve service to users of JACKPHY catalog records, and
> welcomes comments and suggestions for improvement from end users
> and other libraries. Comments may be emailed to Beacher Wiggins,
> director for acquisitions and bibliographic access, at
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
>
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> All materials in the newsletter are in the public domain and may be
> reproduced, reprinted, and/or redistributed as desired. Citation
> of the source is requested.
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