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CIP for children's materials
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From: Jane E Gilchrist <jegi>
Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 15:44:02 -0400
I am the head of the Children's Literature Cataloging team here at the Library of Congress and want to weigh in on the thread about CIP cataloging.
To address Julie Cummins original concern....The Library of Congress is not planning to eliminate the CIP information in children's books. We have temporarily stopped providing the Annotated Card Program treatment for nonfiction children's material but it is a temporary measure to help us manage our workload. Please note that fiction was not included in this temporary measure.
The good news is that we have eliminated the large backlog we had during the winter. By temporarily suspending Annotated Card Program (AC) treatment on nonfiction material on January 1, we were able to process the backlogged material (an accumulation of both fiction and nonfiction) and become current with the fiction material which continued to come to us during this period. We also have trained additional staff, talked to librarians attending the ALA midwinter meetings about their information needs, and looked at the kinds of material within the scope of the Annotated Card Program.
Please note that fiction items continued to receive full Library of Congress and full Annotated Card Program cataloging throughout this period. That meant that these records received full LC descriptive cataloging and subject analysis as required, an LC classification number, a Dewey number, array of AC headings, and a summary written by the children's literature catalogers.
Assigning just LC headings to nonfiction during this period really isn't a substitute for AC cataloging. When nonfiction children's literature is cataloged here at the Library of Congress, it routinely receives LC subject analysis (a.k.a. adult headings) because that's what is required for our own information needs. The AC treatment (the second set of headings and the summary) is an enhancement for a very special audience. LC has been doing this since the late 1960s and we are fully aware of its value in public and school libraries.
At this point we are awaiting the go-ahead to start adding AC treatment once again to nonfiction CIPs. We hope it will be soon.
As for the proposal to have publishers provide summaries, this will be tested on a very limited basis and not just on children's materials. For more information about this, I suggest you contact John Celli, the head of the CIPS Office .
Jane Gilchrist Team Leader, Children's Literature Team History and Literature Cataloging Division Library of Congress
phone: 202p7X15 fax: 202%2182 email: jegi at loc.gov
Received on Tue 04 May 2004 02:44:02 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 15:44:02 -0400
I am the head of the Children's Literature Cataloging team here at the Library of Congress and want to weigh in on the thread about CIP cataloging.
To address Julie Cummins original concern....The Library of Congress is not planning to eliminate the CIP information in children's books. We have temporarily stopped providing the Annotated Card Program treatment for nonfiction children's material but it is a temporary measure to help us manage our workload. Please note that fiction was not included in this temporary measure.
The good news is that we have eliminated the large backlog we had during the winter. By temporarily suspending Annotated Card Program (AC) treatment on nonfiction material on January 1, we were able to process the backlogged material (an accumulation of both fiction and nonfiction) and become current with the fiction material which continued to come to us during this period. We also have trained additional staff, talked to librarians attending the ALA midwinter meetings about their information needs, and looked at the kinds of material within the scope of the Annotated Card Program.
Please note that fiction items continued to receive full Library of Congress and full Annotated Card Program cataloging throughout this period. That meant that these records received full LC descriptive cataloging and subject analysis as required, an LC classification number, a Dewey number, array of AC headings, and a summary written by the children's literature catalogers.
Assigning just LC headings to nonfiction during this period really isn't a substitute for AC cataloging. When nonfiction children's literature is cataloged here at the Library of Congress, it routinely receives LC subject analysis (a.k.a. adult headings) because that's what is required for our own information needs. The AC treatment (the second set of headings and the summary) is an enhancement for a very special audience. LC has been doing this since the late 1960s and we are fully aware of its value in public and school libraries.
At this point we are awaiting the go-ahead to start adding AC treatment once again to nonfiction CIPs. We hope it will be soon.
As for the proposal to have publishers provide summaries, this will be tested on a very limited basis and not just on children's materials. For more information about this, I suggest you contact John Celli, the head of the CIPS Office .
Jane Gilchrist Team Leader, Children's Literature Team History and Literature Cataloging Division Library of Congress
phone: 202p7X15 fax: 202%2182 email: jegi at loc.gov
Received on Tue 04 May 2004 02:44:02 PM CDT
