Union Catalog(ue)s in Western Libraries
Kevin S. Hawkins
Terminology
Definitions adapted from the Online Dictionary
of Library and Information
Science (ODLIS) and other sources.
- library catalog
- describes bibliographic items. First we had card catalogs, then OPACs, then WebPACs. Since card catalogs and OPACs are almost extinct
in the West, we just use "library catalog" to refer to the online
graphical interface. Searching is free.
- union
catalog
- originally print publications (such as the National Union Catalog, pre-1956 Imprints),
often produced as
national bibliographies. Today, records from multiple libraries are
stored in a central location. Most union catalogs are
subscription-based.
- virtual
union catalog
- has one interface for searching multiple catalogs
at the same time using Z39.50 (ISO 23950)
or ZING.
Searching is free.
- index or abstracting
service
- a print publication providing access to articles or
other contents below the level of a bibliographic item
- bibliographic
database
- subject-based indexes in electronic format. They don't
use a MARC format. Might be freely available or subscription-based.
- metadatabase
- multiple bibliographic databases combined together, stored in a
central location. Subscription-based or freely available.
- federated searching / metasearching / cross-database search /
parallel search
- searching multiple bibliographic databases and maybe
also library catalogs at the same time. This is not quite the same as metasearching done
on the Web. Metasearch engines
are commerical web search engines that return results from multiple
regular search engines.
- cooperative
cataloging
- sharing MARC records through a bibliographic utility
to save on cataloging costs
- bibliographic
utility
- a service used by libraries to share records, or a computer
program for working with MARC records or bibliographic citations
An asterisk (*) indicates that a resource is not freely available
online.
There are a lot of resources resembling union catalogs. I group them into four categories, as shown below for Russia and the West.
In Russia
- Sometimes
one library that lets you search other libraries' catalogs at the
same time:
- But a real union catalog is independent of any particular library:
- Bibliographic utility
- Virtual union catalogs
In the West
Records created by Western libraries usually transliterate Cyrillic to the Latin script. The records might also have Cyrillic characters, but you should search in transliteration, omitting diacritical marks, for greater recall. For example, see
- Sometimes
one library that lets you search other libraries' catalogs at the
same time:
- Union catalogs
- *OCLC
FirstSearch -- This is actually a federated search service which
includes WorldCat, their union catalog. See the OCLC Online Computer
Library Center database
of
participating institutions. I have found many errors in their
WorldCat data, so it's best to verify results by checking libraries'
catalogs individually. Likewise, if you find no results, you should
check other catalogs.
- With the Open
WorldCat program, you can get abbreviated information for most
WorldCat records (for free!) when searching from one of their
partner's public sites. If you use Yahoo! or Google, you will
probably want to restrict your search to worldcatlibraries.org.
- *RLG
Union Catalog ("RLIN")
-- You can search this from within Eureka, RLG's federated search
service. See the Research Libraries Group
(RLG) list of
libraries. There might also be errors in RLIN data--I haven't used
it enough to know. RLIN is smaller than WorldCat, but its holdings are
more academic.
- Bibliographic utilities
- OCLC
- RLIN
- A-G Canada Ltd.
- Virtual union catalogs
Other lists of catalogs
There are many lists online.
Other useful free sources on library collections
