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Hennepin Reverts to Standard CatalogingThe Hennepin County Library in Minnetonka, Minnesota, announced March 5 that it was replacing its current catalog database with records that conform to standard Library of Congress subject headings. The decision has caused consternation among friends and supporters of former Head Cataloger Sanford Berman, whose work from 1973 to 1999 in creating HCL’s user-centered subject headings was praised in comments posted in the March 7 Library Juice. HCL Director Charles M. Brown said in making the announcement that some innovative features of the catalog, particularly “subject headings representing unique concepts, notes, etc.,” would be transferred into keyword-searchable fields. “This move is necessary because some of our past cataloging practices, regarding the selective use of cataloging standards, now severely limit our ability to use emerging technology,” Brown said. Berman told American Libraries he felt that “this is the natural culmination of the process that began almost three years ago by forcing me out of the system and one year later by destroying the bibliographic records of all works by me and removing a good number of the physical volumes as well.” Berman had submitted his resignation in April 1999, two months after receiving a reprimand from Brown for distributing a letter critical of the AACR2 cataloging rules. HCL estimates that the conversion would be completed in 6–9 months. The library plans to preserve the complete authority files from the current catalog in order to make them available to library archives and scholars. Posted March 11, 2002. |
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