Cataloging and Classification/Links

Essential Cataloging Links edit

General

Cataloging Ethics Finalizing the last draft in January 2021, the Cataloging Ethics Steering Committee released a statement of ethical principles for catalogers. The site provides the principles as well as the list of committee members and updates.
Cataloging Lab For catalogers who want to experiment with and propose new subject headings of classification systems, Cataloging Lab provides the space for collaboration and discussion among fellow librarians.
AUTOCAT is the ultimate cataloging listserv. It's very active; if you have a question about cataloging, it's almost certainly either answered in the list's archives, or answerable by one of the experienced catalogers on the list.

Library of Congress

Library of Congress Authorities is a searchable database of LC's Subject, Name (personal, corporate, and geographic), and Title Authority Records. This is the place to find the authorized versions of names and scope notes for subjects.
Library of Congress Cutter Table for LC cutters, not to be confused with...

Dewey Decimal

OCLC's Dewey Cutter Program, for both Cutter and Cutter-Sanborn four-figure tables. The download is free, but is only available for Windows computers. It can be run on Linux with the Wine Windows Emulator.
WebDewey With an account, catalogers can look up every Dewey Decimal number and table.

RDA/MARC

OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards includes a number of standards, most importantly about the usage of each MARC field. Never heard of a 258 field? Want to know what 1st indicator 3 in a 100 field means? Want to see an example 300? Look no further
- Input Standards for Fixed-Field Elements and 006 Not sure what to do with digit 20 in a 008 field? Not sure what a DtSt is, and what its possible values mean?This is the place to find out.
Ending Punctuation for Variable Fields You're at the end of a 246, and you're not sure whether to end with a period, a dash, and exclamation point... This handy reference won't necessarily explain the reasons behind a particular punctuation, but will tell you which to use.

Source of Title Note for Internet Resources For anyone cataloging web pages, this is the definitive guide to establishing title information for Internet resources.

Map and Atlas Cataloging from Cooperative Computer Services, a Chicago-area consortium

ALA-LC Romanization Tables The definitive tables to use for cataloging materials in non-Latin scripts.
- Library of Congress Transliteration Tables for Cyrillic Alphabets Specifically for Slavic catalogers. The LC tables with some added features: divergences from Russian transliteration are clearly marked, and helpful references are added.