Converting the Card Catalogue of the National Library of South Africa, Cape Town Campus, into a Machine-Readable Format

Abstract

In 2006 the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Cape Town Campus, began a project to convert its substantial card catalogue to machine-readable form. The article gives an overview of the Library's collections and catalogue and describes the project methodology. Funding was secured from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and an in-house team appointed to begin the conversion. In order to meet project deadlines, the work of the in-house team was later supplemented by outsourcing the entry of records into the online catalogue. With the successful completion of the project, NLSA has been able to offer Internet access to many rare publications, whose whereabouts have previously been little known, and a significant contribution has been made to the bibliographic control of South African imprints. INTRODUCTIONDuring the 1980s, many libraries changed to online catalogues. Computerization of library catalogues was promoted by the development of the MARC format, the forming of bibliographic networks and the availability of bibliographic records created by vendors. Although many articles have been written about converting card catalogues, they are mainly case studies of specific projects. Libraries differ from each other in a number of respects and each library planning conversion will have to consider its own characteristics, collections, users, and so on, before embarking on this process. Considering reasons why decisions were made in libraries involved in conversion can, however, provide information about options and methods that can be implemented.