SHEFC NFF Project

Following the recommendations of the Follett Report of 1993, funding from SHEFC became available for projects to enhance access to specialised research collections in the humanities. The following project to convert catalogues to machine readable has now been completed successfully at Glasgow University Library.

Conversion of Catalogues to Machine Readable Form

This programme is part of our wider Library strategy of increasing access to our holdings so as ensure maximum use of the intellectual and cultural heritage in our care. Working from printed and typewritten shelf registers the project concentrated primarily on the rich resources of the Special Collections Department. Bibliographic records of thousands of our older printed holdings are now accessible via the Library’s OPAC, and all of our catalogue of manuscripts is now searchable via the World Wide Web. Remote users can now access information about our holdings directly, without having first to visit or write speculative letters.

The Cataloguing Project fell into four sections:

• Conversion of existing hardcopy records for printed books
• Cataloguing of previously uncatalogued early printed books
• Conversion of existing hardcopy records for manuscripts
• Cataloguing of previously uncatalogued manuscripts.

Newly catalogued books were entered directly into the Library’s Innopac database. For conversion of printed book records most were keyed from 19th and 20th century shelf register copies of the full catalogue entries, referring to the actual volumes only when specific problems have been encountered. Some were keyed directly into Innopac. For others a Microsoft Access database was employed. This was subsequently run against a Visual Basic programme to produce text files with MARC tags and other default values appropriate to the collection. These files were then read into Innopac, the speed of this operation against direct entry more than compensating for the slight loss of flexibility in detail.

All records for manuscripts were keyed into a separate Access database. From this a publicly available Web-browsable version was created in Coldfusion (http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/). This allows integrated searching of ISAD(G) compliant collection and item level records by name, date, keyword, call number, with limits by language and document type.

The following collections and all previously catalogued miscellaneous manuscripts are among those now dealt with. Most are described in the online guide to the collections:

Bannerman Papers * Beaconsfield Club (Paisley) Papers * James Bissett Collection * Maurice Broady Collection * Thomas Campbell Papers * George Chalmers Papers * Thomas Chalmers Papers * Civil and Canon Law Collection * William Cullen Papers * Learmont Drysdale Collection * John Eadie Collection (pre-1820 material) * William Euing Collection * Henry George Farmer Papers * French Caricatures * John Walter Gregory Papers (on 1910 Glasgow Earthquake) * William Hamilton Collection * James Findlay Hendry Papers * Charles A. Hepburn Collection * Hunterian Collection * Hunterian Museum Records * August Hyllested Collection * J.S.C. Collection * Kelvin Papers * Jessie Marion King Papers - Frederic Lamond Collection * James Laver Papers - Christina Hunter Lawson Papers * Dugald Sutherland MacColl Papers * Hamish MacCunn Collection * John Blackwood McEwen Collection * Alec Lawrence Macfie Papers * James Mearns Papers * James Moffatt Papers * William Beatton Moonie Collection * David Murray Papers * George Neilson Papers * James Dean Ogilvie Collection * Old Library * Hugh Roberton Collection * D.S. Robertson Manuscripts * Alexander Robertson Collection * William Robert Scott Papers * Robert Simson Collection - John James Spencer Collection * John Stirling Letters - William Stirling Maxwell Collection * Peter Donald Thomson Papers * Constantin von Tischendorf Collection * Traquair Collection * Trinity College Library (ongoing) * Trotsky Collection * John Veitch Collection * John White Papers * William Gillies Whittaker Collection * Harold Wright Papers * Robert Wylie Collection * Zavertal Collection

(David Murray books, Printed Ephemera and Whistler Archive already keyed under separate funding.)

While the SHEFC project has now finished, work is ongoing in the Department to complete cataloguing as resources permit.