National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging (NPAC): its Beginning, Progress, and Discontinuance
1991 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 78-87
Details
1991 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 78-87
NPAC was a program established under the Higher Education Act of 1965, Title II-C, under which the Library of Congress acquired, insofar as possible, all publications worldwide which are of value to scholarship, cataloged them promptly, and distributed their bibliographic records through printed catalog or other means. This program is also known as the Shared Cataloging Program. Shared Cataloging, however, originally meant only the cataloging phase of this highly integrated program.
This paper deals with the various aspects of NPAC and can be used as a self-contained guide on NPAC. How NPAC was implemented, developed, and discontinued is described on the basis of abundant literature. Especially the background of NPAC's implementation and its actual circumstances are discussed in detail.
There has appeared until now much literature mentioning NPAC's positive aspects (for example, it has influenced ISBDs and is compared to UBC as a prototype). This paper, in addition to this, introduces NPAC's negative aspects.
Finally the following points, which have barely been touched upon in the relevant Japanese literature, arw made clear:
1. Shared Cataloging techniques were invented by John W. Cronin.
2. Shared Cataloging was ended in 1982.
