The University of Arizona
 

Cataloging Manual Introduction

Welcome to the Arizona State Museum Library's Best Practices and Policies Cataloging Manual. The purpose of this manual is to document the processes and local practices for cataloging documentary resources at the Arizona State Museum. The manual includes instructions and screen shots on how to catalog monographic materials and serials in the catalog and acquisition modules, references resources specific to our local cataloging processes and provides useful links to related resources. The manual is a how-to guide for use with a specific integrated library system, Voyager. It is not intended to teach all the rules of cataloging or how to perform subject analysis or classification.

Documentary resources at the Arizona State Museum are located in five departments: Library, Archives, AZSITE Records Office, Archaeological Repository, and the Office of Ethnohistorical Research (OER).  Each departments hold various types of documentary materials including, monographs (books), serials (journals), survey and research reports, letter reports, maps, electronic resources, and/or finding aids.  Most of this material is included in the Library's online catalog and accessible to the public.     

Cataloging of documentary resources is coordinated through the Library and is compliant with the following library industry standards and formats:

  • Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2)
  • MARC21 (MAchine Readable Cataloging)
  • OCLC Bibliographic Standards and Formats
  • Library of Congress Name Authority File (NAF)
  • Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
  • Library of Congress Classification (LCC)
  • Encoded Archival Description (EAD)
  • Describing Archives: A Content Standards (DACS)

In addition to the above national/international standards, we have adopted several local practices in order to provide our users with expanded searching capabilities. These practices are documented in this manual.