The MARC Format and Electronic Reference Images: Experiences from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Since 1982, the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (P&P) has been recording selected collections in electronic form and cataloging them for reference access. ¹ The work began while the MARC format for Visual Materials was still being defined, but even the automated records for the first collections paralleled the MARC format data categories, and these early records are now being converted to the MARC format. Records for electronic image collections cataloged since 1988 are created directly in the MARC format in either the Library's central catalog (MUMS) or in a PC software (Minaret) and then combined in a single retrieval system. The electronic reference images began with videodiscs ² and are gradually being replaced with digital image files.