Oral history interview with Barbara E. Markuson [electronic resource], 1988.

Biographical Note

Librarian.

Scope and Contents

Association with Information Systems Office of Library of Congress [Library], 1961; early history of library automation: sense of urgency with beginning Machine Readable Cataloging [MARC] pilot program; origin, research, and implementation of MARC: fear of automation; low interest in standardization of data fields; growing control of technical staff over MARC project; poor integration of MARC project with operations of Library; MARC's overshadowing of automation on local levels of library systems; Library's use of conference format; questions of technical jargon in development of specifications for support programming; experimentation withy and analysis of data fields; recollections of contributors to MARC.

Subjects

• Cooperative cataloging.
• Fall, James E. interviewer.
• Information storage and retrieval systems.
• Interviews.
• Librarians--Interviews.
• Libraries--Automation.
• Library of Congress.
• MARC formats.
• Markuson, Barbara Evans--Interviews.
• Oral histories.
• Women librarians--Interviews.

Access Conditions

Copyright by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1991.