n. (abbr. NUCMC)nuck-mucka union catalog that provided descriptions of manuscript collections held by eligible archival repositories in the United StatesLand 1954, 206We at the Library [of Congress] have high hopes for the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, but we do not wish to overstate the case for it. We must avoid confusing proposals with accomplishments. Even if nothing more should come of our efforts than adoption of our rules by repositories, the Library will have made a contribution towards the creation of a union catalog of manuscript collections—by providing, as the first step, the means for nationwide uniformity in describing manuscripts.Berner 1964, 401This paper will appear to be addressed more directly to librarians than to archivists. That this is so stems in large part from the fact that the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections reflects the dominance of the librarian’s approach to manuscripts and archives.Berner 1964, 403The really serious drawback of the NUCMC is that it lends encouragement to the practice of individual item cataloging by reducing the information provided in the original data report sheets to the classic catalog card form meant for books.Schellenberg 1965b, 409The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, which is being produced under the aegis of the Library of Congress, may serve as a point of departure for discussing a method of developing a nationwide system of controlling documentary source material.Abraham 1977, 31Familiarly known as NUCMC, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections was devised to provide information to the researcher about the location and character of manuscript collections in repositories throughout the United States. . . . This realization of a dream of historians, archivists, manuscript curators, and librarians, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections had its beginnings with a grant of $200,000 from the Council on Library Resources in November 1958, and agreement by the Library of Congress to house the project. All of the earlier efforts to initiate a national register of manuscripts came to fruition.Burke 1997, 47–48NUCMC was to be a catalog of personal papers collections, not archival records if they were in the place where one would expect to find them. Therefore, the Michigan State University Archives, located at Michigan State University, would not be included because the archives were in a predictable location; but they would be included if they were in the Detroit Public Library or at the Bentley Historical Library. ¶ The purpose of NUCMC was to inform the public of the location of collections that are important for specific research. An additional goal was to bring together (through the index) collections relating to the same subject, person, or other common factor. The NUCMC index provides references to “hospitals,” the “Republican Party,” “The Breckenridge Family,” “Politics,” and many other subjects or topics. Institutions entered their collections in the catalog in order to attract researcher attention. ¶ In its volumes NUCMC compiled descriptions of 72,300 collections at 1,406 institutions. Each of the descriptions provides title, dates, size, source (provenance), form, occupation (of the collection subject), biographical information, and a brief analysis of the contents of the collection and key correspondents. The researcher can therefore use the indexes to locate not only specific collections by title, but also references to individuals, subjects, and topics within collections, and the repository where they are housed.Pitti 1997, 271In 1951, the same year that NHPRC began planning the directory, the Library of Congress began actively to plan the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC). NUCMC was intended to be for manuscripts and manuscript collections what the NUC was for printed works.Pitti 1997, 271The elimination of the NUCMC print publication in no way suggests that it is no longer important to build union catalogs to provide access to our intellectual and cultural resources. Instead, this change was the logical and prudent response to the realization that NUCMC’s objective would be better served by using powerful networked computer technology instead of print technology.Trace and Dillon 2012, 506By the early 1950s, the influence of the work of the National Archives can be seen in the Library of Congress’ adoption of the idea of the record group and their adaption of the preliminary inventory format to create short and full-length registers, neither of which, however, was fully integrated with the library’s existing card catalog (Berner 1983). Meanwhile, the utilization of traditional library-based bibliographic forms for the cataloging of manuscript material continued apace, as seen in the Library of Congress’ compilation of a national register for manuscript records, the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), and an associated cataloging code to describe this material.Wiedeman 2019a, 392The branching off of separate “superficial” systems like the NUCMC solved an immediate need by enabling cross-repository discovery, but as descriptive systems did not allow for data reuse or collection management by repositories, published guides typically sat completely apart from local descriptive systems.a program developed by the Library of Congress to oversee production of a union catalog for manuscript collectionsBorn 1960, 311–312In December 1958 the Council on Library Resources, Inc., made a grant of $200,000 to the Library of Congress for the establishment of the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections in order to provide for (a) gathering the essential data for such a catalog, (b) editing these data, (c) preparing catalog entries according to standard catalog rules, (d) printing catalog cards for the entries and furnishing each participating institution with the printed cards that cover its reported collections, and (e) assembling in the Library of Congress a national union catalog in dictionary form of all such collections.Armstrong 1969b, 298The 10th anniversary of the Library of Congress program for a National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections was observed on April 29 with a meeting of the 12-member advisory committee . . . ¶ . . . ¶ A staff was assembled in April 1959 under the guidance of Lester K. Born, now Head of the European Exchange Section in the Exchange and Gift Division; the first catalog cards were printed in June; and the first volume describing some 7,300 collections in 309 repositories was published in 1962.LoC 2002The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) is a free-of-charge cooperative cataloging program operated by the Library of Congress. On the basis of cataloging data supplied by eligible repositories, NUCMC catalogers create MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) bibliographic records in the RLG (Research Libraries Group) data base, a national-level database, describe collections held by participants, and establish pertinent name and subject authority headings. Descriptions and locations of the material are then available to researchers throughout the United States and around the world.Allison-Bunnell 2022, 557With a variety of technical and organizational models, initiatives such as the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), and a variety of state and regional library and cultural heritage collaborations became essential components in how we manage and provide access to both unique and commodity information resources over the course of the twentieth century.
Notes
The program began in 1959 under the guidance of Lester K. Born, with printed volumes of the catalog issued from 1962 to 1993. Beginning in 1986, the NUCMC records were also added to the Research Libraries Information Network. After OCLC acquired the RLIN data, in 2007 the NUCMC records were migrated to OCLC’s union catalog, WorldCat.
