n. (abbr. NUC)a union catalog of books held by libraries in the United StatesLand 1954, 196The Library’s representative on the joint committee on September 17, 1951, wrote the chairman a letter in which he proposed the establishment of a national register of historical manuscripts in the Library of Congress as a subsidiary of the National Union Catalog through two steps [referring to the later development of the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections]. The first was the formulation of rules for cataloging collections of manuscripts, and the second was the printing of Library of Congress cards for manuscript collections, prepared from copy supplied by the Library and by other depositories.Nelson 1969, 289Archive Text paper used for National Union Catalog is made with specially refined wood pulp, contains a calcium carbonate filler to resist acidity, and is sized with Aquapel.Nelson 1970b, 427A statistical sampling of the National Union Catalog at the Library of Congress by the Research Triangle Institute indicates that over 7½ million titles have been published since 1870, and that these include over 1½ billion pages.Pitti 1997, 270In 1909 the Library of Congress began a catalog card exchange arrangement with several major libraries. . . . This was the first tentative step toward what would eventually become the National Union Catalog. Other libraries joined the effort, and by 1926, the Library of Congress had compiled a file of nearly two million cards. In 1948 the file was officially named the National Union Catalog (NUC), and the libraries that had been only selectively reporting acquisitions were asked to report comprehensively.
Notes
The Library of Congress issued the catalog in two series: pre-1956 imprints, which began publication in the 1950s, and post-1955 volumes, which continue to be published annually.
