Welcome to the ARL web page that describes the scope and content of a series of cooperative projects for creating more than 579,000 online records for monographic and serial preservation microform masters listed in the National Register of Microform Masters (NRMM).
The NRMM Master File, the largest single file of records for microform masters in the United States, consisted of reports for microform masters sent to the Library of Congress (LC) by more than 200 different libraries, historical societies, and publishers between 1965 and 1983. NRMM was published annually by LC until 1984 with one cumulation covering the years 1965 to 1975.
ARL and LC joined in 1986 with funding from National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and matching funds from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in the complex undertaking of creating machine-readable records of the NRMM reports.
With the exception of the initial project start-up, OCLC's Retrospective Conversion Department served as contractor for all project phases. The initial contractor, The Computer Company, was unable to meet project requirements, and ARL terminated the contract in June 1989. OCLC's Retrospective Conversion Department was selected as the project contractor in 1990.
The project was divided into six phases. The Computer Company converted 61,374 monographic reports during the first project phase. During the subsequent three project phases, OCLC's Retrospective Conversion Department processed 472,000 monographic reports. During the fifth project phase, ARL worked in partnership with LC, Harvard, and NYPL on the conversion of NRMM serial reports from these institutions. The three libraries reviewed their NRMM serial reports, verified the existence of the microfilm and provided summary holdings information. The project not only created 22,736 serial records for preservation masters, but also added almost 4,800 original records in the CONSER database. Also during the fifth project phase, all NRMM reports for musical scores were converted. During the final project phase, the contractor processed 12,953 reports in non-Roman languages as well as for 3,410 monographic reports.
In December 1997, ARL completed the final steps in the retrospective conversion of the NRMM. ARL returned reports that could not be processed to the holding institutions and discarded problem reports as well as reports that have already been converted. All online NRMM reports are now available on OCLC and RLIN and are accessible to the broadest possible community of national and international scholars.
For all libraries, the automation of the NRMM files improves access to preservation microfilm masters, ensures against duplication of microfilming and reduces bibliographic searching time and costs. It is no longer necessary to search in the printed, multi-volume NRMM. The online NRMM makes possible a one- step search, which dramatically reduces the amount of staff time needed for pre-filming searches. The danger of missing a record is also minimized since the machine-readable records are accessible by several access points.
Funding for the series projects to create machine-readable records for the NRMM was provided through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Division of Preservation and Access, as well as contributions by project participants. The initial NEH grant was supplemented by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Over the life of the NRMM Recon Project, NEH awarded ARL four grants totalling $2,182,653. NEH's extraordinary support has made possible the creation of online records for more than 1/2 million NRMM reports. The Library of Congress (LC) made substantial contributions through its technical assistance and performance of the quality review. LC contributed the staff for the quality review throughout the project. A critical component of the project's financial support has been OCLC's in-kind contributions that have substantially reduced the unit cost for creating machine-readable records for the NRMM. OCLC's subsidy on behalf of research libraries has exceeded $480,000.
As a result of the NRMM Recon Project more than 1/2 million online records for pre-1984 preservation microfilm masters are available. The NRMM machine-readable records were created according to national bibliographic guidelines for national and international distribution. With the exception of 61,374 titles (that were created by the Computer Company), all processed reports include the symbol RQM symbol in the 049 field. The processed NRMM reports represent:
With the exception of the 22,736 serial reports, availability of the master microfilm was not verified. For the serials all holdings have been validated as of 1996.
Several categories of reports were not converted. In most cases ARL sent reports to the holding libraries for inhouse processing. The Project did not process:
The section below provides additional information about NRMM reports not converted:
Serial NRMM reports except those prepared by Harvard University Libraries, New York Public Library (NYPL), and the Library of Congress (LC) are the largest category of NRMM reports that were not processed. The vast majority or about 75 percent of the approximately 30,000 unprocessed NRMM serials titles had been filmed by commercial micropublishers with about 17,600 titles filmed by University Microfilms. The remaining unprocessed serial titles were held by libraries, and ARL returned unconverted titles to libraries.
The second category of unprocessed reports is about 20,000 titles in microform sets prepared by commercial publishers. These titles had already been converted as part of long-standing efforts to provide online access to microform sets.
The third category is non-Roman reports. Only titles held by LC and NYPL have been processed. Since libraries differ in their cataloging policies concerning the handling on non-Roman characters and since in most cases the number of reports submitted by individual institutions was small, ARL has returned about 3,000 reports to the holding institutions for inhouse processing.
No reports in Chinese, Japanese or Korean (CJK) languages were processed. The NRMM files contained approximately 3,200 CJK reports. Since retrospective conversion of the CJK reports would have require a special contract as well as considerable adjustments in the project specifications, we have urged all holding institutions to process the reports inhouse. Fortunately, both the Library of Congress and Columbia University are currently in the midst of retrospective conversion projects of their East Asian holdings. Their CJK NRMM reports will be processed as a component of these efforts. All remaining CJK reports have been sent to the reporting institutions.
Also NRMM reports in the maps and manuscripts formats were excluded. Reports in these formats were not processed and were returned to the reporting library.
Finally, the NRMM Master File contained several thousand problem reports that OCLC flagged because the cards had illegible authors or titles or lacked one or more required data elements, such as collation, information about the film or the reporting symbol. About 1,500 reports have been returned to the holding libraries. However, we had to discard thousands of cards that lacked the reporting symbol.
The NRMM reports represented pre-ACRII cataloging. The contractor was responsible for producing records in accordance with the second edition of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules as interpreted by the Library of Congress. For monographic reports, the name and title access points in all converted records were verified in the OCLC Authority File and were upgraded to ACRII if found. However, the descriptive cataloging portion of the records followed the cataloging rules and conventions reflected in the cataloging on the NRMM report or the matching OCLC online record. The processed NRMM reports include the 533 Photoreproduction Note following the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations for microforms. Serial NRMM reports were substantially upgraded and followed CONSER guidelines.
The projects' initial bibliographical specifications were an important impetus for developing ARL's Guidelines for Bibliographic Records for Preservation Microform Masters in 1990. Since then the Guidelines have served as the project's bibliographic standards.
The Guidelines allow the application of retrospective conversion standards, but assure the inclusion of essential preservation data by defining the base level below which a preservation microform master record should not go. The ARL Guidelines were endorsed by the ALA Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) in 1992. They now serve as the de facto standard for bibliographic control of preservation microform masters, and NEH requires that catalog records conform to the Guidelines.
Special attention to quality control was a hallmark of this project. Following agreed-upon criteria, LC staff members reviewed a random sample of records in all batches prepared by OCLC. The number of records in a batch and the interval between batches was determined by LC, ARL, and OCLC. Overall accuracy was set a minimum of 94 per cent. Each project phase included an initial development period during which LC staff reviewed all records in each batch. For the production periods, the contract with OCLC specified that the entire batch of records would have to be redone, if the batch did not meet quality review accuracy requirements. ARL never had to invoke this clause.
The easiest way to identify the institution that holds the preservation microfilm master, is checking the 533 #c or 500 fields that will show the NUC symbol for the producer of the microform master. Consult the Symbols of American Libraries to identify the library or the vendor. Contact the producer to borrow a use copy or to purchase a copy. Please note that the RQM symbol in the O49 field merely identifies the records that have been processed under the auspices of this Project. ARL holds no copies of the films.
In some cases, copies of the preservation microfilm may be no longer available. The availability of the film was not verified prior to creating a machine-readable record. The exception are the 22,736 converted NRMM serial reports, held by Harvard University Library, LC, and New York Public Library. Staff at Harvard University Library, LC, and New York Public Library devoted many hours to validating the information for serial holdings and checking various "problem titles" to resolve holdings and/or bibliographic discrepancies. For the converted NRMM serials from these three institutions all holdings have been validated as of 1996.