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NUCMC, (National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections) Library of Congress
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Participation in the NUCMC Program

To be eligible to participate in the NUCMC program, your repository and collections must meet the criteria outlined below. Once you are determined eligible, NUCMC catalogers will produce bibliographic records in OCLC WorldCat and associated authority records for your collections, based on data sheets that you provide to us.

Eligible Repositories

You can qualify for participation in the NUCMC program, if you are an archival repository:

  • located in the United States or its territories
  • open on a regular basis to researchers
  • unable to contribute national-level cataloging to OCLC WorldCat

Eligible Collections

NUCMC catalogs material on all subjects, in all languages, and regardless of place of origin or date of creation. However, repositories with collections consisting entirely of medieval manuscripts (that were predecessors of books) are not eligible.

In addition to these general benchmarks, collections eligible for NUCMC must meet one or more of the following conditions:

  • Archives are eligible, provided that they are regularly available to the public
  • Copies of manuscripts consisting entirely of handwritten, typewritten, or photoreproduced copies of manuscripts are eligible, provided that the originals are:
    - in private hands, or
    - located in more than one public repository, or
    - located in a repository outside the United States, or
    - located in the archives of an institution ineligible for the NUCMC program, or
    - located in more than one collection within a single U.S. repository
  • Oral history records consisting of tapes and/or transcripts of interviews are eligible.
  • Non-textual collections may or may not be eligible. Please contact the NUCMC Team for more information concerning the eligibility of these special collections.

Additions to collections already cataloged by NUCMC may be submitted at any time. Such additions could include a URL (uniform resource locator) linking the catalog record to a finding aid on the World Wide Web.

General Definitions

The following terms, as defined below, are used to further describe the types of material that are to be considered in determining eligibility for NUCMC.

Manuscript Collection:
A group of papers (manuscript or typescript, originals or copies of letters, diaries, accounts, logbooks, drafts, etc., including associated printed or near-print materials and sound recordings) usually having a common source and formed by or around an individual, a family, or a corporate entity, or devoted to a single theme.
Item:
A separable writing identifiable as a unit (e.g.: a letter, diary, journal, ledger, minutes, or the like, in any number of pages, and covering any time period).
Archives:
The formal and informal records that are generated by the administrative, organizational, or operational activities of public bodies and private organizations, together with documents received or collected by them in connection with their activities.
Oral History:
A record of information gathered in oral form, usually on tape, as the result of a planned interview.
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   July 18, 2020
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