A couple of weeks ago, I gave my LIS415 students a homework assignment that involved searching the Library of Congress catalog. The completed assignment was due the following week. A couple of days later, I began receiving frantic emails from students that they could not get into the catalog. The government had shut down and so had the Library of Congress!
I gave the students an alternate site to search. I wanted them to look at MARC bibliographic records and they could do that at almost any library's catalog, but I also want them to use as many different catalogs as possible to see the differences among them.
Then I began to worry about an upcoming workshop that I'll be giving for the Massachusetts Library System on free sites for Technical Services Librarians. Of course, many of the sites I want to talk about involve the Library of Congress as there is a wealth of information for catalogers there. I began to wonder how much would be available and whether or not it was worth even giving this workshop.
Lo and Behold! Today, as I began reviewing my material for the workshop, I discovered that LC's catalog is up and running! And so is their Authority File site. That won't mean much, if anything, to a non-cataloger, but let me tell you it is a site I use ALL THE TIME when I'm working.
Is the government no longer shut down? I know there have been negotiations going on, but I haven't listened to the news today.
Whatever happened, I'm glad I can get to the sites I need. I just hope it's not some sort of mistake. I hope the sites stay up. Next Saturday I'll be covering authorized forms of names with the students in LIS415 and I'll need LC's Authority File.
