What are LCs plans for the conversion of its integrated library management system to the Unicode standard?
In 2002, the Library began planning for its transition to the Unicode standard for LC MARC 21 bibliographic, holdings, and authority records. The Library currently plans to upgrade to the Voyager with Unicode Release in 2005. In January 2003, the Library’s system vendor, Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., delivered the first test conversion to the Unicode character set of LC’s database. LC’s language experts and technical analysts are involved in testing and reviewing the Unicode conversion. Part of LC’s planning effort will include the Cataloging Policy and Support Office’s review of LC cataloging policies and workflows to fully implement the Unicode standard in future MARC bibliographic, authority, and holdings records. The Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) will continue to provide MARC 21 bibliographic and authority records in MARC-8. Once the Library’s data are converted to Unicode, CDS will offer records in UTF-8, as well as MARC-8. For the present, LC records will contain on
