The status of cataloguing manuscripts in large libraries in Iran

Complying with accepted standards in any field leads to harmonization with the world. This also applies to manuscript cataloguing; keeping up to standards leads to consistency of catalogues and facilitates the exchange of information and preparation of joint databases at national and international levels. Since there are different standards for cataloguing manuscripts around the world, the common elements of some of these standards have been extracted and a checklist has been prepared on this basis. Therefore this research studies the extent to which the manuscript catalogues in Iran comply with the elements of the checklist derived from the common elements existing in the international rules and standards and the worksheets of some important libraries of Iran and the world.Descriptive survey method is used in this research and the required data were collected through a checklist developed based on available international standards and the history of Iranian cataloguing.Findings showed that the National Library had the highest percentage of compliance with cataloguing standards (58.28%) and Central Library of the University of Tehran had the lowest (38.73%). Catalogues of all studied libraries met an average of 80% of the criteria in the checklist in the bibliography and content analysis part, and 37.5% in the codicology part.

► The average compliance of libraries with checklist was calculated to be 48.43%. ► Bibliographic part in catalogues complies with checklist more than codicologic one. ► National Library of Iran had the most compliance with the elements of the checklist. ► Central Library of Tehran University had the least compliance with the checklist. ► With the time past, checklist items exist in more catalogues in population study.