National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)

May 2009 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) program at the Library of Congress. NUCMC is a free of charge cooperative cataloging program, partnered by the Library and eligible repositories located throughout the United States and its territories, which provides and promotes bibliographic access to the nation’s documentary heritage. The following questions will be answered in this article: Who qualifies for the program? How does the program work? What types of material are, and are not, cataloged by NUCMC? What type of descriptive information needs to be provided to NUCMC? In what ways does an institution benefit from participation in the program? How does the researcher benefit? Why is the program important?