Page 36 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.45, 2019

CHENG Huanwen & LIU Jiaqin / The development of library science in China in an international perspective 035

and difficult to be surpassed.

3.1.2 Thesaurus
The development of the Chinese thesaurus takes a similar path. In the 1940s, the Chinese library
community began to translate and introduce the Subject Headings of the Library of Congress (LC).
Yet the thesaurus was not applied in China until in the 1980s because of objective circumstances.
In 1975 the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China and the Beijing Library
(predecessor of NLC) began to develop the Chinese Thesaurus according to the ISO 2788
Guidelines for the Establishment and Development of Monolingual Thesauri. After five years’
efforts by over 9,000 professionals, the Chinese Thesaurus (10 volumes in 3 books) was finished
in 1980. In October 1985, the thesaurus was awarded the Second Prize of the National Award for
Science and Technology Progress, which is the highest award won by the library community in
this field and difficult to surpass (“Chinese Library Classification and Chinese Thesaurus won the
National Science and Technology Progress Award”, 1985).
In 1994 the Chinese Classified Subject Thesaurus developed by the NLC was published, which
won the Second Prize of the National Award for Excellent Result in Science and Technology
Information. In 2005 the second edition and the electronic edition were published, which likewise
involved the hardworking and academic wisdom of many scholars.

3.1.3 Cataloging rule
In the field of cataloging, we learned from the cataloging rules of the LC in the early 1900s. After
the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) was published in 1974, the Chinese
library community began to study the international standard and formulate a series of bibliographic
description rules. In 1983 the first national standard General Guidelines of Documents (GB3792.1-
83) led by the NLC was issued. Later, the Description Rules of Books, Description Rules of
Serials, Description Rules of Non-Book Materials, Description Rules of Archives, Description
Rules of Cartographic Materials and Description Rules of Ancient Books were issued successively.
In 1985, the Library Society of China developed the Descriptive Cataloging Rules for Western
Materials according to Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR II). The revised and enlarged
edition was published in 2002. The Cataloging Rules for Chinese Materials was published in 1996
and the second edition in 2005. Accordingly, we are equipped with complete and mature standards
in cataloging rules for both Chinese materials and western materials. Notwithstanding the neglect
of cataloging at present, cataloging is still the core of library operation. We must pay respect to
researchers in cataloging and catalogers.

3.1.4 MARC
MARC began to be widely applied in the library in the 1970s. In 1969 the US released MARC II,
the IFLA released UNIMARC in 1977, and the NLC released CNMARC in 1991. The Chinese