Whilst most have the necessary background in languages needed to deal with the manuscripts, few have a background in librarianship and hence cataloguing. This office was formed in 1978 with the objective of creating a Union Catalogue of manuscripts in Turkey. To date it has catalogued some 15,000 items with a level of detail and completeness that ha ve enabled the records to be published. Whilst it is known that many more items have been partially catalogued, the current rate of publication is approximately 1,000 records per year. At this rate of progress it will take approximately 500 years to complete the Union catalogue.
Catalogues exist for library users.
Accordingly, a questionnaire survey has been undertaken of the catalogues needs of manuscript users in the major libraries. The results are not yet available. Nev ertheless since surveys of user needs are not common in Turkish libraries and unknown as far as manuscript collections are concerned, it is hoped that we may have some survey results to share by the time of the conference. Factors Influencing A Feasible Approach To Manuscript Cataloguing Proposals must take into account the fact that the number of staff available to catalogue manuscripts is limited. In addition, consideration must be given to the fact that most people working with t he manuscripts have considerable linguistic but limited cataloguing knowledge.