Primary Research Group has published Emerging Issues in Academic Library
Cataloging & Technical Services (ISBN# 1-574440-086-X). The study explores
emerging trends in areas such as 1) the productivity of library cataloging
personnel, 2) the enhancement of online catalogs, 3) the transition to
metadata standards, 4) the cataloging of websites and the integration of
special collections, 5) catalog/metadata training, 6) database maintenance
and physical processing, 7) staff education, 8) relations with the
acquisitions departments, and other issues facing academic library
cataloging and technical services staff.
The report was written by Elaine Sanchez, Head of Cataloging at Texas State
University, San Marcos. It is based on detailed interviews with cataloging
and/or technical services directors at the following institutions: Curry
College, Brigham Young University, Illinois State University, Yale
University, University of Washington, University of North Dakota, Haverford
College, Pennsylvania State University, and Louisiana State University.
Just a few of the reports conclusions appear below:
None of the surveyed libraries had specific cataloging quotas,
although some had variants of this policy, such as specifying task times
associated with certain types of materials and asking individuals with
productivity problems to set individual benchmarks.
Only two cataloging agencies out of the nine had not yet worked
with metadata. In the seven agencies that had metadata experience, the Head
of the Cataloging Department usually took the lead, working with digital
projects and special collections as the primary usage for metadata. Four of
the nine agencies have metadata librarian positions that report directly to
a cataloging supervisor.
All nine cataloging agencies enhanced their online catalogs in a
variety of ways. The most common enhancements were:
1. Federated searching, using MetaLib and other products
2. Making the online catalog accessible through the Internet by Google
Scholar and WorldCat.org
3. Content and licensing management systems for electronic resources,
such as SFX (Integrated library system Ex Libris product. SFX provides for
management of electronic resources)
4. Adding digital collections, including theses, images, and so on,
using products such as CONTENTdm (Digital collection management software),
the predominant one
5. Front-end online catalog programs, such as Encore, Primo, and others
Three cataloging departments in the sample harvest MARC records
from Web sites, manuscript collections with EAD finding aids, theses,
digital special collections, ICPSR (Interuniversity Consortium for
Political and Social Research) data sets, and large sets of e-journals that
do not offer MARC records.
Holdings and online library catalog enhancements are the most
likely training topics. Authority is the least likely training topic. All
agencies invite and encourage online catalog error reports from public
service staff, to the extent that three cataloging departments have online
forms for this purpose.
Bibliographic database maintenance is primarily done in house. Only
four cataloging agencies have both local staff and an outside vendor to
perform this activity, while five agencies perform this solely in house and
do not use a contracted vendor at all. Not one of the nine agencies totally
relies on outsourcing of bibliographic record maintenance.
Only two of the cataloging agencies perform authority record
maintenance with only local staff. The remaining seven use a combination of
local staff and outside authority services.
Item creation is generally a cataloging and circulation function.
All nine cataloging agencies created item records, while only six allowed
this function in circulation. Even then, in two of these cases, circulation
was limited to creating items for only on the fly items that needed an
item record so that the title could circulate
All nine of the cataloging agencies surveyed reported getting ready
for RDA (Resource Description and Access) by attending some kind of
conference on the topic, mounting information on department Web pages, or
having staff that are involved with the RDA process.
Four libraries in the sample merged the cataloging and acquisitions
departments.
For more information visit our website at www.primaryresearch.com.
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