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Press Release from Primary Research Group, Inc.
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 report’s 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:
Federated searching, using MetaLib and other products
Making the online catalog accessible through the Internet by Google Scholar and WorldCat.org
Content and licensing management systems for electronic resources, such as SFX (Integrated
library system Ex Libris product. SFX provides for management of electronic resources)
Adding digital collections, including theses, images, and so on, using products such as CONTENTdm
(Digital collection management software), the predominant one
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.
Emerging Issues in Academic Library Cataloging & Technical Services
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