Authority Control in Academic Libraries in the United States: A Survey

ABSTRACT

Authority control is an important part of the cataloging process, but relatively little research has been conducted related to its practice in academic libraries. In addition, few studies have been conducted regarding staffing and training issues related to authority control. To examine these issues, a survey was developed and e-mailed to academic libraries at 258 institutions designated by the year 2000 Carnegie Classification as either Doctoral/Research Extensive or Intensive level. The survey consisted of questions relating to authority control practices and staffing and training issues related to authority control. One hundred ninety-three institutions responded for a return rate of 75 percent. The survey results indicate that authority control was practiced and highly valued by the vast majority of respondents and that many would like additional time, funding, and personnel to do more authority control work in their libraries.     

Hidden Wisdom and Unseen Treasure: Revisiting Cataloging in Medieval Libraries

ABSTRACT

Scholars working in the fields of medieval history and cultural history have recognized that understanding the cataloging and accessioning of books is central to understanding the transmission of ideas. This view should come as no surprise to catalogers themselves, who daily struggle with the problem of providing intellectual, and sometimes physical, access to texts and information. Unfortunately, general histories of libraries and even the library literature seem content to sketch out a chronological development of cataloging in line with the nineteenth and twentieth century view of library development, from a simple list to complex intellectual systems. In truth, however, those individuals responsible for cataloging books in medieval libraries faced many of the same challenges as catalogers today: how to organize information, how to serve local needs, and how to provide access to individual works within larger bibliographic formats. This article will summarize recent scholarship in the history of the book that relates to library cataloging, as well as providing parallels to the cooperative library environment of today.     

Cataloging Digitized Continuing Resources in a Shared Record Environment

ABSTRACT

Cataloging digitized continuing resources is a challenging task for many libraries because of their complex cataloging rules and characteristics of format. As libraries provide their digitized content and catalog records in shared environments, like HathiTrust, and use them as an access point, libraries also have to work with holdings and item records created by each contributing institution's local practice. This article discusses common challenges imposed on libraries when creating and providing access to digitized continuing resources available in a shared environment, stresses the importance of having shareable holdings and items records, and suggests possible ways to work with those challenges.     

Building an Electronic Journal Collection from the Ground Up

Summary

Providing access to electronic journals is an important issue facing all libraries. Because of a strong commitment to electronic access at Skidmore College, the procurement of electronic journals is a critical issue for their library. The process of building an electronic journal collection at Skidmore is described from the standpoints of collection development, acquisitions, cataloging, instruction, evaluation and future needs.     

Format Integration and Serials Cataloging

Summary

Format integration has achieved some goals: Seriality of nonprint materials can be expressed. Materials in several physical formats can be described. Archival control of non-print materials can be designated. Content designation has been standardized. Validation routines have been simplified or eliminated. Documentation has been much reduced. Format integration also brings new problems and issues. Bibliographic records are more complex, partly due to the nature of the material, but also due to new fields. Format specialists must learn new cataloging rules and content designation. Optional fields can impede shared cataloging. Local systems may be unable to correctly use some of the new codes. Format integration runs counter to the proposed use of a single record for multiple versions. Catalogers have a great deal to consider in formulating policies.     

De-Professionalization of Cataloging and Classification Practitioners in the Digital Environment: Retooling and Reskilling Issues in Academic Libraries in Nigeria

Abstract

This article discusses issues of de-professionalization that is fast eroding cataloging and classification practices in academic libraries in Nigeria. It focuses on the factors that led to de-professionalization, its effect on cataloging and classification practices, and the need to re-strategize by retooling and reskilling the cataloging librarian in order to continue to remain relevant in the digital environment.     

The Academic Paraprofessional Cataloger:

The changing role of paraprofessional catalogers in academic libraries is described vis-á-vis their counterparts, the professional catalogers. Today paraprofessional catalogers are getting involved in what used to be considered "professional work." The issues of educational requirements, cataloging duties, training, and lack of acknowledgement are brought forward. The barriers encountered by paraprofessionals are presented and the changing dynamics within cataloging departments are explored.     

Another Look at Food in the Library

ABSTRACT

Budget constraints in academic libraries have led them to seek alternative means of providing patrons with articles without subscribing to every journal requested. In order to determine how academic libraries were doing this for business articles, a study was conducted of selected academic libraries at universities offering MBA degrees. The results of the study indicate that academic libraries use a combination of ways to obtain business articles that are not held in their collections. In addition to traditional interlibrary loan, libraries are providing access to full text databases, subscribing to electronic journals and using commercial document delivery services. This article examines the influence that technology and, especially the Internet, has had on the ability to offer patrons quicker, and often better, access than ever before. In spite of tight budgets, academic libraries are finding innovative ways to fund these services in order to provide timely service to their business faculty and students.     

The impact of vendor records on cataloging and access in academic libraries

The addition of low-quality vendor records to the bibliographic utilities (OCLC and RLIN) has had a significant impact on cataloging and access in academic libraries. Vendor records are brief, non-standard bibliographic records created by booksellers and loaded into the utilities. Because many libraries are choosing to copy these records from the utilities to their local online catalogs without editing or enhancing them, much effort is being duplicated, as individual libraries make the same enhancements locally. Less original cataloging is being conducted in the languages represented by the vendor records, and more upgrading of lower-quality records is now necessary, a change that has affected cataloging workflows, and ultimately access, in academic libraries. Quantitative research is needed on the impact of vendor records.     

The Changing Cataloging Culture: What Do We Mean When We Talk About Cataloger Values?

ABSTRACT

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Standing Committee on Training was charged with the development of a training model to support the Program, promote the values of timely access and cost-effectiveness in cataloging, and to expand the pool of catalogers who cataloged to mutually accepted standards. This article describes the training philosophy developed by the Standing Committee on Training and adopted by the Program. The training model assumes that it is important to maintain an adequate supply of original cataloging; to accept the concept of a national cataloging standard; to increase acceptance of cataloging copy; to avoid duplicative cataloging; and to increase the timeliness of contribution to national cataloging databases.     

The Impact of More,Better, Faster,Cheaper: How the PCC Influenced Everything That Followed

Abstract

The beginnings and the early years of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) had a profound impact on the approach taken to cataloging in North America and around the world. The commitment to standards, cooperation, and expanded access also had an impact that went far beyond cataloging operations. One library dean traces the evolution of her vision and contemplates how the PCC’s principles have shaped her entire career and have affected the libraries in which she has worked.     

电子资源批量编目的实践及研究

认为批量编目是促进电子资源获取的有效手段。针对国内电子资源批量编目的实践进行调研,涉及数据质量、相关工具、对书目系统质量的影响、面临的挑战、发现系统对电子资源批量编目的影响等内容。对调研结果进行分析,发现批量编目遇到的最普遍的挑战是数据质量问题,各馆质量评估及数据编辑修改的做法有所差异,整体上国内图书馆对数据质量的重视程度还不够。最后总结国外相关实践对我们的启示。     

Out of the Stack and into the Net

Summary

The transition of academic library reference resources from print to electronic format has been characterised by a growing level of strategic decision making by librarians, as mediated searches were replaced by end-user CD-ROM formats, only to be superseded by online user access. The experience of Australian university libraries, which were early adopters of these changes, is outlined. Particular factors which impacted on this transition in other English-speaking countries (the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and South Africa) are also described. The formation of purchasing consortia has been crucial in all countries in facilitating this transformation of reference collections.     

Link It or Lump It

Abstract

Mounting digital images of art objects on a Web site is only the first step in providing patron access to such materials. Libraries and museums have a responsibility to provide not only high-quality digital reproductions but also high-quality access from an integrated library catalog with controlled vocabulary and consistent access points. While some digital collections may have excellent internal searchability and require no more than collection level cataloging in a library's OPAC, others may demand cataloging of individual components of the collection. A particular collection's significance, its potential audience, the types of access required, as well as factors such as its size and cohesiveness need to be considered before becoming locked into a specific Web designespecially when it is that of another institution.

This paper examines several online library catalogs in which records for art objects as well as historical objects and natural history specimens have been merged, with varying degrees of success, and briefly addresses a modest proposal to catalog ceramic objects at the Ohio State University Libraries. The importance of consistent subject access in a merged catalog, regardless of the thesaurus or thesauri used, is stressed. Library consortia and bibliographic utilities may offer an economically appealing alternative for libraries that cannot design and construct their own digital libraries but these external organizations often have limited capability for-or interest in-modifying the design for a particular library and even less interest in cataloging the collections. Libraries, too, must be faulted for simply listing available electronic resources, either alphabetically or in broad subject categories, on a separate portion of their Web page and failing to provide full catalog records in their catalog. Finally, it is emphasized that the current debate over the viability of MARC 21 versus other metadata standards remains largely irrelevant to the importance of continuing to cultivate a monolithic online catalog, maintaining cataloging standards, and not mindlessly developing what amounts to a separate, rudimentary catalog solely for electronic resources.