Program for Cooperative Cataloging: BIBCO Records: Analysis of Quality

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) is an international program that brings together libraries that wish to participate in the creation and sharing of bibliographic records. These high quality records can be used by any library around the world without additional modification or change. Members of the cooperative adhere to a set of standards and practices that help eliminate extensive editing of records by participant libraries, thus allowing libraries to reduce the cost of cataloging. Even though the records submitted to the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) database by PCC member institutions adhere to the established standards, some libraries continue to verify the quality of the access points in these records. Many libraries outsource this process to outside vendors who automatically check these records against the Library of Congress (LC) Authority File. The purpose of this study is to examine the quality of the PCC records in light of the changes that were made by an authority control vendor. The author will analyze the changes made by the vendor to the PCC records and explain the reasons for those changes

Impact of Technical Services' Policies on Access and Collection Development

SUMMARY. This paper will put forth some ideas about how library technical services are dealing with “the information revolution” and what impact this has on library collections and access to them. An attempt is made here to survey some of the key factors which are contributing to the gradual redefinition of access, collections and technical services. These include the changing role of technical services and cataloging departments, the impact of electronic and digital materials on library acquisitions and processing, implications of applying national cataloging standards, local cataloging practices, book vendors and the use of their records in library catalogs, remote storage decisions, and the role that library schools play in educating new generations of cataloging professional

Contract Cataloging: A Pilot Project for Outsourcing Slavic Books

This paper describes a pilot project conducted at the Ohio State University Libraries to contract out the cataloging of Slavic books. Two dimensions were examined in this study: (1) the quality of bibliographic records produced by the vendor; and (2) the comparative costs for cataloging in-house vs. outsourcing the cataloging