Abstract:
The presentation discusses the usage of the online catalog by library staff, and showed the impact of staff's needs on quality of cataloging, in her remarks, "Cataloging quality as a communicative process." The presentation focused on methods of quality improvement of OCLC member records. Records have a communicative nature: in the contemporary era of copy cataloging, records are crafted for copying. Peers in OCLC and public services staff in a local library are two important groups that motivate a cataloger, by performing an informal control of his/her work. A cataloger, like the mythological Janus, is faced in opposite directions: toward peers in OCLC who motivate him/her to create a perfect record, and toward local public services staff who control consistency of records and labels. In a cooperative environment, more active communication often has the result of better cataloging quality. Two methods of quality control are suggested for smaller libraries where no professional reviewers are available: indirect communication with PCC catalogers via a record (later analysis of changes that have been made by OCLCQ and PCC libraries), and a non-PCC quality program targeted for new catalogers: OCLC members that can communicate electronically with experienced catalogers by using the new OCLC Connexion Browser Review File.
