Cataloging quality as a communicative process

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.