Cataloging Standards

Authors: Elisabeth Aurelle, Michael Conkin, and Tonette Mendoza

Note: This is the fourth of four documents which constitute the Cataloging source document. Move between documents using the links located at the end of the present document.

F. Catalog Management - overview
Compared to those cataloging activities performed when creating records for material in hand (with or without copy), catalog management is chiefly concerned with records (bibliographic and authority records) and headings already in GLADIS. Catalog managem ent activities typically involve amending, adding or deleting bibliographic and/or holdings information in those records and merging/collapsing and deleting of the records themselves. Information found on copy may be utilized in catalog management activit ies.

Catalogers perform these activities in various circumstances, including:

In those cases where extensive upgrade or recataloging is required, there is inevitable overlap with other cataloging functions; what distinguishes this function is its focus on records already in the catalog and their ongoing bibliographic (and relate d non-bibliographic -- holdings area data, etc.) maintenance.

For the purposes of performance standards, catalog management is separated into two major components:

F.1. Catalog Management: Update
These activities are performed by catalogers at all levels when updating bibliographic and/or holdings information in GLADIS bibliographic and authority/headings records. Individuals performing these functions typically use the update occasion to review t he entire record for bibliographic and holdings currency, accuracy and completeness.

Examples of these sorts of activities:

  1. Performance context
    Staff performing update activities need:
  2. Performance standards
    The basic Librarywide standard for the performance of catalog update functions can be expressed in this way:

    Apart from registering clientele reports, the only practical method for measuring this standard is to focus directly on updates needed and made during a specified review period. Such review is not now being conducted in the central units.

F.2. Catalog Management: Regulation and Repair
Catalogers performing these activities are typically responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of GLADIS bibliographic and authority/headings records within their unit or functional area from a problem-solving and oversight perspective.

Such catalogers often serve as liaison with other Library sectors (reference/selection, public service, other technical service, Systems, administration) in managing the overall problem-solving workflow for the unit, monitoring database loads, handling a variety of reports and error logs, etc. Such liaison activities may include coordinating cataloging functions with pre- and post-cataloging processing, and in some units may also include tracer/expediting duties.

Staff performing these functions in central units may serve as contact person/clearinghouse for problems reported from client units, often providing in the course of problem-resolution an educational/training service.

Specific examples of these sorts of activities include:

  1. Performance context
    Staff performing these functions need:
  2. Performance standards
    Since at the core of this function are its problem-solving, error correcting and database cleanup and oversight activities, and since its chief concern is catalog integrity, performance of its various component activities must be as near to perfect as is possible.

    Correcting errors made by other catalogers, resolving problems caused by a wide variety of bibliographic and treatment conflicts, recataloging, deleting and collapsing records to clarify our holdings, etc. -- these are end-of-the-line activities; there are generally no avenues for further referral, except for those matters which involve departures from standard unit and Library policies.

    These catalog management functions, therefore, are characterized by the relative lack of precisely definable and measurable standards and the relative lack of outside indicators which can be used to gauge performance.

    On the individual level, those selected and prepared to perform these functions are by definition and job description performing with maximum independence, continually using their own judgment to choose among treatment options and to reprioritize as ci rcumstances demand. They have been delegated the responsibility and authority to perform in this self-regulating manner, and are expected to apply to their own work the same methods and principles used in validating or correcting the work of others.

    On the unit and functional level, performance of these catalog management activities can best be evaluated by a broad-based review process which takes into account such variables as:

Appendix A: Exceptions
Although these standards can be said to apply in a general way to cataloging as it is performed throughout the Library, there are categories of cataloging performed so variously that they cannot be said to be fully covered by these standards.

Retrospective conversion, for example, whether performed as a routine part of daily work or on a project basis, is one area where practices among the units differ enough so that they cannot be fully covered by general standards. There are also areas of specialization in the non-central cataloging units which cannot be said to be covered by these standards.

Performance standards for cataloging in these areas should be developed in the context of local procedures and policies.

Examples of unit exceptions to these general standards follow; remarks in quotes have been excerpted from commentary by staff in those units.

The Bancroft Library
The general standards cannot be said to apply to those aspects of Bancroft cataloging involving archival material:

"The greatest proportion of time in a unit such as Bancroft Technical Services is focused on providing bibliographic control of unpublished, un-pre-packaged, original/unique archival material, ranging from papyri or medieval codex manuscripts, to an individual's personal papers or correspondence, the records of a corporate body, the output of a photographer, the work of an artist, or the original tapes of an oral history interview. A GLADIS catalog record may represent, for instance, either the 50 linear feet of records of a body such as the Sierra Club, or the 3 cassette tapes recording an oral history interview. But the labor involved in making the 50 linear feet bibliographically usable by the public, including the production of a findin g aid (index to the collection), is quantifiably quite dissimilar to making bibliographically usable by the public 3 cassette tapes. Measuring the rate and quality of real production for such material is therefore quite different, and more variable, t han this document takes into account. The complexity and content of the GLADIS catalog record itself can vary widely depending on the extent of the collection being cataloged. The document notes a like complexity with regard to authority work. Similarl y, specific performance standards appropriate to archival bibliographic control need to be developed."

East Asian and Center for Chinese Studies Libraries:
The general standards for catalog management do not fully apply to the work done in these units because much of it is not performed directly online in GLADIS:

" ... the cataloging management draft standards strictly geared toward cataloging management processing done on GLADIS is of some limited applicability to EAL/CCSL. Due to involvement of Chinese/Japanese/Korean (CJK) vernacular scripts data, currently all records carrying such CJK data are locked on GLADIS for maintenance. We could still do on GLADIS the following cataloging maintenance with CJK records: heading updates (as long as the tag remains the same); and holdings (including local call numbers) updates. However, any other updates, such as adjustments to US/MARC bibliographic fields 505, 555, 020, 022, etc. ... cannot be done with CJK records on GLADIS. We go back to corresponding CJK records on RLIN for our CUBO record maintenance for subsequen t overlay onto GLADIS records to be updated."

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