Page 120 - Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians, 2nd Edition

106 Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians
Many in ternational, na tional, and regional net works ex ist. The in -
formation from all of them can be used for copy cat aloging. Some
net works also of fer ad di tional cat a log ing ser vices to mem ber li brar -
ies. OCLC is the most uti lized.
With a membership of over 30,000 li braries in sixty-five countries,
OCLC is the old est and the largest li brary net work. The OCLC da ta-
base con sists of MARC tapes that in clude all the cat aloging done by
the Li brary of Con gress, plus cat a log ing con trib uted by the af fil i ate
li brar ies. Li braries join OCLC through a re gional bro ker net work,
such as NELINET (New Eng land Li brary In for ma tion Net work) in
Boston for New Eng land li braries.
OCLC and its shared form of cataloging have trans formed cat alog-
ing prac tices across the United States. The cat aloger uses OCLC’s On -
line Un ion Cat a log to lo cate cat a log ing in for ma tion. With a da ta base
of mil lions of bib liographic re cords, it is es timated that over 80 per cent
of any li brary’s cat aloging needs can be filled, thus greatly re ducing
the time-con sum ing task of orig i nal cat a log ing. Since copy cat a log -
ing has be come so com mon, tra di tional orig i nal cat a log ing is used
only for the unique or un usual ma terials that cannot be found in the
database. This change in em phasis has placed the li brary tech nician
into the cataloging pro fession, which pre viously had been the librar-
ian’s do main.
In ad dition to its On line Un ion Cat a log (OLUC) that is used
throughout the world, OCLC of fers some other cat aloging ser vices.
One is the Bib lio graphic Re cord No ti fi ca tion ser vice. This ser vice
au to mat i cally de liv ers on line up graded MARC re cords and ad di -
tional fea tures. OCLC’s PromptCat ser vice starts when the ma terials
are be ing or dered. The ven dor no tifies OCLC of the ti tles or dered by
the li brary, and OCLC finds the matching re cord in its On line Un ion
Catalog, sets the library’s hold ing sym bol, and sends a copy of the
MARC re cord to the library to load into the lo cal sys tem. In ad dition,
it will send to the ven dor elec tronic files of la bels for phys ical pro -
cessing. By the time the ma terials are re ceived, the re cords al ready
have been loaded and the ma terials are ready to be shelved. OCLC’s
TECHPRO ser vice pro vides off-site con tract cat a log ing and phys i cal
processing to meet a li brary’s spec ifications. It is a customized cat a-
loging ser vice by con tract, such as cataloging of for eign lan guage
ma te ri als. TECHPRO can be used to cat alog spe cial types of ma teri-