Page 147 - Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10

Issues and Trends

The cat aloging de partment of a li brary al ways has spe cial pro jects
to an tic i pate. Be cause of au to ma tion, prac tices and pro ce dures have
changed and copy cat a log ing has be come the pri mary re spon si bil ity
of the li brary tech nician. Un like the card cat alog which hides mis-
takes, the on line cat a log im me di ately ex poses all mis takes, and,
therefore, main tenance of the da tabase is a chal lenging task. To en -
sure that the database is one of high qual ity, great care must be ex er-
cised when matching or re-cre ating re cords on the com puter.
Another con sequence of au tomation is the closing or freez ing of
the card catalog. Con verting a library’s col lection to a machine read -
able for mat is an enor mous job, es pecially for libraries with big col-
lections. A li brary may de cide to fol low the new changes of the
cat a log ing rules or to switch to a dif fer ent clas si fi ca tion sys tem. The
library tech nician may be in volved in these pro jects and par ticipate in
special as signments. For any pro ject, pol icies and pro cedures must be
spelled out clearly, and in-house training should be pro vided for the
library tech nician. The following are some of the most com mon is -
sues that li braries deal with at the present time.

RECLASSIFICATION

Starting in the 1960s and early 1970s, many libraries, es pecially
academic li braries, de cided to switch from the Dewey Dec imal Clas -
si fi ca tion sys tem to the Li brary of Con gress Clas si fi ca tion sys tem.
Al though it is rel a tively con ve nient for a com put er ized li brary with
an on line pub lic ac cess catalog to re classify its col lection, it is a time-
con sum ing, la bor-in ten sive pro ject. Bib lio graphic re cords have to be

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