Page 149 - Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians, 2nd Edition

Issues and Trends 135

loged be fore au tomation took place, the in formation needs to be con-
verted from cat alog card to a ma chine read able for mat, a pro cess
referred to as ret ro spec tive con ver sion. Be cause ret ro spec tive con-
version is a costly, time-consuming pro ject, a library may con tract
the pro ject to a com mercial library ser vice com pany, or the pro ject
may be done for a fee by the net work or con sortium of which the li -
brary is a part. An ex ample of this ser vice co mes from OCLC, which
per forms con ver sion for in di vid ual li brar ies on a con trac tual ba sis,
employing a step-by-step pro cedure for ei ther the whole collection or
for a spe cial col lection, such as for eign lan guage ma terials. Li braries
with a small bud get may de cide to complete the pro ject in-house,
with or with out ex tra help. When at tempted as an in-house pro ject
with no ex tra staff, a clear, step-by-step pro cedure man ual for the ret-
rospective con version pro ject needs to be in place.

OUTSOURCING

Throughout his tory, li braries have searched for cost-efficient ways to
provide ex cellent ser vices to us ers. One of the ideas and is sues much
talked about in the library world is outsourcing. Outsourcing means
turning over the re sponsibility of a cer tain task to a com mercial firm
for a fee. Li brary cat aloging is an ap propriate tar get for outsourcing
because the pro cess is time-con suming and staff need spe cial training
to per form the job well. In the past, li braries have outsourced non-
library-related ser vices such as clean ing or ac counting. For many
years, to save costs, li braries have or dered cards from the Library of
Congress and have con tracted library ven dors to sup ply cards and
com plete pro cess ing of ma te ri als. Outsourcing the whole cat a log ing
operation or even the whole tech nical ser vices de partment, and thus
elim i nat ing those de part ments com pletely, could be ad van ta geous
eco nom i cally. How ever, high qual ity re mains a con cern.

COOPERATION

As more li braries share ex penses, more ef ficient methods, and li -
brary ma te ri als, co op er a tion has be come the main stay. The net works
of li braries are get ting big ger. Many states now have con sortia that