This study profiles the cataloging and metadata efforts of five universities in the United States: George Washington University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Illinois at Springfield, the University of Utah and Oregon State University.The study focuses on challenges posed by the quickly changing playing field of traditional metadata and cataloging services as new technologies, approaches and expectations impact traditional technical services.
For each of the libraries listed, detailed interviews were conducted with one or more major player in technical services and cataloging, exploring recent changes and developments in managerial lines of authority and work flow organization, technology, database maintenance, error detection, training, linked data, and the integration of archives, special collections and institutional digital repositories into the overall library metadata effort. The study also looks at required skills for catalogers and how this skill set is expected to evolve. Other important issues covered include: transitioning to Alma, the increasingly important logistics of working within cataloging consortia, the role of technical services and cataloging staff in electronic information acquisition and processing, use of applications and software to enhance university-wide communications for all players in technical services/metadata effort, programming skills for catalogers and tools for assessment and customer service.
A useful appendix includes personnel charts for all five libraries, specifying lines of authority and reporting, as well as statements from each library specifying strictures, advice and rules governing elements of acquisitions, metadata development and cataloging.
The 70-page report was written by Anthony Morris, currently the head of Technical Services at the Fulton Library at Utah Valley University. He earned his Masters of Library and Information Science from Drexel University and has over 13 years of library-related experience, including time as a librarian at an academic library, a manager & cataloger at a library vendor.