Extending the OCLC cooperative
Cataloging and metadata
Our objective in 2000 was to provide new tools to capture, organize and deliver metadata. Today, cataloging has moved beyond bibliography—the physical description of an item and its intellectual content—to include new media and new metadata elements—cover artwork, holdings, reviews and previews as well as links to content. OCLC tools also automatically harvest and deliver metadata, thereby increasing productivity.
OCLC’s cataloging system is becoming a metadata creation and management service for libraries and other memory institutions to provide the cooperative framework for organizing the world’s knowledge. Cataloging includes not only the vast amount of printed materials that are published, but also the rapidly growing amount of networked digital resources—e-journals, e-books, learning objects and databases. New OCLC harvesting tools are adding metadata from Web sites and digital archives into WorldCat.
“Libraries need shelf-ready materials, and we especially like having vendors use OCLC because we know we will get quality cataloging from a reliable source.”
Phyllis Alpert, Assistant Director, Miami-Dade Public Library System
Delivering new metadata
Thanks to the OCLC Cataloging Partners Program, the Miami-Dade Public Library System gets more new videos, DVDs, books-on-tape and Spanish books on the shelves and in their catalog faster than ever before. New metadata describing these items enters WorldCat through the partners program and is delivered to the library—edited to its specifications—at the time of order fulfillment. The partners program provides custom OCLC cataloging and physical processing to libraries through their materials vendors. “Vendor-supplied cataloging will most probably grow because libraries no longer have the budget to maintain huge technical services departments,” says Phyllis Alpert, Assistant Director, Miami-Dade Public Library System.
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Staff at the Miami-Dade Public Library System value the high quality of OCLC cataloging in bibliographic records they receive from materials vendors. They are, left to right, Susan Lee, Technical Services Administrator; Raymond Santiago, Director; Lou McLean, Cataloging Manager; and Phyllis Alpert, Assistant Director. |
 Extending the Cooperative | Cataloging and Metadata | Archiving and Content Management
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