College and University Libraries Section
Kansas Library Association
CULS Fall Conference 2012

Driving Towards New Frontiers

Friday, October 5  

8:00-9:15 am Continental Breakfast and Round Table Meetings

Technical Services Round Table Meeting  Room E

9:30-10:30 a.m. Concurrent Sessions

Quality Control in the Small Academic Library Catalog: How Much is Enough?   Room E

Morgan McCune, Pittsburg State University

The new frontier is the Google search, the discovery tool, the “blended library” in terms of information formats. What I’d like to present in this opportunity is my perspective of catalog quality-control work on this new frontier (cataloging, authority control, database maintenance, electronic projects) in a small academic library with minimal funds and high workloads (in terms of cataloging staff serving more than one role, or several roles). Often, small libraries do all of this work themselves rather than hire a vendor to do “clean-up.” Staff may have minimal cataloging training and access to cataloging reference material. Can we help small libraries keep up, or forge ahead, by outlining the most essential quality elements? This presentation will be an effort to begin that work.