The Future of Cooperative Cataloging: Curve, Fork, or Impasse?

Abstract

Cooperative cataloging activities have existed for more than 100 years. During that time, cooperative cataloging practices and structures have evolved in accordance with changing values, technologies, and institutional needs. However, the road has not always been smooth and the future of cooperative cataloging has often been questioned. This article provides a selective overview of the history of cooperative cataloging, paying particular attention to the issues that herald shifts in direction. It explores today's cataloging landscape in order to identify those tensions and technological changes that once again are driving the need for change. Has cooperative cataloging reached an impasse? Will it continue to evolve, curving to adapt to the changing environment? Perhaps we have reached a fork in the road. By drawing on concepts associated with organizational and individual change models, this article also addresses possible reasons the cataloging community may be experiencing difficulty discerning the future of cooperative cataloging ventures.

KEYWORDS:

• cooperative cataloging
• change management
• organizational change
• professional values

Notes

1. Heartsill Young, ed., The ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science (Chicago: American Library Association, 1983), 59.

2. Barbara B. Tillett, “Catalog it Once for All: A History of Cooperative Cataloging in the United States Prior to 1967,” in Cooperative Cataloging: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Barry B. Baker (New York: Haworth Press, 1993), 4.

3. Ibid.

4. Velva Jeanne Osborn, “A History of Cooperative Cataloging in the United States” (MA thesis, University of Chicago, 1944).

5. Ibid., 136.

6. Tillett, “Catalog it Once for All,” 5.

7. Tillett, “Catalog it Once for All,” 9.

8. Ibid., 10.

9. Ibid., 14.

10. Osborn, “A History of Cooperative Cataloging in the United States,” 137.

11. Ernest Cushing Richardson, Some Aspects of International Library Cooperation: Papers and Extracts (Yardley, Pa.: F.S. Cook & Son, 1928), 32.

12. Osborn, “A History of Cooperative Cataloging in the United States,” 136.

13. Tillett, “Catalog it Once for All,” 16.

14. Ibid.

15. Osborn, “A History of Cooperative Cataloging in the United States,” 71–72.

16. Tillett, “Catalog it Once for All,” 20.

17. Keyes D. Metcalf, “Cooperative Cataloging: Activities in 1932 and Plans for 1933,” Library Journal 58 (February 1, 1933): 107.

18. Tillett, “Catalog it Once for All,” 29.

19. Ibid., 31.

20. David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous (New York: Times Books, 2007), 10.

21. K. C. Calman, “Evolutionary Ethics: Can Values Change,” Journal of Medical Ethics 30 (2004): 366–370.

22. Ibid., 367.

23. homeostasis. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/homeostasis (accessed August 20, 2009).

24. Carol Ritzen Kem, “The Relationship Between Work Behavior Type and Elements of Job Satisfaction of a Selected Group of Academic Librarians,” Advances in Library Administration and Organization 17 (2000): 23–56.

25. Ibid., 35.

26. Ibid., 36.

27. Tillett, “Catalog it Once for All,” 29.

28. Ibid.

29. Alan Prodgers, “Identity and the Belonging Group: Personal Integrity in the Changing Organization,” Group Analysis 32 (1999): 126.

30. Ronald E. Purser and Jack Petranker, “Unfreezing the Future: Exploring the Dynamic of Time in Organizational Change,” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 41, no. 2 (June 2005): 184.

31. Ibid., 189.

32. Ibid., 191.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid., 193.

35. William McWhinney, “Alternative Realities: Their Impact on Change and Leadership,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 24, no. 4 (Fall 1984): 31.

36. Marjorie Kelly as cited in Donald E. Riggs, “What's in Store for Academic Libraries? Leadership and Management Issues,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 23, no. 1 (1977): 4.

37. Ernest Cushing Richardson, “The Curse of Bibliographical Cataloging,” in Some Aspects of Cooperative Cataloging, by Ernest Cushing Richardson (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1934): 10, 3.