Changing roles of cataloguers in British academic libraries

Abstract

How have the roles of cataloguers evolved over the past decade due to the impact of automation When cataloguers in academic libraries in England were surveyed it was found that 97 per cent work with a fully automatic online public access catalogue; all catalogue online, and share records with some bibliographic utility, of which RLIN and BLCMP are the most popular. Professional staff size had decreased at 50 per cent of the institutions with means of 4.5 professionals and 4.8 support staff members. The average percentage of professional cataloguers per library was about 53 per cent. Roles that were greatly expanded included cataloguing of digital documents and Internet resources, authority control, and database management. Of the respondents, 65 per cent are now involved in e‐mail discussion groups where ten years ago none were. Administrative functions have also increased as 50 per cent of the cataloguers are now heads of bibliographic access departments.

Cataloguing training at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine

“…The infusion of technological innovations into libraries and the changing role of cataloguers have unearthed a new dimension in the sphere of cataloguing. This premise is supported by Garcha and Buttlar (1999) who stated that “although all aspects of librarianship have been impacted by technological innovation, perhaps no area has experienced such a dramatic change as has the catalogue department”. The collision between technological advancement and the transformation of cataloguing tasks has undoubtedly reached a pinnacle within the last decade.…”

“…In addition, the cataloguers” vocation is also changing into non‐parochial areas. Garcha and Buttlar (1999) in their study found that “cataloguers are much more involved in administrative activities (supervision of other staff members, recruiting, hiring, and evaluating personnel, training copy‐cataloguers and planning and monitoring budgets), and are also much likely to be involved in crossover work in other departments than they were previously”.…”

En los umbrales de un nuevo código de catalogación: memoria del Segundo Encuentro Nacional de Catalogación y Metadatos 24 al 26 de octubre de 2007

“…En Canadá, en tanto, la formación de "técnicos en catalogación", verdaderos paraprofesionales, ha venido ocurriendo desde los años 60 (Davidson-Arnott y Key 1998), y en las bibliotecas británicas, la formación de éstos viene creciendo debido a que la catalogación por copia tiene cada vez mayor peso, por lo que los catalogadores profesionales han venido dejándole lugar a los paraprofesionales (Garcha y Buttlar, 1999).…”