Cataloger's Desktop: A User's Review
"Cataloger’s Desktop has become an indispensable tool for the
catalogers at the University of Colorado at Boulder since it was introduced
here three years ago. Perhaps the main reason for this is the convenience
of having the tomes of cataloging rules and standards—previously shelved
in a remote corner of the Cataloging Department—collocated and readily
accessible from our own personal workstations. There are other valid
reasons, however, why Cataloger’s Desktop has become so essential
to us: it is automatically updated on a quarterly basis; it provides
links to other important resources such as remote databases and other
libraries’ catalogs; it is customizable, permitting each user to set
parameters for accessing data relevant to his/her needs; and it greatly
facilitates the efficiency of our participation in national shared cataloging
through the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) and OCLC.
"Most of our catalogers will agree that, of the many technological
innovations that have allowed us to streamline our library
operations, LC’s Cataloger’s Desktop is as important
to us as the library’s online catalog is to our patrons. Asking
us to consider going back to consulting the dog-eared rulebooks
for guidance would be comparable to asking our patrons to
go back to using the cumbersome card catalog to locate the
resources they need. While there may be times we yearn to
return to the days when things were slower and less complicated,
we’d have to admit that returning without Cataloger’s Desktop
would not be an option." (An e-mail message to CDS on Jan.
27, 2004)
Anna M. Ferris
Catalog Librarian
Assistant Professor
University of Colorado at Boulder
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