A survey on the outsourcing of cataloging in academic libraries

Abstract

The authors conducted a survey on outsourcing of cataloging in academic libraries to determine the extent of such projects and their overall success. The survey instrument included questions about what factors influence the decision to outsource, what reasons libraries had for outsourcing or not outsourcing, what was being outsourced, and how vendors were chosen. Libraries also were asked to evaluate the success of outsourcing projects. The results show that outsourcing of cataloging is not a strong trend in academic libraries but that libraries which outsourced were generally pleased with results. There also seems to be a correlation between size of collection and number of new titles cataloged annually, and the decision to outsource.