Analysis and Recommendations for OCLC’s Contract Cataloging

For OCLC, the global library cooperative, provided an analysis of and recommendations for the refinement of their Contract Cataloging operations, which provide cataloging services for both libraries and publishers in the context of OCLC’s WorldCat bibliographic database, the master cataloging and holdings resource for libraries worldwide. The study involved deep analysis of the metadata specifications and expectations of publishers and libraries, which differ significantly, as well as the workflow by which OCLC creates the MARC records that populate WorldCat.