Highlights From The Survey of Academic Library Cataloging Practices, 2013 Edition

Primary Research Group has released the 2013 ed. of The Survey of Academic Library Cataloging Practices.
The full text report is fee-based but a few highlights are available at no charge.
They include:

• The majority of survey participants (60.49 percent) say the new Resources Description and Access cataloging rules will “not really enhance” the cataloger’s role in future library decisions

• Just 7.41 percent of libraries in the sample have marketed the new RDA cataloging rules outside the library

• The survey participants spent a mean of 49.09 hours of staff time in the past year in viewing webinars, online tutorials, conferences, formal classroom training, and on other aids for cataloging education

• At least 50 percent of all those participants at schools with an annual tuition less than $18,000 say copy cataloging is performed mostly by paraprofessional support staff, while only 23.08 percent of those at schools where the tuition is more than $18,000 say the same

• 26.67 percent of research libraries and 23.53 percent of colleges with more than 20,000 students report that bibliographic upgrades in OCLC are handled by both paraprofessionals and professional librarians who work at the library

• Over the last five years, the libraries in the sample gained a mean of 0.24 positions in cataloging library support staff

• More than half (56.79 percent) of all survey participants say the cataloger’s pay rate has increased by less than 2.5 percent over the last four years

• 53.33 percent of research universities in the sample say that they outsource the updating of headings in bibliographic records

• 28.4 percent of survey participants outsource e-journal cataloging.

• More than 23 percent of librarians at colleges with an annual tuition of more than $18,000 per year spot check all vendor supplied records

Direct to Info Page/Order Info via Primary Research Group Web Site

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