The technology of the 21st century has had no shortage of challenges for libraries, but it has also brought opportunities. Operating systems, databases, and application environments that can use cheap off-the-shelf hardware to scale and handle hundreds of millions of transactions were not developed for libraries. However, libraries have taken…

Reviews the literature addressing description and cataloging. Topics covered in the review include the functions and structures of catalogs; the Anglo American Cataloging Rules; application and extension of bibliographic control; authority control; shared cataloging and bibliographic networks; retrospective conversion; management topics; and the…

This report of a study of the CONSER (CONversion of SERials) project begins with an overview of the history of the project. Developments leading to the study are described in the second section, and the third section addresses data gathering through a literature search, a CONSER participants meeting, and interviews. Findings, discussion, and…

Eight articles describe the development, content, and structure of databases outside of the United States. Features discussed include library involvement, authority control, shared cataloging services, union catalogs, thesauri, abstracts, and distribution methods. Countries and areas represented are Latin America, Australia, the United Kingdom,…

The final report from the Higher Education Library Integrated Network (HELIN)'s Task Force on Bibliographic and Authority Control begins with a statement of the charge to the task force. It then summarizes its activities in each of five areas: (1) documentation of local authority control (cataloging) practices; (2) consultation with vendors of…

For the last 58 years, automation has helped to enhance the library system; library operations such as circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, and serials have changed significantly due to technology. Circulation control is often the first activity a library considers automating. In addition to loan transactions, an automated circulation system can…

This report on some of the strategic planning decisions that OCLC has made for the 21st century begins by describing the evolution of OCLC from a pioneer in the computer revolution with its Online Union Catalog and Shared Cataloging System in 1971 to a system that currently has nearly 60 distinct offerings. Corresponding computer and…

Beginning this annual report is a letter to the OCLC membership from OCLC President and Chief Executive Officer, K. Wayne Smith. Statistical data are then presented in tables and/or graphs for OCLC programs and the system's financial status for fiscal years 1990/91 and 1989/90; the growth of the OCLC Online Union Catalog from 1971-1991 in terms of…

A distributed union catalog is a network of bibliographic systems that cooperate to enable their users to discover sites that hold copies of known items. Some participating systems will be traditional union catalogs, others will be single sites with comprehensive collections, and others will be local or regional resource sharing systems. A…

The virtual Canadian union catalog (vCuc) project is a project among Canadian libraries to use Z39.50 (an information protocol standard) for searching distributed individual library catalogs and union catalogs. This paper summarizes the major technical, vendor, bibliographic data, and administrative issues that must be resolved before the…