OCLC plans cataloguing and metadata pilot

OCLC will explore the viability and efficiency of capturing metadata from publishers and vendors upstream and enhancing that metadata in WorldCat. This approach could provide added value to libraries and publishers by enhancing and delivering data that can work in multiple contexts and systems, believes OCLC.

The pilot project will begin in January 2008 and involves libraries and the publisher supply chain. Both public and academic libraries will be represented in the pilot, as will a variety of publishers and vendors.

‘It is crucial to the future of cataloguing to find collaborative ways to take advantage of publisher ONIX metadata, and we must find efficient and centralised ways to store, enhance and normalise the metadata for the benefit of both library and publishing communities,’ said Renee Register, OCLC Global Product Manager, Cataloging and Metadata Services. ‘Librarians can and should participate in raising the quality of metadata in the marketplace, where we participate whenever we select and purchase materials.’

The next generation cataloging and metadata service pilot follows release of a ‘Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control’ by the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. This group was formed by the US Library of Congress to address changes in how libraries must do their work in the digital information era.