Academic Librarians and Cataloging Networks: Visibility, Quality Control, and Professional Status

Hafter examines the increasingly accepted assumption that the development of a huge online catalog, accessible by telecommunications to all member institutions, will only result in a vast saving of catalogers' time without the dilution of quality inherent in most mass production activities. She describes comparative changes in actual library and network practice and shows how the new realities of library performance, standards, and evaluation practice have impacted prevailing theories and beliefs about the work of library and information professional and their management of technological change. Her research is based on sixty-eight in-depth interviews with affected catalogers, administrators, and network personnel at six West Coast academic libraries.