The Program for Cooperative Cataloging is a collaborative cataloging program. The formation of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging was catalyzed by an article by librarians Dorothy Gregor and Carol Mandel titled "Cataloging Must Change!", published in ''

Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...

'' in April 1991. Sarah Thomas, head of the Library of Congress's

cataloging In library and information science, cataloging ( US) or cataloguing ( UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as auth ...

department, set up a series of meetings to respond to Gregor and Mandel's proposals. The Program for Cooperative Cataloging was one outcome of these meetings. It was founded in late 1994 or early 1995. The program's purpose is to increase the speed and accessibility of producing bibliographic and authority records, and to reduce the associated cost. It has promoted the development of a "core"

bibliographic record A bibliographic record is an entry in a bibliographic index (or a library catalog) which represents and describes a specific resource. A bibliographic record contains the data elements necessary to help users identify and retrieve that resource, as ...

which contains all necessary data and accordingly reduces the need for editing. Since the mid-2000s, the program has had four elements: * Bibliographic Record Cooperative Program (BIBCO) * Cooperative Online Serials Program (CONSER) * Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO), founded in 1977 by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

as a standalone

authority control In information science, authority control is a process that organizes information, for example in library catalogs, by using a single, distinct spelling of a name (heading) or a numeric identifier for each topic. The word ''authority'' in ''aut ...

program. In addition to the Library of Congress, the following libraries contribute to NACO: National Library of Mexico, British Library, Library and Archives Canada, National Agricultural Library (U.S.), National Library of Medicine (U.S.), National Library of New Zealand, National Library of Scotland, National Library of South Africa, National Library of Wales. NACO is one of the main contributors to the

VIAF The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). History Discussion about having a common ...

. * Subject Authority Cooperative Program (SACO) Member libraries of the program submit records, which conform to a shared set of standards, for use by all other member libraries. Records are sent to the Library of Congress, which collects records on the program's behalf. A library may participate in some or all of these subcomponents; as of the early 2000s, NACO was the most popular.

Notes

Sources

* {{Authority control Library science organizations Library of Congress