Vendors and librarians speak on outsourcing, cataloging, and acquisitions

Abstract

Duranceau is associate head, serials and acquisitions services, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Few issues in the world of technical services provoke such intense reactions as does the issue of outsourcing, or contracting to a vendor for technical services operations. When Wright State University's decision to contract with OCLC for its entire cataloging operation was made known in 1993, comments flew across the airwaves about this bold action. The question of whether and when to pay a vendor to do the work of professional in-house catalogers strikes to the very heart of our identity as librarians, calling into question our assumptions about our ultimate purpose, our place inthe scholarly information chain, and how we can best serve our institutions. Can we ensure quality in our bibliographic records, and customize them as we wish if we do not directly control cataloging? Is it threatening to our profession to allow such a key service to be provided by outside vendors who are physically and psychologically removed from our institutional missions? In what ways can vendors enhance the service we have long provided in-house? Does it really cost less to purchase cataloging from a vendor? Was Wright State's decision the reflection of things to come, or simply a slightly more developed version of a routine process that most libraries have engaged in for the past two decades or more? Are there other technical services operations in addition to cataloging, such as serials acquisitions and receipts, that lend themselves to outsourcing? How do such services, when outsourced, work and why do libraries choose to use them?