About the PCC

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging is an international cooperative effort aimed at expanding access to library collections by providing useful, timely, and cost-effective cataloging that meets mutually-accepted standards of libraries around the world.

PCC members participate in programs that shape the future of cataloging and reduce the costs of cataloging for everyone. Members work cooperatively with catalogers and metadata specialists around the globe, and receive training from experienced PCC trainers. Each of the PCC’s four constituent programs is dedicated to the goals of cooperative cataloging:

BIBCO (MONOGRAPHIC BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD COOPERATIVE PROGRAM)
Through this program, BIBCO members receive training to contribute bibliographic records for monographs in various formats to internationally distributed databases.  NACO membership is a pre-requisite for BIBCO membership, and SACO participation is highly recommended.  BIBCO records are valued for their authoritative descriptive and subject access points and a classification number from an established system.

CONSER (COOPERATIVE ONLINE SERIALS PROGRAM)
CONSER Program began in the early 1970s as a project to convert manual serials cataloging into machine-readable records. It has evolved into an ongoing program to create and maintain high quality bibliographic records for continuing resources. CONSER produces high quality documentation and training materials for the cataloging of continuing resources. CONSER members are continuing resources cataloging experts who work together in an atmosphere of collegiality and trust  The program provides its membership a voice for continuing resources cataloging in the library community through its involvement with standards development.

NACO (NAME AUTHORITY COOPERATIVE PROGRAM)
Through this program, participants receive training to contribute new and updated authority records for names, uniform titles, and series to the LC/NACO Authority File. The Library of Congress receives member records through various record exchange protocols, and maintains and distributes the master file of authority work globally. The creation or modification of a name authority record by one partner may benefit all other libraries that hold materials related to that name.  The creation of an authority record for local or rare materials reveals the presence of special collections to a wider audience.  An individual institution may join this program, or a group of libraries with a common interest may form a "funnel project" to contribute records via a coordinator who assumes responsibility in the joint effort.

SACO (SUBJECT AUTHORITY COOPERATIVE PROGRAM)
Through this program participants are trained to propose subject headings for inclusion in Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and classification number proposals or changes for inclusion in the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) schedules.

History of the PCC
Many programs for shared cataloging data preceded the PCC during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the 1990s, several participants of these various programs formed the Cooperative Cataloging Council (later disbanded) to discuss the future direction of these programs. The PCC came to life in 1995 as the result of a realized need to coordinate the various programs. The PCC was to be a more inclusive program with fewer obstacles to participation that by the year 2000 would annually produce significant numbers of authority and bibliographic records. In 1997, CONSER came under the PCC umbrella with formal representation on the PCC Policy Committee.

Today, the PCC has four components: NACO (Name Authority Cooperative Program), SACO (Subject Authority Cooperative Program), BIBCO (Monographic Bibliographic Record Cooperative Program), and CONSER (Cooperative Online Serials Program). Through these four programs, the PCC achieves several goals. The programs create and cooperatively maintain bibliographic records in the shared database OCLC and distribute authority records through the freely available LC/NACO and LC/SACO Authority Files. Bibliographic and authority records contributed by the diverse membership of the PCC assure access to rare, unique, or otherwise unknown resources.

PCC Training 
In support of its mission and goals, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging conducts specialized training and mentoring for participants and non-members in conjunction with professional meetings and conferences, or as part of the Program itself with training held at the Library of Congress and institutions around the world. Additionally, in response to the need for general cataloger education, the PCC, the Library of Congress, and ALCTS developed several workshops now freely available through the Web at the Cataloger’s Learning Workshop (CLW). CLW workshops reinforce metadata and cataloging creation skills that ultimately improves the quality and increases the number of shared records.

If you would like to learn more about the Program for Cooperative Cataloging or about participating in BIBCO, CONSER, NACO, SACO, see PCC Home Page or contact the Cooperative Programs Section at coop@loc.gov.