Program for Cooperative Cataloging: A Vision and Direction
Beacher Wiggins
Director for Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access
Library of Congress

In thinking about the future of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) and a corresponding vision, I tend to see PCC’s future along the same lines that I envision the future for cataloging at the Library of Congress, and indeed for the larger cataloging community. However we characterize these–cataloging data or metadata–the sources of these data will no longer be limited to the traditional library community. Cataloging data will increasingly, and more importantly, routinely become available from an expanding number of content producers. The number of authors, creators, publishers, and vendors who will supply cataloging/metadata along with their intellectual and commercial output will grow. Complementing these suppliers of metadata will be the automated tools that will assist in the harvesting, extraction, or generation of needed cataloging/metadata. This shift in where cataloging data is derived, in no way means that catalogers will no longer be needed. Catalogers will not be made obsolete, but their roles will change tremendously. The reliance on their long acknowledged and extolled expertise in applying descriptive cataloging will be supplanted by the sources I mention above. In instances when the descriptive elements are not supplied, technician staff will fill the void by taking over this aspect of cataloging. This will not diminish the value of professional catalogers; instead, their skills will be focused on that aspect of cataloging that is most expensive and that arguably most undergirds the professional nature of what it means to be a cataloging librarian. Any cataloging data that are created, or "certified" from other sources, for adding to an institution’s catalog or to a national database of cataloging data–should have the data in the access fields of the container records brought under authority control. Our colleagues in other areas of the information, publishing, vending, and Web communities are fast awakening to the need for authorized forms of names, entities, and subjects. Further, they are recognizing that the library community has long been a leader in this area and has much to offer.

What does such a vision portend for PCC? First, it underscores the enduring value of the central component of the Program–authority data. PCC will continue to support this component through training programs, sharing of Program-sanctioned authority data, and leading others to create and share such data.

Such a vision points to several directions. For this exercise, the direction I choose to highlight is one that espouses PCC’s embracing–in a new way--other key players that produce and disseminate information. In so doing, PCC will work with them to assure that the accompanying metadata that they are already creating can be mapped or can be extracted–either by automated means or by trained technician staff–to plug into the record structures that will populate library catalogs and national databases. For PCC, this will call for a concerted effort and bold approach under its next strategic plan to expand and recruit membership beyond the boundaries of traditional libraries and institutions. New member organizations will need to be at the table with PCC leaders and governing representatives to realize this goal. To accept that there is this new direction implicit in my vision for PCC is to accept that the PCC that will emerge will no longer be a Program for Cooperative Cataloging "of Libraries," but rather a Program for Cooperative Cataloging "of Libraries and Information Providers and Suppliers." This is not the PCC of 2005.