The purpose of this research is to examine automated library cataloging, commonly referred to as the system of the Online Computer Library Center (sometimes wrongly referred to as Ohio Computer Library Center), or OCLC, which originated in the 1960s with research done at the University of Connecticut, and which seeks to standardize automated cataloging services for libraries (Zeidner, 1976; Calabrese & Acker, 1987). The plan of the research will be to set forth the principal features of OCLC, including the origins and need for the system, the use of and accessibility to automated catalogues, and current trends in automated cataloging. As appropriate, there will also be discussion of advantages and disadvantages of OCLC, methods and ranges of OCLC searching, and differences between that system and commercial bibliographic databases.
To discuss the origin of and need for the OCLC system it should be necessary only to discuss the phenomenon of the Information Age, which has arisen, with the Computer Age, from the 1960s. The explosion of printed matter and the constant improvements and increase in the storage of research materials would by itself have been meaningless had the information so stored not also been retrievable, accessible. And as a practical matter, the sheer mass of information could hardly have been retrievable or accessible had it not been indexed on a computerized database. Conventional card cataloging had long been available, it is true; however, it is one thing to have information embedded in manually operated indexing systems and another to have the manpower available to use such systems efficiently. Computer database capability facilitated the rapid sorting, cross-referencing, and indexing of bibliographic material, and the retrieval of bibliographic entries so sorted and indexed. It is not too much to say that, over the long haul, the OCLC concept made the difference between availability and accessibility of inform...