Survey on Cataloging Documentation in Law Libraries : The Results
	Christina Tarr, Law Library University of California, Berkeley ctarr@library.berkeley.edu

In June 1997, the Working Group on Classification Documentation, an offshoot of the TS/SIS Cataloging and Classification Committee, conducted a survey on cataloging documentation. Our aim was to find out who had documentation, what kinds of documentation they had, in both form and content, how useful it was to them, and if they'd be willing to share. The possible uses of the survey data that we envisioned were many. On a most basic level, we thought the information might be interesting, and could possibly support a claim for libraries wishing to create more documentation themselves. On the most hopeful level, we were interested in creating a clearinghouse for useful cataloging documentation. This goal has so far eluded us, but remains an interesting idea.

Number of respondents: 235

1. Type of library:

2. Approximate size of collection (books and bound serials):

3. What is the size of your cataloging staff? (Includes professional, clerical and student FTE)

4. If you use a cataloging utility (such as RLIN, OCLC, WLN) which one do you use?

5. If you use a local automated system (NOTIS, III, etc.), which do you use?

6. What types of cataloging documentation have you developed in your library?

7. In what ways do you use your cataloging documentation?

8. How do you imagine cataloging documentation from other libraries would be useful to you?

9. How would you rate the usefulness of your cataloging documentation to your own staff?

10. Approximately how often do you review and update cataloging documentation in your library?

11. Who, by position, is responsible for the writing and updating of your cataloging documentation?

NOT COMPILED

12. Please complete the chart below detailing how your cataloging documentation is made available:

13. Please list the URLs for any documentation available through the Internet.
In 1997, eight respondents cited web sites. Five of these still seem useful:

http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/policies.html
http://www.library.cornell.edu/tsmanual
http://www.usfca.edu/law_library/ts/cat/tp.html
http://hul.harvard.edu/cmtes/haac/bsp.html
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/law/services/cataloging/newmanual.html

14. Would you be willing to share your cataloging documentation through some mechanism set up by the Working Group on Cataloging Documentation?

15. Would you be willing to share tables of contents of any longer documentation you may have through some mechanism set up by the Working Group?

16. If you do not have any documentation, why not?

Conclusions

Of the 235 responses, roughly one third came from each category of library, academic, private and federal, state and county. Most, 168, have fewer than 4 employees. 21 have 4 or more. 115 libraries use OCLC, the most popular system by far. The next most popular, "none," is used by 69 libraries, and RLIN by 30. For local systems, "none" is the most popular with 82 libraries. III comes in second with 45, then DataTrek with 20, and Notis and Inmagic with 13. Most libraries have some form of documentation, and only 79 of 235 libraries state that they have none. The most popular type of documentation is the job description (105), followed by procedure manual (101) and memos (97). Policy documents (80) are also well represented. Of the 156 libraries that have documentation, 146, or almost all, find their documentation useful. 51 find it occasionally useful, and 38 find it very useful. Print, in 1997, was definitely the favorite medium for documentation, with libraries listing 410 print documents, 40 documents on Local Access Networks, and 8 documents available on the World Wide Web. 3 documents were available via another media, most likely e-mail. Of the 235 libraries surveyed, 79 had documentation they were willing to share. Of the 79 libraries that had no documentation, 67 responded that this was due to time constraints, and 29 that it was not needed. (In this, as in other cases above, some libraries clearly answered twice, or libraries that actually have documentation may have been responding here as to why they don't have more or better documentation.)

Because the results were compiled in a database, it was possible then to manipulate the data to come up with other, more revealing data. Looking at type of documentation produced by type of library, we see that academic libraries are the biggest producers of documentation.

While library respondents were almost evenly divided among academic, private and federal, state and county libraries, the total documentation produced by academic librarians is more than twice the amount produced by private or federal, state and county librarians. The chart also shows that the bulk of the libraries with no documentation are private libraries.

These results may be a function of library size. Charting type of library by size, we came up with the following table revealing that while most academic library respondents fall into the larger end if the scale (100,000 volumes and up) most private libraries are 50,000 volumes and under, and most federal, state and county libraries tend to cluster in the middle.

It is also interesting to note that of the 79 libraries with no documentation, 54 are libraries of under 50,000 volumes, and 74 are staffed by fewer than 2 people. Thus it is clear that small libraries and libraries with small staffs are less likely to have documentation than other libraries, and these small libraries are also more likely to be private libraries than either academic or federal, state and county libraries.

Of the 235 libraries responding to our survey, 79 of them responded that they would be willing to share documentation with other libraries. Examining these libraries by the characteristics of type and size of library reveals the following:

Not surprisingly, we see that the academic libraries, which have twice as much documentation, are twice as likely to share their documentation. Also, we see that the documentation to share pattern follows the general pattern of survey respondents. Since there are more large academic libraries, they have more documentation to share in the “large library” end of the spectrum. Private libraries have more documentation suitable to small libraries, and federal, state and county libraries fill in the middle range.

Looking at some of the characteristics the documentation libraries are willing to share, we see the following:

Usefulness of documentation

Frequency of updating

Comparing the usefulness figures of the libraries willing to share with the general survey respondents, we see that those willing to share are more likely to find their documentation very useful or useful than those in the general pool. In the general pool, more libraries found their documentation occasionally useful than very useful (51 to 38). Here, those results are reversed. In both the general and the sharing pools, very few libraries (3 and 1) found their documentation never useful. Comparing the frequency figures, it is clear that all respondents prefer to update their documentation as needed rather than on a fixed schedule, with the as needed figure equivalent to the sum of the other possibilities combined.

Our data yield interesting general conclusions, but can perhaps be even more helpful as a resource for libraries seeking examples of particular kinds of documentation. It is very easy to retrieve information regarding particular kinds of cataloging documentation for particular types of libraries, for example documentation for a library using SIRSI, or cataloging procedures for a medium-sized academic library with a 4 person staff. Ideally, we would like to make our database publicly available, but until we do I am very happy to serve as an intermediary. Anyone desiring information on cataloging documentation available for use by other libraries should contact me at: ctarr@library.berkeley.edu.