Elizabeth,

I agree and sympathize with Judith. Some people who catalog are, out of
necessity, performing several roles, so, understandably, they are going
to make mistakes. Not to mention the fact that some go into a cataloging
position with almost no couse work and very little training. I think you
should let the person know so s/he can improve his/her cataloging.

Alan

Koveleskie, Judith wrote:

>I think you should contact the library and try to work something out with them.  I do very little original cataloging and when I do copy cataloging am always amazed by the number of seemingly duplicate records that exist when there is a "main" record that has been worked on by the reputable national agencies.   I usually try and wait until someone more knowledgeable than I has created a record.  When it a local item then I will go ahead and do original cataloging.  I would certainly like to know if my contributions were wrong. If the offending library is not cooperative, then I would notify OCLC because you are doing all of us a favor.
>
>Judith A. Koveleskie
>Periodicals Librarian
>Seton Hill University
>Reeves Memorial Library
>Greensburg, PA 15601
>724-838-7828
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
>[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU]On Behalf Of Elizabeth Urbanik
>Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 10:52 AM
>To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
>Subject: [SERIALST] Something of an ethics question
>
>
>Hello all,
>If you're happily cataloging and keep finding bad records in OCLC, and
>all of those records have been contributed by the same library, what do
>you do? Only notify OCLC of the errors? Do that plus send a nice note to
>the library in question, offering help?
>
>Thanks,
>Elizabeth
>
>Elizabeth Urbanik
>Asst. Prof./Serials Cataloger
>Mitchell Memorial
>Mississippi State University
>(662) 325-3018
>
>"If you never ask the question, you never have to hear the answer."

--
Alan May
Serials/ Nonbook Cataloger
University Libraries
University of Alabama