A short time after the guidelines for the CONSER core record
were posted to various listservs, some of the serials catalogers
here decided to conduct an unscientific, limited study to
get an impression of the possible impact this new standard
might have on our cataloging workflow.

Perhaps others on this list will find the results of
interest, or perhaps others have conducted similar studies
and can then make some kind of comparison with our results.
It is important to emphasize that our study was an informal
one with a very limited scope.

The study was conducted for one week by three original
catalogers.  Only incoming material with no available copy
was used.  Each title was first cataloged according to the
core record guidelines.  All necessary work to "beef up"
each record to full record guidelines was done next.  Each
step was timed separately.  Total cataloging time for a full
level record therefore equals time spent on creating a core
level record, added to the extra time spent to beef it up to
full.  Finally, time spent on creating headings for NACO
contribution was also measured.

CONSER CORE RECORD TEST STATISTICS

Cataloging

Number of cataloged records:  21

Cataloging time (in hours)

Core:        5.1

Full:        6.6
            ----
TOTAL       21.2

Time difference between Core and Full:  1.5 hrs.

Average cataloging time (in minutes)

Core:       14.6

Full:       18.9

Average time difference between Core and Full:  4.3 min.

NACO

Number of NACO records:  10

NACO time (in hours):  4.4

Average NACO time (in minutes):  26.6

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Steve Oberg                                   e-mail: so67@midway.uchicago.edu
Serials Cataloger                                    Tel. no. : (312) 702-8769
The University of Chicago Library                         FAX : (312) 702-0853
1100 East 57th St., Rm. 220
Chicago, IL   60637
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