The availability of Marc records for cataloguing

This paper, written to follow a recent article in this journal on the processing of current acquisitions, reports that the amount of original cataloguing having to be done at Stirling University Library has been found in practice to be significantly less than was forecast by a survey made before automation was introduced. The use of American catalogue records has also been higher than predicted. The recent introduction of shared cataloguing among members of Scolcap has not yet produced any change in the amount of original cataloguing, but has made the library much less dependent on centrally produced records made available through the British Library.