OCLC PromptCat Service a Valuable
Option in Current Economic Climate

In the current economic climate, library managers are under increasing pressure to decrease costs while improving efficiency and providing exceptional service to patrons. Putting newly acquired resources on the shelves quickly and making them accessible through the library's catalog just as rapidly, are two key goals for every library, even as budgets and staff time are cut.

Outsourcing portions of your cataloging activity may be an option under consideration at your library. If so, OCLC's PromptCat copy cataloging service may be worth investigating. PromptCat provides OCLC MARC bibliographic records for items you purchase from a PromptCat participating vendor, usually within a day or two of your order with the vendor. Almost 20 materials vendors cooperate with OCLC to deliver WorldCat bibliographic records to you based upon your order with one of these vendors. Among the vendors are Baker & Taylor, BWI, Coutts, Ingram, Matthews and YBP. A complete list is at www.oclc.org/promptcat/about/vendors/.

Options abound with the PromptCat service. You may decide to receive Library of Congress records only, or receive member records, as well. You may omit Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) or other minimal records if you prefer. Local data, such as invoice information or bar code numbers, may be inserted. You may also choose to have an electronic label file delivered to you or to your vendor. PromptCat can handle Dewey Decimal Classification, Library of Congress or National Library of Medicine call numbers and provides various prefix, cuttering and workmark options. Biography and fiction call numbers can also be assigned.

Records may be delivered to you via FTP or the OCLC Product Services Web. You can time the setting of your holdings, either immediate or delayed, to facilitate resource sharing. Reports and statistics are generated for you, as well.

While PromptCat does not yet handle serial titles, it can take care of your basic copy cataloging needs and frees valuable staff time for other activities, whether a backlog of more difficult material, a retrospective project or original cataloging. For PromptCat to be cost effective for most libraries, cataloging activity should be at least 100 titles per month. PromptCat has worked well with all major local automation systems, as it provides the same quality OCLC MARC records you have access to in WorldCat. It also works well with other OCLC services such as Bibliographic Notification. Should you choose to receive CIP records via PromptCat, Bibliographic Notification will deliver the upgraded, full records to replace them as soon as they become available.

The fee for each record delivered includes searching, editing (and the connect time to do so), your archival record at OCLC, the optional label file and all reports and statistics. For more information, go to www.oclc.org/promptcat/ or contact Linda Gonzalez> (lgonzale@bcr.org) or Rosario Garza (rgarza@bcr.org) at BCR, (303) 751-6277 or (800) 397-1552.

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February 27, 2008
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