Cataloging E-Books and Vendor Records

Abstract

E-books have become a substantial part of many academic library collections. Catalog records for each e-book title enhance discovery by library users, but cataloging individual books may be impossible when large packages are purchased. Increasingly, libraries are relying on outside sources for their e-book catalog records, which may come from vendors or third-party record services and are frequently included in the price of a subscription. Rather than handling individual items, catalogers find themselves managing and manipulating large sets of catalog records. While dealing with the records in batch is the only practical way to provide access to the large sets, batch processing does bring about a new set of challenges. This paper will explore the challenges of managing Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) records for the Springer e-book collection at the University of Illinois at Chicago University Library. It discusses tools and methods to improve record quality while working in a consortial setting. It provides lessons learned, continuing challenges of working with vendor records, and some steps that might help other libraries expedite the process of getting vendor records into the catalog.