Shared Resources, Shared Records

Abstract

Many libraries share regional, statewide, or even national union or consortium catalogs to enable consolidated search and display of participant holdings. These catalogs typically duplicate search capabilities provided by individual libraries’ local catalogs. Search TRLN is a discovery layer built to support both group and individual library catalog interfaces for the four member institutions of the Triangle Research Libraries Network. In 2010, the Shared Records Pilot Task Group extended this shared catalog concept to the individual bibliographic record level. In this model, individual member libraries assume responsibility for building and maintaining record sets for commonly held electronic collections on behalf of the consortium. Today the program includes more than 220,000 shared records representing 765,000 individual library holdings. This has resulted in considerable savings in staff costs, processing costs, and metadata storage and suggests an evolving model for catalogers as managers, rather than as creators and curators, of metadata. This article discusses the evolution of this project, the development of staff trust necessary to let go of proprietary metadata, and the systems logic needed for implementation. The article closes with criteria for assessing the success of the program, including improvements in catalog display, throughput and timeliness, time savings, and elimination of duplicated maintenance activities.