Education for Authority Control: Whose Responsibility Is It?

Educating librarians to perform authority work and catalog maintenance involves formal education in library school and both on-the-job and in-service training. However, the path from library school graduate to authority control librarian is neither direct nor self-evident. The authors surveyed the membership of the AUTOCAT electronic discussion group to determine how librarians learn the theory and practice of authority control and catalog maintenance; strategies that would make authority control easier to learn; levels of educational responsibility involved for the library schools, individual librarians and their employers; and how librarians value authority control. The survey results show that an ongoing collaboration among librarians, employers and educators is needed to refine and simplify the process of authority control education. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH.