Cooperative Cataloging in a Post-OPAC World

The identity of individual libraries has traditionally been based on locally defined, but highly duplicative, collections. The need to build equally duplicative catalogs has provided incentive for cooperative cataloging. In the future, the collections of libraries will be not so much duplicated as shared, and separate libraries may not have separate public catalogs. Is there a place for cooperative cataloging in such a future? Yes, but future cooperative cataloging efforts will need to focus on important post–online public access catalog (OPAC) world challenges, including the development of “virtual” worldwide library collections and the provision of metadata support for new information resources and systems.