Collaborative Cataloging within a Centralized Network: The Case of the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus

Efforts at networking and cooperation have flourished for some time at the University of the West Indies (UWI), a regional institution in the English-speaking Caribbean. Due to their common mission and shared goals, libraries within the system have collaborated on projects to enhance the services provided to their clients. In its attempt at collaboration, the Mona Campus established the UWI Mona Information Network, the primary goal of which is the creation of a campus-wide online catalog with member libraries having access to a larger pool of resources. Most of the departmental libraries within the system have struggled with their inability to adequately acquire and provide access to their collections. To this end some of these libraries have collaborated with the UWI Library to have their holdings added to the online public access catalog (OPAC). This article presents an overview of the collaborative efforts of the UWI Mona Libraries.