Bibliographic Utilities and Latin American Collections

Abstract

There appears to be a conflict between the principles of cooperation in cataloging and the acquisition of Latin American materials. A recent look at the literature revealed that the availability of copy cataloging for Latin American imprints in the bibliographic utilities seems to be on the decline. The author surveyed large, medium, and small Latin American collections via the Internet to determine the usefulness of bibliographic utilities for cataloging Latin American material. It was found that some large collections use more than one utility. Library representatives said their institutions were using more than one utility because they were trying to receive the maximum benefit from copy cataloging. Some catalogers of Latin American imprints seem unaware of the decline of copy cataloging in the bibliographic utilities that has been documented in the literature.