Extending the Online Catalog

Future plans of the California Ins titute of T echno logy Libraries (Brudwig, 1984) include an online analytic catalog of books, serials, journals, a nd technical reports . In an attempt to avoid the observation of Mandel a nd Herschman (1983) that " new technologies are often adapted to traditiona l uses without exploiting added capabilities" (p . 148), a number of innovative cataloging approaches are being developed. Encouraged by the work of Petersen (1983), Cochrane ( 1978), Hoffman and Magner (1985 ), a nd Quint (1987), staff members are developing procedures to a ugment the basic MARC records available through OCLC. One of the serious drawbacks of currently avai lable MARC records is that they generally describe physical items while many library users are interested in re trieving intellectual works or specific data (the contents of the items). T his is particularly troublesome in science and engineering libraries where seria ls and journals are the primary data source and are much more likely to be consulted than read cover to cover. Striking examples of this d ichotomy include: (l) a student looking for l\1ulay 's work on "Analytical Applica tions of Magnetic Susceptibility" that was published as a chapter in the Treatise on Analytical Chemistry; (2) a faculty member looking for vapor pressure-tempera ture curves for a series of hydrocarbon tha t can be found in Landolt-Bornstein; or (3 ) a postdoctoral research fellow looking for a recent review anicle on " Electronic Processes in Thin Films and. ovel Conduc tors" tha t appeared as a chapter in Annual R eports on the Progress of Chemistry. These examples are, unfortuna tely, only indica tive of a much g rea ter problem. Science and engineering libraries are becoming progressively much more difficult to use due to: ( I ) the drama tic increase in publica tion of multiple works in volumes that continue to be ca taloged as individual items, and (2) the need to use various databases to access informa tion in seria l and journal articles and technical reports.