Multilingual Records in WorldCat

Since the mid-1990s, OCLC has been loading into WorldCat records that originate from sources other than member libraries. This paper addresses the issues created by vendor-contributed records for Spanish language materials and some of the internal, temporary solutions developed by the University of New Mexico General Library (UNMGL) Catalog Services Department for cataloging with these records. Based on four years of day-to-day experience cataloging titles represented in WorldCat by vendor records, the staff of the Ibero Resources Section atUNMGLhas devised procedures to identify problem areas that can cause serious access issues for OPAC users. The fact that some U.S. libraries often download these vendor-created records and do not upgrade/enhance them for the rest of the cataloging community complicates the picture. On the flip side, some that do make the effort to lock and replace the master record, fail to do a thorough job. Even more complications arise when OCLC actively recruits new members from outside the English-speaking world–certainly a very worthwhile effort–and loads records contributed by libraries from non-English speaking countries cataloged according to varying standards. Thus, U.S. libraries are facing some conflicting scenarios vis-à-vis multilingual records, and the shared cataloging environment is becoming a more complex sea for all of us to navigate. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]