The Catalogue as Language, Quality in Terms of Service: An Experience at the University of Florence

This contribution gives an account of the experience at the University of Florence, where a common language for its numerous libraries and collections was found, at the end of the eighties, in the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale, by assuming common cataloguing practices. These years were important years for academic libraries, defining their position in the growth of information needs and orienting their mission to service management and customer satisfaction. So at the Florentine library system a new concept was adopted: a client- centred library with a user-oriented catalogue, able to communicate and retrieve information. The key concept of the whole process was the catalogue as a service. To realize this, it was necessary to provide a permanent training plan for the library staff and a common working method based on quality. The Work Group for the Management and Maintenance of the Catalogue was formed, and entrusted with tasks related to the control of access points and the ordinary management of the SBN catalogue. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]