Growing a NACO Program: Ingredients for Success

What factors are critical to the success of expanding a NACO program? The University of Florida Libraries’ experience with NACO, the Name Authority arm of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), points to some important variables. As members of NACO, institutions contribute name and series authorities to the national authority database, which greatly increases the pool of available authorities for libraries to use. In 1987, we became a member of the NACOprogram, and faithfully submitted a few hundred authorities each year for nine years. In 1996, things began to change as we refocused our program objectives, and our submissions grew, tripling by 1998/99. The dynamics that created this environment of change are instructive for librarians and managers hoping to breath new life into existing programs. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]