College and Research Libraries


By C L I F F O R D B. C L A P P 

Critique and Design on the 
Cost of Cataloging 
Mr. Clapp is head of the catalog depart-

ment, University of Pennsylvania Library, 

Philadelphia. 

TH I S Y E A R a call has been issued to re-consider cataloging. It has been a 
call so clear and insistent that it cannot be 

disregarded either by catalogers, or admin-

istrators of cataloging, or administrators 

of libraries. It concerns the theory or 

philosophy of cataloging, its efficiency, and 

even more its cost. In recent talks on the 

subject at the meetings of the American 

Library Association in Boston and Cam-

bridge stress has been laid on the cost of 

cataloging. Both M r . M e t c a l f 1 and M r . 

Osborn2 have issued a challenge to cata-

logers and administrators to remedy the 

increasingly difficult situation of mounting 

costs.3 W h e n , with their papers before 

us, we rehearse their analyses and appeals, 

we find them both taking a very sym-

pathetic position in placing a joint re-

sponsibility on library administrator and 

cataloger and in appealing for more mu-

tual understanding and more collabora-

tion. 

1 M e t c a l f , K e y e s D . " T h e A t t i t u d e of the Li-
b r a r y Administrator toward Cataloging." A.L.A. 
Bulletin 3S:P-48-5i, Sept. 1941. 

2 Osborn, A n d r e w D. The Crisis in Cataloging. 
1941. A l s o in the Library Quarterly 11:409-10, Oct. 
1941. 

3 Since the present paper was written the experi-
mental division on library cooperation of the L i b r a r y 
of Congress has issued as its first bulletin Herbert A . 
K e l l a r ' s Memoranda on Library Cooperation, Sept. 
1941, which contains an important section on the 
same situation and the related problems of cataloging 
arrears. 

A t the same time there seems to be an 

implication that the difficulties are mainly 

the cataloger's problem, which the librar-

ian must study and help her to solve. 

T h e feeling is probably pretty general that 

the major responsibility is the cataloger's. 

A somewhat different view is shown in 

Miss MacDonald's paper,4 which fol-

lowed M r . Metcalf's at Boston. It is 

evident that she expects the librarian to 

take more of the responsibility than merely 

to insist and discuss and agree, that she 

expects of him at least a full partnership 

in the question and probably more. Is not 

that implied when she says, "Librarians 

need to develop a positive attitude to the 

card catalog"? It is evident, I am sure, 

when, after pointing out the development 

of specialized collections and services she 

asks (and answers), " W h o is primarily 

responsible for such increases? Certainly 

not the catalogers." 

It is not fair nor wise to place much 

stress on the share of responsibility to be 

borne by librarian or catalog department 

administrator or any group in the per-

sonnel. M r . Metcalf and M r . Osborn 

agree that administrators and catalogers 

have grown too far apart. T h e present 

paper, written from the point of view of 

the manager of a catalog department, is an 

attempt to lay the basis for some remedial 

4 MacDonald, M. Ruth. " T h e Cataloger's Response 
to the A d m i n i s t r a t o r . " A.L.A. Bulletin 35:58-59, 
Sept. 1941. 

MARCH, 1942 
15 7 



action in the face of this situation. W h a t 

is written here is no catholicon. It teems 

with disputable assertions. But it is in 

some respect representative of conditions 

and needs observed by the writer in vari-

ous libraries and may afford to librarians 

and catalogers some suggestions for defi-

nite cooperation and improvement. 

T h e r e is a tendency to think about 

cataloging in general terms and in bulk. 

Viewed in such general fashion there is 

really no such thing as the cost of catalog-

ing. There is forgetfulness of the fact 

that the cataloging dollar, like the house-

wife's dollar, is a relative thing. T h e r e 

is some disregard of the professions of 

catalogers that they are responding to the 

demands of reference departments, the cost 

of whose service is more seldom ques-

tioned. If these things seem to show too 

little thinking about cataloging, some other 

things indicate one-sided thinking or in-

sufficient basic knowledge about catalog-

ing. 

For example, there is a tendency to 

blame the complexity of catalog cards and 

the multiplicity of entries and of special 

catalogs for the entire sin of cataloging 

expense. Overelaboration of records is, 

of course, a feature of costliness, but it is 

not per se the prime offender. Its main 

significance is not, in this age of rules and 

of machines, that it is time-consuming but 

that it tends to disproportionately expen-

sive organization and personnel. 

M r . Osborn devotes several pages to 

the theories and niceties of cataloging and 

related functions of catalog departments 

and only two to the organization of the 

department. But he perfectly appreciates 

the importance of the organization to prob-

lems of cost, for he says, "Organizational 

questions are equally pressing," and he 

indicates several of these questions. 

Place of Personnel 

T h e place of personnel in catalog de-
partment work is probably the hardest 
thing to discuss in library publications. 
Questions of personnel are vital elements 
in cataloging cost, and they present the 
most serious problems of both catalog de-
partment heads and librarians, or at least 
they ought to be so considered. 

In a paper like the present one, no all-
inclusive design for catalog department 
economy could possibly be set up. But it 
seems very important to present some-
thing, and for the sake of emphasis I am 
offering my little something with the per-
sonal pronoun. 

M r . Osborn has suggested that the 
library administrator needs to know a 
good deal about cataloging from the in-
side, and that a prospective administrator 
might well spend a year as an intern in a 
good catalog department. Let me suggest 
as an alternative to this that an actual 
library administrator spend a month in a 
bad cataloging department, or at least in 
one where the cost is running too high. 
I think that if that were done a sort of 
pattern would form in his conception of 
his catalog department, which would em-
brace much more than the questions of 
cataloging codes, theories of cataloging, 
and multiplicity of records. 

In some libraries he would find that 
costs suffer because of poor equipment, be-
cause of great distances between points 
within the scope of everyday activities, 
and because reference tools are lacking. 
Aside from such local conditions, first, he 
would criticize bad habits in administra-
tion, like neglecting to see things through, 
toleration of disorderliness, and use of 
caustic criticism. Next, he would observe 
inadequate cooperation by superiors and 
coordinate departments in furnishing in-

164 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



formation or making decisions. T h e n he 
would notice improper assignment of du-
ties, especially neglect of possibilities of 
using lower-priced people on some work. 
I think he would discover that there was 
want of a simple system of dealing with 
portions of the material coming for cata-
loging. I think he would criticize the 
department for its habit of applying maxi-
mum instead of minimum standards of 
treatment in classifying and cataloging 
and shelflisting and marking. Among his 
classifiers and catalogers he would see that 
there was failure to discriminate between 
the permanent and the temporary and be-
tween the pristine and the already indexed 
or described. He would find, if it were 
an old catalog department, an inadequate 
psychological reaction to the situation, by 
higher-priced people especially, shown by 
overmeticulousness in unimportant mat-
ters, inability to place reliance on others, 
unadaptiveness to new work or methods, 
and, finally, slowing down. 

Conditions Affecting Cost 

Such are some of the conditions affect-
ing the cost of cataloging that would be 
found in some departments. It would be 
silly, of course, to infer any implication 
here that they are characteristic of all 
catalog departments or that all these con-
ditions would prevail in one department. 

A longer period in the catalog depart-
ment would bring out some factors of 
larger scale and significance that dominate 
the work no matter what may be its per-
sonnel and organization. T h e first is the 
exceeding importance of machines of the 
right type and quantity, like typewriters, 
electric erasers, and book trucks, and, in 
some circumstances, mimeograph and past-
ing machines. T h e next is proper light 
and air and some degree of medical in-

spection. Another is the planned flow of 
books into the department. T h e n there 
is the need for better budgeting of libraries 
and catalog departments. 

It is a fact, strange as it may seem, that 
many cataloging chiefs are less bound by 
tradition and seemingly inexorable prece-
dent than librarians and the heads of the 
public departments and less afraid of 
doing wrong than the principal members 
of their own staffs. Supposing that in the 
search for efficiency and reformation of 
costs such a catalog department head is 
sitting at a council table with the librarian 
or his deputy, with papers and plans giv-
ing a broad view of the department. A 
candid exposition would probably reveal 
three main things appearing as immovable 
as mountains: first, a well-developed or-
ganization on traditional lines; second, a 
high cataloging standard; and third, a 
practical disregard of the possibility of 
dispatching collections of books, papers, 
and costs on anything like a budgetary 
basis. 

Librarian Knows Functions 

T h e librarian would know the individ-
ual positions and salaries of the members 
of the catalog department, and he would 
know in a general way the functions they 
were performing, like classifying, shelflist-
ing, filing, and so on, and the types of 
material they were handling, such as art, 
science, and education. O f course he 
would know their individualities and capa-
bilities. It is doubtful whether he would 
know that card work was 25 per cent of 
cost, and administration 7 per cent, or that 
the work of a shelflister was one tenth or 
one twenty-fifth of the cost of cataloging. 

In a library adding ten, twenty, or 
thirty thousand volumes a year and han-
dling a considerable amount of special col-

MARCH, 1942 
16 7 



lection and departmental library work, 

together with cooperative work, films, 

maps, and the like, there are at least a 

dozen basic positions or functions in the 

cataloging service. From two to four of 

these may be combined into single posi-

tions. 

In smaller libraries the functions of 

these positions exist but may be still 

further combined. For example, in a 

library handling six thousand volumes 

without much departmental library work 

the dozen places might be combined into 

about four. In a very large library the 

skeleton outline would be developed ac-

cording to need by adding more persons 

in some positions, more catalogers, more 

typists, and so on. T h i s is a standard 

organization, not necessarily the ideal one. 

Positions in Catalog Department 

These dozen positions are ( I ) super-
intendent, ( 2 ) distributor, ( 3 ) classifier, 
( 4 ) general cataloger, ( 5 ) serials cata-
loger, ( 6 ) shelflister, ( 7 ) card secretary, 
(8) reviser, ( 9 ) card filer, ( 1 0 ) typist, 
( 1 1 ) book preparer, ( 1 2 ) departmental 
library agent. T h e distributor receives 
books from half a dozen different sources 
and routes them to classifiers and cata-
logers, may interpose at any point in the 
routine to forward books, and is the nat-
ural follow-up agent for anything that is 
searched for or anything that is unduly 
delayed. Hers is a key position, which 
demands one of the most intelligent and 
well-balanced persons on the staff. Never-
theless, her salary rating will average five 
against a classifier's six or seven. T h e 
serials cataloger may catalog new serials 
and adjust old ones, but she must (if the 
position is a single one) devote most of 
her time to routine adding of volumes and 
parts. In salary she may rate as low as 

four, but, if there is a full-fledged serials 
division with two or more members, she 
may go as high as seven. T h e card secre-
tary orders and receives printed cards, di-
rects mimeograph work, and supervises 
the typists. In smaller departments her 
work may be combined with shelflisting, 
revision, filing, searching files, etc. T h e 
book preparer pastes and marks books. 
T h e departmental library agent forwards 
books to departmental libraries, receives 
books from them, visits them, advises their 
librarians and the officers of the depart-
ment, sometimes does their filing, and in 
general acts as liaison agent with the main 
library. She has to be a person of tact 
and ability, but her rating is only three 
or four, unless she acts as classifier or 
cataloger for departments. T h e card 
filer, responsible only for filing in the 
public catalog, rates at three or four on 
the basis of her main work, and since she 
files only about half time she does other 
work of about the same grade. In a small 
library she may be responsible for other 
files. In a library with a depository Li-
brary of Congress catalog a separate filer 
is necessary. In the very large library the 
work of neither filing position can be 
handled by one person alone. 

T h e ratings of which I have spoken are 
salary ratings, based on a unit system in 
which a page is one unit. T h e ratings are 
those which it is necessary to give to the 
positions in order to obtain and keep com-
petent people. T h e y are as follows: ( 1 ) 
Superintendent, 7 to 1 4 ; ( 2 ) Distributor, 
4 to 6 ; ( 3 ) Classifier, 5 to 8 ; ( 4 ) Cata-
loger, 4 to 7 ; ( 5 ) Serials cataloger, 4 to 
7 ; ( 6 ) Shelflister, 3 to 5 ; ( 7 ) Card sec-
retary, 3 to 4 ; (8) Reviser, 4 to 5 ; ( 9 ) 
Card filer, 3 to 4 ; ( 1 0 ) Typist, 2 to 3 ; 
( 1 1 ) Book preparer, 2 to 3 ; ( 1 2 ) De-
partmental agent, 3 to 4. 

166 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



Minimum Requirements 

A f t e r a couple of combinations of posi-

tions, with a skeleton staff of ten, at the 

lowest ratings, the catalog department's 

minimum requirements will be just under 

f o r t y ; without such combinations, and 

with average ratings, the requirements 

will be between fifty-five and sixty. If 

the unit of rating is valued at $ 3 0 0 , the 

department must pay a minimum of about 

$ 1 2 , 0 0 0 and a maximum of $ 1 8 , 0 0 0 , the 

latter at average and not maximum sal-

aries, to carry on the twelve functions 

that have been detailed. 

W h a t can be obtained for this money? 

M a t c h i n g volumes cataloged against 

number of people in the department, cal-

culations made on the basis of figures from 

several large university libraries show pro-

duction ranging all the way from eight 

hundred to twenty-five hundred or three 

thousand volumes cataloged per year per 

person in the department. In the case of 

the eight hundred there is reason to think 

that the department employed quite a 

number of low-priced people, w h o gave 

either part-time or else low-degree service. 

In the case of the other extreme, twenty-

five hundred or three thousand, I appre-

hend that everything went through the 

mill, foreign dissertations, multiple copies 

of textbooks, etc. W h e n you try to match 

volumes cataloged against salaries of peo-

ple in the departments, there are closer 

similarities between some libraries and 

greater discrepancies between some. Fig-

ures for several show cost per volume 

ranging from 85^ to $ 1 . 1 5 , and I hear 

sometimes of 65<j: and $2. I do not be-

lieve any reliance can be placed on any-

thing but the most exact knowledge of 

conditions. T h e figures are practically 

worthless, except to suggest that what I 

call a skeleton staff of ten people paid 

rather poorly might catalog fifteen thou-

sand volumes a year. 

Some Doing Less Work 

If that is the case, then some catalog 

departments are doing proportionately less 

work with a larger staff, or a higher-paid 

one, than if they had the skeleton staff. 

Bear in mind that I say proportionately. 

T h e work is intricate and positions are 

therefore mixed and therefore calculations 

are intricate and uncertain. B u t when 

cataloging staffs tend to produce less in 

proportion to their increase in size and in 

total salaries it means overbalancing some-

where. It may mean that the best-paid 

people, doing the higher-grade work, are 

doing comparatively less of it and that the 

work is in a manner of speaking too high 

grade. Some of it has to be refined but 

probably too much of it is too refined. 

T h e point, then, is that one method of 

reducing cost is to give a better balance 

to the staff, emphasizing possibly the mid-

dle grades. T h a t may mean emphasizing 

the middle grades of work as well as of 

positions, and that probably means retreat-

ing somewhat from completeness and per-

fection. 

T h e same conclusion must inevitably be 

reached if we read and reread the practical 

suggestions of M r . Metcalf and M r . 

Osborn. T h e same conclusion was 

reached longer ago by Ernest Cushing 

Richardson. Bibliographical cataloging 

has its place but numerically it is a minor 

one. Scholarship on the staff fosters re-

spect for our classifiers and catalogers but 

scholarly and scientific research are not a 

main object of our work. I should be the 

last person to advocate lowering the stand-

ard of a major portion of our personnel. 

Bibliographers in a catalog department 

are necessary. T h e r e will be no quarrel 

MARCH, 1942 16 7 



with bibliographical cataloging of incunab-
ula, early Americana, literary first edi-
tions, fine books, local items, and manj 
undescribed rarities. T h e work on these 
must not be in the hands of second-rate 
people. But the place for most biblio-
graphical work is in the keeping of certain 
types of special library, of custodians of 
special collections, and of private research. 
Full and well-nigh perfect cataloging is 
now standard, brought to that rating by 
the Library of Congress cards and by the 
A . L . A . rules. It is not the having of this 
perfection that is expensive, it is the per-
fect devotion to it, the single standard, the 
lapse from reason. 

Three Grades of Cataloging 

M r . Osborn makes what is perhaps his 

most important practical suggestion when 

he calls for "three distinct and approved 

grades of cataloging" which would be fol-

lowed "in the code" as well as "in many 

libraries." In connection with this we 

must not miss his statement that "stand-

ard cataloging," one of his three approved 

grades, "would be less detailed in many 

respects than the 1908 code or the Library 

of Congress formerly required." 

If the cost of cataloging is to be low-

ered permanently a greater proportion of 

it must be done within the medium grades 

of salary requirement and a greater reli-

ance must be placed on carefully developed 

lower grades. T h i s has been exemplified 

in the development of preliminary catalog-

ing at Harvard, a method adaptable in 

some degree at least to high-priced depart-

ments anywhere—prophecies of woe to the 

contrary notwithstanding. 

Cataloging on the Library of Congress 

standard cannot be done except by a thor-

oughly trained or experienced professional 

staff. T h e great obstacle to acceptance of 

a medium grade of cataloging is that for 

many years now it has not been nationally 

standard. Therefore, the distribution of 

standard medium cards for a portion of 

the cataloging of a subject or type of 

material under the sponsorship of a na-

tional agency would definitely promote 

lower costs. T h e means are available: 

first, the outline of a code in Miss Mann's 

"local unit" card; second, the use of 

lower-cost preparation, perhaps on the 

lines of the Harvard system; third, the 

supplying of copy for current publications 

within certain agreed fields by ten or more 

libraries;5 fourth, the production and dis-

tribution by one or more centers under the 

direction and authority of the Library of 

Congress of a considerable quantity of 

mimeographed instead of printed cards.6 

Mimeographed cards, now being produced 

by the University of Pennsylvania and 

some other libraries, are at their best equal 

to or better than the best typewritten 

cards. By the combination of these stages 

the cataloging, production, distribution, 

and receipt of cards for a portion of the 

material cataloged could take place all 

within one week, at a lower cost than 

present Library of Congress work. 

Mechanics of Plan 

It would be impossible in a paper of 
this length to indicate the mechanics of 
such a plan,7 which is, after all, only one 
of the ways of standardizing medium cata-
loging—perhaps I should say restandard-
izing it. T h e r e are two or three ways of 
carrying out the project or of experiment-
ing with it on a considerable scale. It is 
easy to understand the objections to a 

5 M o s t of the libraries should be located in big 
cities and act as sponsors f o r c o o p e r a t i v e c a t a l o g i n g 
in those metropolitan areas. 

6 E n a b l i n g the L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s to print more 
c a r d s f o r important works. 

7 K e l l a r i n v i t e s the discussion of such plans. 

168 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



plan like this on the part of catalogers dis-
liking to see a retrogression in the beauty 
and legibility of even a portion of the 
cards, and on the part of librarians re-
sponsive to the demands of reference 
departments for the highest degree of inclu-
siveness of information. Nevertheless, if 
the single aim is economy, there is here 
required new understanding, willingness, 
and courage, and no little energy and 
tedious study. 

Alteration of the organization of a 
catalog department has to come about 
gradually. In contemplating such altera-
tions, happy may be the librarian who has 
arrears of material to be cataloged.8 It is 
the easier for him to make shifts of work 
without injustice to existing personnel. 
T h i s is not intended to justify arrears; 
but in streamlining the department, to use 
M r . Osborn's term, the librarian with 
arrears has the greater resources. He can 
budget these resources over, say, a three-
year period. A f t e r providing for the 
books purchased for immediate use he can 
determine the time required and the cost 
of preparation of the rest of the books, 
including the collections on hand and the 
average accessions of gifts. He can force 
the cataloging, or in some cases the simple 
classifying and indexing, of, say, one third 
of the material in one year, within the 
stipulated cost, by whatever method is 
required to accomplish it. T h i s is im-
portant: by whatever method is required 
to accomplish it. He can receive peri-
odically, or at the end of the year, a state-
ment of arrears within the plan, with the 
reasons therefor, of unforeseen accessions 
and of special unforeseen work, and of the 
cost of carrying on the plan on the same 
or a revised basis. 

8 S e e the figures on a r r e a r s in K e l l a r ' s M e m o r a n d a . 

Budgetary Control 

Handling library accessions in this way 
is the identical twin of budgetary proce-
dure, concerning which John H . M a c -
Donald has written,9 "Budgetary control 
assumes a genuine desire on the part of 
the entire organization, from the president 
to the office boy, to keep as close to the 
previously charted course as possible, to 
accept responsibility for doing so, to check 
actual performance against the plans, and 
in every other respect to use the budget as 
a real road map to reach the previously 
established goal." 

But if the library has no arrears—and 
this would be a happy situation, too—does 
not the plan of dispatching collections on 
a budgetary basis suggest the idea of some 
temporary cataloging or even listing, pend-
ing the grouping of lots or masses of like 
material which can be most economically 
done by groups? Since the question is 
how to economize, the hypothetical dimin-
ishing of the catalog's service and all the 
predicted difficulties of reclaiming books 
for completion of work cannot be al-
lowed to prevent the consideration of such 
a policy for at least a portion of the ac-
quisitions or accumulations. 

In the present year there is much moot-
ing of cataloging questions. O n account 
of the issuance of the tentative second 
edition of the A . L . A . code, there will be 
enough discussion to satisfy the most en-
thusiastic or serious devotees of technical 
excellence. T h e time should not pass 
without a very serious, if not enthusiastic, 
discussion of the technique involved in 
reform of catalog department expense, and 
discussion should not end without some 
sort of national or general action. 

9 M a c D o n a l d , John H . Practical Budget Procedure, 
N e w Y o r k , P r e n t i c e - H a l l , I n c . , 1939, P- 2. 

MARCH, 1942 
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