| Decades ago catalog librarians were the chief "designers" of library catalogs. The work flow which consisted of receiving items, doing authority work, cataloging, typing cards, processing materials, shelving materials, and filing cards, etc. was tedious and labor intensive, but there was not an alternative to this manual process. Accordingly, the operation of cataloging in each library must be massive and very expensive. However, this disadvantage did not make cataloging departments a target for budgetary reduction, because cataloging played a pivotal role for a successful library operation. To most administrators, catalog librarians and reference librarians were both pillars of library services. |