The History and Development of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging

Libraries, which take seriously the responsibility to facilitate discovery and delivery of information resources for their patrons, have historically found cataloging costly and cumbersome. In the early 1970s, a series of initiatives was undertaken to develop more cooperative and expeditious approaches to reducing the cost of cataloging, while improving its quality. These initiatives culminated in the formation of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging. This article is a brief history of how the Program came to be, its structure, and what might be in store for it in the future.