...
While the overall numbers of staff involved in copy cataloging activities at Columbia and Cornell are comparable (see Columbia Central TS, Starr East Asian, and Cornell org. charts) it is not easy to assess staffing levels in terms of FTE because Columbia's copy cataloging operations are more centralized than Cornell's. At Cornell there are 35 staff members performing inputting and fastcatting and 4 copy catalogers, at Columbia there are 25 copy catalogers. There is a difference in major responsibilities as well. At Columbia copy catalogers are support staff performing mainly cataloging activities: inputting minimal level records, backlogging, performing copy and sometimes original cataloging. At Cornell these tasks are more aligned with position titles: copy copy cataloger and inputter/fastcatter. The main difference in staff distribution is that at Columbia most staff perform only cataloging related duties while at Cornell many of the fastcatters and inputters have other Technical Services related responsibilities (e.g. receiving, ordering, physical processing, database maintenance, etc.)
...
At both institutions communication is encouraged not only between staff members and direct supervisors but also with higher management and across divisions/departments. It seems at Cornell the relationships between professional and support staff are less formal, and staff may occasionally receive instructions or guidelines from managers other than their direct supervisor. There are "open office hours" and "drop in" session sessions for members of the Senior Management Team and the Associate University Librarian at Cornell to communicate informally with staff and more casual staff conversations with Technical Services directors at Columbia.
...
Columbia and Cornell have different strategies for handling materials that could not be fully cataloged on receipt. At Columbia for more than 20 years the Precat and more recently since 2009 the Offprecat circulating backlogs were designed to provide quick discovery of new materials for patrons. At Cornell this goal is fulfilled mostly by the Class on Receipt workflow which also is intended to make materials available to patrons as quickly as possible.
...
Materials at Cornell are brought to copy cataloging by inputters/fastcatters. Excluding belle lettres which are handled by copy catalogers, inputters/fastcatters route Items lacking subject headings, to Physical Processing whose staff places them in the storage presses and the original catalogers may do full, minimal level or class-on-receipt cataloging; copy catalogers as well do class-on-receipt (Cornell book workflow chart). All formats with copy are handled by copy catalogers. Rush cataloging goes to a prominent shelf for both original and copy catalogers to retrieve. The inputters in the Copy Cataloging and Inputting Unit as well as other Acquisitions and Batch Processing staff do bulk record loads. The level of cross-training makes units quite interdependent and enables team work.
...
While both Columbia and Cornell use online statistics macros to record cataloging activities, and use 948 field in the bib to record it, Cornell has more detailed and faceted statistics recording than Columbia. For example, Cornell generates reports using the statistics macro to distinguish between formats while Columbia statistics is are kept only for level of cataloging (except for East Asian Library where statistics for formats are also maintained semi-automatically).
...
There are similarities in copy cataloging by language. Both institutions copy catalog English language materials at higher rate than any other language, which is followed mostly by Western European languages (Spanish, French, and German) as well as Slavic, East Asian languages, and Arabic. Cornell, unlike Columbia copy catalogs a significant number of materials in Southeast Asian languages which reflects collection development policies.
...