Cataloguing in the 21st century!

The last time that I had anything to do with cataloguing and MARC records, I worked in an unautomated school library, I viewed 'surfing the net' a huge time waster and did not even have my own e-mail address! The only cataloging tools that were used at the time were in book form. Oh boy, how things have changed, in what seems like a very short amount of time (less than 10 years). I now check my e-mail several times in a 24 hour period and the internet has become immersed into the fabric of my life.

In addition, while reading the postings of my peers listing/describing a huge number of online cataloging tools and standards, it also highlighted how ingrained automation and the World Wide Web has become in the sphere of the teacher librarian. While I was excited to see how technology has simplified, in some respects, the very detailed and sometimes very time consuming nature of the cataloging process, I was also reminded of the importance of cataloging in this increasingly technological era. Intner and Jean(2007)in their introduction to their book Standard Cataloging For School and Public Libraries writes "In the twenty-first century, local library and media center catalogs are more than just keys to the collections housed within local schools and community buildings. They are also gateways to the world that lies beyond school and town, with all of its rich intellectual resources" (p. 3).