The NEOUCOM Cooperative Cataloging Service: development and review of the first four years.

The Basic Medical Sciences Library of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM) provided a Cooperative Cataloging Service to fourteen of its affiliated hospitals' libraries since March 1978, using the OCLC system. Analysis of the first four years of service showed that the hospital libraries spent almost $30,000 to catalog more than 18,000 titles. Personnel expenses and other costs eclipsed the savings from a 31.3% duplication rate. Centralized bibliographic control control and the principal by-product of the service, a uniform, machine-related data base, provided the foundation for an on-line integrated library system to serve the consortium. The hospital libraries contributed 44% of the unique titles in this data base, which emphasis the need to share resources and continue cooperation.