Technical services and user service improvement

From the cataloging librarians' point of view, this paper aims to present how technical services, especially the cataloging department, can play important roles in the improvement of user services.

The paper examines the practices of the University of Oklahoma Libraries.

The paper identifies several aspects in which technical services can enhance the quality of user services, especially in the cataloging department. A library's online catalog becomes the first point of access to the library's information resources. Its quality can be improved and enriched in many ways to raise users’ satisfaction. Aside from the improvement in technical aspects, efforts should also be made to promote collaboration between technical and public services so as to ensure efficient processing of materials and to meet the needs of library users.

The value of the paper is in showing that the quality of an online catalog and the cooperation between public and technical services are two of the key factors in achieving high quality of user services.