Historic cataloging costs, issues and trends

The length of LC cataloging cards in number of characters increased 24,5 % between 1956 and 1981, the number of entries 130,2 %, the number of fields 96,9 %, and the number of subject heading subdivisions 156,2 %. There is a trend toward longer and more complex cataloging copy and a small countertrend toward less than AACR2 cataloging. Most academic libraries, 69,2 %, are unable to state what their cataloging costs are. Since 1876 the wholesale commodity price index has increased 729 %, the price of gold (another measure of inflation) 1 590 %, and the cost of cataloging for large libraries from $0,40 per volume to$17,17 per volume, or 4 292 %. Since 1896 librarians' annual salaries have increased from$607 to$28 533 or 4 700 %. Cataloging costs have increased faster than the rate of inflation, but more slowly than the rate of salary increases.
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