The impact of automation on professional catalogers

The introduction of the bibliographic utilities in the 1970s produced far-reaching changes in cataloging departments by allowing the bulk of the material to be processed more quickly and cost effectively by nonprofessionals. In turn, that change caused professionals' duties to shift to handling the more difficult items and ignited a body of literature that discussed those catalogers' future roles. This paper tracks the dislocations brought about by the utilities for professional catalogers and tests the foresight of the forecasters by analyzing job advertisements for catalogers from 1970 to 1989