BookWhere at Saint Mary’s University

Bob Cook, (now retired), Cataloguing Systems Librarian, at Saint Mary’s University explains why they use BookWhere for copy cataloguing at the Patrick Power Library: We saved money by cancelling our subscription to a-g Canada’s MARCit/TRACeit service (the total annual fee for our seven BookWhere licenses will be considerably less than the MARCit/TRACEit annual subscription). BookWhere provides us with access to a much larger selection of z39.50 targets for cataloguing copy than we had previously. As well, connection information is updated automatically, saving us a lot of headaches. Searching a wide variety of z39.50 sites  via BookWhere is easier and more consistent than searching via Ex Libris. Moreover, the ability to set up and save groups of libraries to be searched is a great convenience. With BookWhere, we are finding good cataloguing copy for a higher percentage of material than was ever the case before. This has significantly reduced the percentage of material requiring original cataloguing. All staff members using BooKWhere have reported a high level of satisfaction with the system. Several have commented that it is a wonderful system.