Approaches to Conceptualizing the Cost of Academic Library Cataloging: Discourses on Metadata Creation Cost, Value, and Worth

Cost analyses are ways in which individual libraries can generate information about how their budgets are used, and can possibly help demonstrate the worth and value of work in catalog and metadata creation in academic libraries. However, despite their acceptance in the professional literature, cost analyses may be deeply flawed. This article begins with a broad survey of the professional and scholarly literature focusing on cost analysis and the elements composing it. The nature of cost analysis and the goals of costing practices, including the potential to calculate a return on investment (ROI), are presented. Next, through an analysis of the recent (2000-2019) scholarly literature on costing cataloging and metadata creation in academic libraries, we present peer-reviewed literature relating to costs; we demonstrate that the scholarly literature diverges from a focus on cost analysis to focus instead on improvements to individual aspects of cataloging and metadata creation work. In the final section, we propose approaching the catalog as a service that can be assessed in terms of opportunity costs for failed interactions. Overall findings suggest that focusing on user needs can be a productive alternative approach to considering the value and worth of academic library catalog and metadata creation.