There has been long standing interest between GPO and depository library community to engage in cooperative cataloging and metadata exchange in order to build the national bibliography of U.S. Government documents in support of the Cataloging and Indexing Program, U.S.C. Title 44, Section 1910. The 2005 launch of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications has given GPO a platform to exchange cataloging/metadata with libraries and the GPO partnership program has enabled interested libraries to propose cataloging and metadata exchanges.

In addition to the goal of creating a national bibliography, there are many advantages to establishing partnerships for cooperative cataloging. Cooperative cataloging:

• increases access to tangible, historic FDLP collections;
• enables FDLP libraries to have access to cataloging records so they may complete retrospective cataloging projects;
• increases access to content digitized by partner libraries; and
• shares the cataloging cost burden among libraries.

Developing guidelines for the establishment of formal cooperative cataloging partnerships with depository libraries and content partnerships that require cataloging will ensure the continued quality of metadata records in the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) and the maintenance of standards required by GPO as a Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) member.

This document is intended to provide general guidance for the evaluation, acceptance and implementation of GPO partnerships in which the exchange of cataloging and metadata is a key component.