The purpose of this study is to analyze cases of several academic libraries, both in Korea and other countries, which have outsourced part or all of cataloging operations and examine current trends and controversy over outsourcing. Contrary to expectations of reduced expenses and increased efficiency in cataloging, outsourcing often results in bibliographic records of low quality which require additional costs to correct errors and maintain consistency and accuracy of records, and therefore, fails to reach the goal. Due to the absence of high quality bibliographic utilities, union catalogs, and authority databases, and lack of expertise in cataloging among outsourcing service providers, it seems that outsourcing is not currently an appropriate tactic for cataloging in academic libraries in Korea.