Catalogers’ Group Meeting: 7/12/2001

 

Next meeting: MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR JULY 26th .

 

Agenda:

  1. Continuation of ALA reports: Angela Riggio, Valerie Bross, Rebecca Aiken, John Riemer, Luiz Mendes (updated from last meeting)
  2. ACC report
  3. LC Action Plan

 

Attending:

Rebecca Aiken, Valerie Bross, Elie Chammou, Beth Feinberg, Joan Flintoff Lopear, Janice Matthiesen, Renee McBride, Nancy Norris, Luiz Mendes, Jeff Morehead, John Riemer, Rita Stumps, Sharon Wiskoff

 

Discussion:
  1. ALA reports

Angela Riggio:

Sessions attended included:

*OCLC—Extending the Cooperative: OCLC’s new theme is "Library without Walls: Weaving the Library into the Web and the Web into the Library." Consonant with this vision, OCLC has established four goals:
    1. To enhance WorldCat and extend service
    2. To provide portal services and simplify the front-end for patrons
    3. To support LC’s Collaborative Digital Reference Service
    4. To make print resources more visible

OCLC is vigorously pursuing partnerships with commercial groups. As one example of new ideas for weaving the library into the web, OCLC suggested that the Barnes and Noble web site could have a button that would allow patrons to look at a local public library catalog.

*Subject Analysis and Classification in Metadata for Digital Resources

This SAC subcommittee recommended the use of controlled vocabulary (such as LCSH or Sears) in metadata records. The session also included a discussion of FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology). For copies of reports discussed at ALA see:

Subject Data in the Metadata Record: Recommendations and Rationale: http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/sac/metarept2.html

SAC Subcommittee on Metadata and Classification, Final report:

http://www.ala.org/alcts/organization/ccs/sac/metaclassfinal.pdf

"Comparison of Subject Treatment of Several Metadata Standards" (Aimee Glassel)

http://library.ucsd.edu/~becky/metadata.htm

*CORC Users’ Group

Suzanne Pilsk (CUG President) led the group in a discussion of a mission statement and goals, and a membership document. All documents were approved. Jimm Simms reviewed OCLC’s timeline for implementation of the new interface. Jackie Shieh (incoming CUG President) presented "Train the Trainer: Top Ten Tips."

*LC/RUSA Forum on Digital Reference and Bibliographic Control: Options for Collaboration

Beecher Wiggins (LC) presented LC’s action plan to create an international database of e-resource records. See: http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/draftplan.html . Later at the same session, Diane Kresh (LC) discussed LC’s pilot 24/7 online reference service, the Collaborative Digital Reference Service. LC plans to archive all questions/answers in a database that will be reviewed periodically and kept current.

*Librarians and Metadata Workflow: A Case for Inclusion

The good news is, YRL BibCORC workflow (including selectors in the process of creating CORC records) is in the forefront of what libraries are doing to involve more selectors in CORC.

Valerie Bross:

Cataloging: The following MARBI proposals passed:

--To create a Bibliographic Level "i" for integrating resources with 008 based on serial fixed field.

--To add to S/L: 2 (for integrating resources cataloged according to latest entry rules)

--To add to Frequency: k=continuously updated

--To add to Serial Type (SrTp): l=loose leaf; d=database; w=website

--To use multiple 260 fields for publishers. 2=current publisher; 3=intervening publishers; [blank]=earliest or sole publisher. Subfield $3 will show the date ranges when more than one 260 field is present.

OCLC Preservation Pilot: Here are some web sites related to preservation of digital files:

Proposed Preservation Metadata Standards and other information:

http://www.oclc.org/digitalpreservation

Council on Library and Information Resources Task Force report and papers on authenticity:

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub92/contents.html

Production of metadata scheme:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/index.htm

John Riemer

Breakfast with Lexis-Nexis: Lexis-Nexis agreed to provide records for the titles within its database, the most like method for which will be partnering with OCLC. This is a real breakthrough for the Aggregators Task Group committee, since L-N is licensed by many libraries, and record sets for titles would be a boon. Impetus for L-N’s decision may have come from Bryn Mawr’s successful project to create a record set for L-N titles (which showed that it could be done). In all, the record set offered by L-N would contain about 5500 records. Stay tuned.

PCC Standing Committee on Automation: This committee endorsed the recommendations in the report of the Task Group on Automated Classification http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/classtgrpt.html . SCA members agreed to pursue the recommendations with the ILS vendors at their home institutions. The idea is that when catalogers enter records in the local integrated library system, vendor-supplied software can assist in supplying class numbers. [Note: Watch for email from JR on this topic!]

Big Heads Go to Stanford: Several years ago, every unit at Stanford cut employees by 18%. The library had to figure out how to continue to process 80,000 titles per year with a diminished workforce. One strategy has been increased use of PromptCat. Another strategy has been to use the Marcadia service to obtain full RLIN bib records. Library assistants classify on receipt and enter brief bib records. All volumes received by the library are released to circulation within 90 days. Meanwhile, the skimpy bib records enter an ftp file that is picked up by Marcadia and compared to RLIN. The full bib records are returned to the library. For more information: http://www.rlg.org/marcadia.html

Rebecca Aiken

Southeast Asian Libraries meeting

The Southeast Asian Libraries are developing a 24/7 reference service. The group discussed bandwidth and software issues related to digital reference.

The group also discussed :

*Software to support digital books and considerations in sharing access to e-monographs;

*Unicode support by systems: levels of compliance, including issues of indexing, full script display, and script-specific problems (e.g., lack of word-breaks in Thai)

*Cataloging with vernacular character sets

Luiz Mendes:

Update from last meeting

Luiz has learned more about LC’s plans to develop procedures for "ELvl 7" cataloging. LC is also exploring Marcadia as a means of enhancing minimal records.
  1. ACC report

    2. Pinyin Conversion

    ACC has decided to convert records with "chi" in the Fixed Field or with "chi" in an 041 field. The conversion will begin August 1st. Alert: beginning August 1st all catalogers must be careful to make sure records with Chinese romanization have 987 fields.

    For CJK with vernacular character sets, be aware that the vernacular won’t come across to Orion2 automatically via Passport update. LIS has installed special software in the East Asian Library. If you are cataloging a record with CJK vernacular text fields, please contact someone in the East Asian Library for assistance.

    Overlay Discussion: Monographs

    ACC discussed liberalization of the overlay policy for bibliographic and authority records.

    Bib Records: When cataloging a title that is already represented in Orion2 (and you have either an added copy or a different volume), be aware that there is no unified policy. For example, the LAW library approves of overlay without consultation so long as libraries are careful to preserve uniform titles; EAL approves overlay without consultation except for records with vernacular. SEL and Spec Coll do not want centers to overlay records without consultation. The point is moot for FATA, since its records are in a separate database.

    Comment (lm): The one exception to SEL’s prohibition on overlay is that centers can overlay records entered for the SEL New Books Shelf Books. These records are minimal—cut off at the 300 field.

    Authority Records: The discussion was limited to name authority records, and began with the question, What is to be gained by overlay of these records? Some fields identified for enhancement of Orion2 authority records are: 010, 053, 4XX, 670 fields. Centers need to be careful of intentional local deviations from national practice and of 4XX fields that have been added to local records to enhance retrieval. Here again, centers offered differing opinions on whether overlay could occur without consultation. (One complication with consultation on authority records is that it may be difficult in Orion2 to determine whether another center has used a particular heading. There is no way to ask for a subset of headings on bib records at a specific location.)

    In general, the cataloging centers were comfortable with overlay of authority records (with the caveat of watching for intentional deviations and local enhancements). SEL is comfortable with overlay of personal name authority records (assuming that the record represents the same person), but does not feel comfortable with overlay of records with corporate or conference headings. In those cases, consult with SEL before making any changes.

  2. LC Action Plan for E-Resources:

Libraries have been asked to comment on LC’s action plan. Perhaps at a future Cataloger’s Group, this could be a topic for discussion, and we could submit a group response to LC’s request for comment.

Submitted by V. Bross, 7/13/01