ALCTS Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Discussion Group


2004 Annual Conference (Orlando, Florida)
June 25, 2004

Appendix to Minutes of Meeting:

Round Robin of Issues of Importance (major events/developments/concerns) to Local Institutions These reports were distributed over the Big Heads electronic discussion list in the weeks prior to the Orlando annual conference in June 2004.

For the minutes of the Big Heads meeting at Orlando, click on http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ulcjh/bh62004minutes.html

This compilation was prepared by Judith Hopkins, University at Buffalo


SOME OF THE FOLLOWING LIBRARIES DID *NOT* ISSUE A ROUND ROBIN REPORT.

LIST OF LIBRARIES

Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Harvard University
Indiana University
Library of Congress
National Agricultural Library
National Library of Medicine
National Agricultural Library
National Library of Medicine
New York Public Library
New York University
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University
Princeton University
Stanford University
University of California at Berkeley
University of California at Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
University of Pennsylvania
University of Texas at Austin
University of Virginia
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin at Madison
Yale University


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY LIBRARIES


HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS
ALA Annual Conference, June, 2004
From: Lee Leighton( lleighto@library.berkeley.edu)

UC Berkeley round robin report, June 2004

Budget. In fiscal year 2004-2005 the Library will be required to give 7.5% of our operations budget back to the campus. This is in addition to a loss of 35 positions (including 8 from Technical Services) in the current fiscal year. In an effort to avoid layoffs, the Library has developed a Separation Incentive Plan (SIP) to encourage staff to voluntarily resign or retire. The plan, funded with one-time money, will pay staff with 20 years of service one year's salary or $50,000, whichever amount is less, to resign or retire. The Berkeley Library is the only unit of the University of California making this offer, and we expect it to be very popular. A reorganization of the Library will be discussed over the summer after the departure of the approximately 20 additional staff.

Levels of cataloging. Our pilot project to apply three levels of cataloging to our Germanic backlog has been extended to English, Western European, Slavic and Arabic materials. The three levels of cataloging are

  1. full cataloging,
  2. brief cataloging following a University of California standard (based on the MARC21 standard for minimal level records) including nearly full description and an LC call number, but no subject headings, and
  3. lesser used materials shelved in the stacks with an order record and an accession number. We plan to research the materials in categories 2 and 3 at some date in the future.

Cataloging electronic resources. The electronic resources jointly licensed by the California Digital Library are cataloged by the Shared Cataloging Project at the University of California San Diego, and records are distributed to the campus libraries. The electronic resources acquired by the individual campuses are cataloged by the holding libraries. Free electronic resources that are of interest to more than one campus may now be referred to the Shared Cataloging Project for cooperative cataloging.

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Karen Calhoun( ksc10@cornell.edu)

Cornell University Library
HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS
Cornell Round Robin Report, June 2004

  1. NEW TS WEB SITE AND BACKSTORY. In keeping with a complete redesign of the Cornell University Library's technical services Web presence ( http://www.library.cornell.edu/tsweb), we have introduced a new webzine highlighting technical services, called Backstory ( http://www.library.cornell.edu/cts/backstory). The table of contents for the first issue includes:

    • FEATURES
      • Raiders of the lost MARC: mining the Voyager database for fun and profit
      • Taking it to the HILCC: automatic classification and subject analysis under study at CTS
      • Hot new tool? ITSO CUL

    • ADDED ENTRIES
      • Introducing Backstory, or, why are we doing this?
      • Professionally speaking ... what our staff have been doing recently
      • Chronicle of a death foretold: CTS backlog reduction update
      • Cats stats fever: CUL cataloging by the numbers

    The technical services Web site implementation team's work is the culmination of a long-term effort that began in the summer of 2002 with the work of a design team ( http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/TSEG/tsWebFinalReport1.pdf ).

    David Banush, head of Bibliographic Control Services in CTS, is the prime mover behind Backstory and will serve as the publication's editor. A number of staff throughout the system have contributed to the articles in the first issue. We expect to publish at least twice a year, in the spring and late fall.

  2. E-RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. This week, the Library signed an agreement with III to license its ERM (E-Resource Management) software for use as a standalone product. We are pleased with this significant step forward in our ability to manage Cornell's e-resources, and we anticipate that the III ERM implementation will proceed over the second half of calendar 2004. Library staff have been looking into the issues of e-resource management for some time now. Our Information Technology Librarian, Adam Chandler, has been one of a small group actively shaping the DLF Electronic Resource Management Initiative. While the Library has been innovative in meeting the ever-increasing demands of our users for an ever-increasing amount of electronic content, our current practices are a labor-intensive patchwork that cannot fully meet the needs of our staff and users.

  3. RETROSPECTIVE CONVERSION. We expect to complete a major retrospective catalog card initiative by June 30, 2004. Once this initiative is complete, the online catalog will provide access to 100% of the Library's titles classified according to Library of Congress classification. We are grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its support for this endeavor, which will significantly increase use of the Library's assets.

******************************
Karen Calhoun
Associate University Librarian for Technical Services
107-D Olin Library
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853

Voice: 607-255-9915
Fax: 607-255-6110
E-mail: ksc10@cornell.edu
http://www.library.cornell.edu/tsweb
******************************

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Robert A. Wolven wolven@columbia.edu

  Summer 2004

Union Theological Seminary:  The Burke Library at UTS becomes part of the Columbia University Libraries system in July 2004, adding approximately 750,000 volumes to our holdings.  In preparation, 330,000 UTS records were added to our catalog in May.  We are currently working to integrate cataloging and acquisitions into central technical services. 

Construction and Renovation:     A new Social Work building and library will open in August (with collections being transferred from the social sciences library.)  Butler Library renovation moves to the 6th floor, including the Rare Book and Manuscript Library; in preparation, many archival collections have been moved to offsite storage.  A formal planning process has begun for the construction of a new science building, including plans to consolidate 6 current science libraries into a single new facility. 

Luna Insight implementation:     Luna Insight software was implemented in May, seeded with a collection of 27,000 Saskia images.  Implementation has been coordinated with the Media Center for Art History, Archeology & Historic Preservation.  In coming months, new collections will be added by both the Center and the Libraries.

Scanned Tables of Contents:      We are beginning to scan tables of contents for many older journals being sent to offsite storage (beginning with CJK).  The scanned files will be linked from our catalog records and could potentially be linked to from others' records as well.

E-only for journals:             We have now cancelled print subscriptions for a wide range of scientific and social science journals available electronically.  User reaction has generally been positive. 

LOCKSS:  We've moved into production on our LOCKSS server, caching all titles currently available.  Together with a dozen other "Big Heads" libraries, we're involved in a project to test developing LOCKSS plug-ins for selected free-humanities journals.

Integrating Resource updates:    In preparation for a redesign of our web listings of e-resources, we've revisited and enhanced the catalog records for about 300 online databases and other integrating resources.  We've found that a high percentage of the records for these titles in the bibliographic utilities were out of date in some significant respect.  

U-Portal:        In the fall, the University will be creating a student portal using U-Portal software.  The Libraries are working with the Administrative Information Services group to develop a library channel within the portal. 

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DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Deborah Jakubs (deborah.jakubs@duke.edu)

Round Robin Report

June 2004

Duke University Libraries

Deborah Jakubs, Director, Collections Services

 

Duke Converts to LC

After numerous investigations spanning decades, Duke will convert from the Dewey Decimal Classification System to the LC Classification System.  This decision comes after a year-long feasibility analysis that took into consideration costs, benefits, timing, and the availability of third-party reclassification services.  In April 2004, the project was approved for implementation. The scope of the project includes the on-site Dewey classified collection, consisting of 2.3 million volumes.  All major aspects of the project will be outsourced to two vendors.  Backstage Library Works (formerly MARC Link and Access Imagery) will be responsible for validating and assigning LC numbers to our records, adding item records for some of our serials, and producing spine labels.  Library Associates will handle re-labeling, sorting, and re-shelving materials in LC.  With respect to new title cataloging, we are assessing shelf space needs in hopes of adding new volumes in LC around the end of July 2004.  The project will take approximately four years and conclude in the summer of 2008.

The Perkins Project

A new building is under construction and a major renovation of the existing library building is planned for .  For more information, see: http://www.lib.duke.edu/perkproj/.   Although the new building will include significant stack space, we are moving 650,000 volumes from the library to the Library Service Center (LSC) because the stacks are so overcrowded.  We recently concluded a staff-wide, five-phase project to barcode the items that had not circulated in 15+ years (candidates for offsite), and faculty and other library users have had the opportunity to review those materials for retention onsite on a title-by-title basis.  

ExLibris

We expect to go live with Aleph on July 24, 2004.  Much of our activity for the past year or so has been leading up to that moment.  This is the first time Duke will have an integrated system.  The libraries of the professional schools (separately administered, through their respective deans) will also move to Aleph.  In preparation for the implementation, we have developed a new fund code structure so that we can get better management data.  All subject librarians responsible for specialized approval plans (that is, not the comprehensive plans for domestic and British titles), are reviewing and revising their profiles, putting them into a consistent format.  This project was initiated in order to reduce duplication and returns, as well as costs.

Collections Budget

The inflationary increase to our collections budget for 2004/2005 budget is just 2% (compared with 4-6% in recent years).  We will have to make some significant changes in our spending patterns in order to pay our serial invoices.  The collections budget was dealt an additional blow by the fact that we will no longer receive “New Initiative” funding ($117,000 each year for the last three years), which was given by the university administration to support new programs and new faculty interests, areas in which we may not have collected extensively in the past.

Collections Budget Audit

Collections budget development and utilization are the focus of a 15-month project to analyze how we request annual increases to our collections budget (what documentation we provide, what arguments we make, what data we use, etc.) and how we allocate the funds we do receive.  The project involves all the subject librarians (bibliographers) in the determination of needs.  For each field, the SL prepares a document (according to a standard template) providing information on the history of the department/program supported, a detailed funding history, anticipated or actual changes in faculty composition/areas of research and teaching interest, any consortial commitments, and the required level of collections budget support.  We are including special collections in this project, and looking at endowed and restricted support as well as the appropriated budget. We hope to update the  field-specific information annually. 

Monographic Series Review

For the first time, all monographic series on standing order have been reviewed by the appropriate subject librarian. This will help reduce costs, since this budget line has been overspent for two years.  In addition, by cleaning up many records and assigning correct fund codes, we will move more accurate information to Aleph.

Serials Cancellation Project

We completed the serials cancellation project, which was initiated in 2002/2003.  The final result was the cancellation of over $300,000.

ARL E-Metrics Project

We are submitting 2003/2004 data to the ARL E-Metrics project.   A campus-wide group has been formed to facilitate data gathering.

Journals

We will be consolidating print journal vendors based on titles in electronic resources packages for ease when making access changes.  We continue to spend time on the record keeping related to the loss of consortial agreements with Elsevier and Blackwell.

Review of the Exchanges Program

A review of our exchanges program is underway. We are examining our exchanges with developed countries to determine which libraries could be encouraged to subscribe to Duke University Press journals (our primary medium of exchange, for which we pay each year), and the extent to which alteration of our exchanges will affect the quality of our collections and put additional demands on our collections budget. We will also develop recommendations for initiating future exchange agreements.

Preservation

The Preservation Department will conduct a survey of the audiovisual collection, beginning in early July. We anticipate that we'll get an overall view of the collection, including formats, life expectancy of medium and format, damage, and availability of replacement versions.

The library extended its deferred binding program to the branch libraries this spring. Since March 2001, we have deferred binding on nearly 32,000 volumes. Of those, some 4000 have been returned to Preservation for commercial binding after their first circulation.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Jeffrey Horrell (horrell@fas.harvard.edu)

Heads of Technical Services of Large Research Libraries
Harvard University
Round Robin Report

  1. Harvard University Library installed the Ex Libris Aleph ILS, version15.02 in July, 2002. In December, 2003 Harvard installed a major upgrade to the system, version 16.01, and plans to implement another upgrade to Aleph 16.02 in August, 2004.

    From a user’s perspective the system has been very successful. From a technical services client’s perspective, it has been a difficult process to see productivity and efficiency plummet from pre-2002 levels, despite some improvements. Poor productivity has not been across the board however; while some areas continue to struggle, others have regained their earlier capacity. Progress has been made with the deployment of macros (Macro Express) in quality control and repetitive tasks have been somewhat reduced, but considerable time has been devoted to developing and thoroughly testing the macros. We have planned a one-year project to significantly address backlogs in Harvard College Library Technical Services under the capable leadership of Jane Ouderkirk.

  2. As a follow up to our report, “Technical Services in the Harvard College Library – Issues and Recommendations,” and to explore the issues of productivity and efficiency related to technical processing, we invited R2 Consulting for a half-day workshop. Understanding the concept of “mainstreaming” certain categories of materials in our overall workflow was quite useful and thinking about costs in a very practical way was important as well. We are considering inviting R2 Consulting to make a presentation to our senior management group to share these ideas which can be viewed in a broader context of our work. We have also established a “Technical Services Managers Group” which is a sub-group of our Collections Management Council.

  3. In an effort to contain expenditures, we are identifying and canceling duplicate serial subscriptions. Because our targeted goal is not being met, further reductions will need to be articulated and achieved. We have also been required to reduce positions and have attempted to do so from strategic programmatic areas where changes have occurred in respect to needed expertise or levels of acquisitions.

  4. Our Office of Information Systems is continuing to work on developing an electronic resource management system for Harvard. This in-house development is expected to be available in the next few months. We are also collaborating with Ex Libris in their development of a system, but this is on a longer planning time frame.

Jeffrey Horrell
Associate Librarian for Collections
June 11, 2004

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INDIANA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Indiana University Round Robin Update – June 2004

From: Mechael D. Charbonneau mgago@indiana.edu

Personnel

Between January and June, eight open librarian jobs have been filled or are currently in the process of being filled:  Head of the Music Library, Personnel Librarian, Metadata Librarian, Associate Director of Projects & Services (Digital Library Program), University Electronic Resources Administrator, Director of Public Services, Life Sciences/Chemistry Librarian, and Political Papers Specialist.  The last four positions listed represent new library faculty lines.

The Metadata Librarian position, previously located within the Technical Services Department, was transferred to the Digital Library Program in January.

Local System

IU-Link, a new service based on Ex Libris’ SFX software, was successfully implemented on March 1st.   SIRSI’s Single Search product was recently selected for federated searching.     

The Libraries’ new intranet went live in January.  The user interface design and web content management system were developed locally. 

Acquisitions

Our approval plan and firm order migration from Academic Book Center (ABC) to Blackwell’s Book Service (BBS) has been a difficult one.  Migrating from a CIP approval system to a book-in-hand system resulted in a significant amount of book duplication.  Services available from ABC and not yet available from BBS have required numerous workflow adjustments for ordering and accounting staff and extensive revision of subject profiles by collection managers.  We continue to work with BBS to resolve a variety of issues and migration-related problems. 

In order to absorb next year’s inflation rate and to accommodate the University’s uncharacteristically small increase to collection funds, the IUB Libraries are targeting up to 10% of their serials budget for cancellation.  This is the first major serial review and cancellation project in nearly ten years.  The positive result is that all subscriptions are under review not only for the purpose of meeting the financial target but also for their appropriateness for current academic programs at the university.

Cataloging

Serials Solutions MARC records have been most beneficial in keeping records and holdings up to date in our online catalog.  The monthly Serials Solutions bibliographic record loads have enabled the Serials Cataloging Unit staff to concentrate on creating access to online titles for which no CONSER record exists.  To date, catalogers have authenticated records in OCLC for titles lacking within the following online aggregators:  National Academy of Sciences, Wiley Interscience, Walter De Gruyter, Cambridge Journals, J-STOR, Science Direct, Project Muse, Emerald, Blackwell/Synergy, Ovid, and ACM Digital Library.

As part of a cooperative effort within the CONSER Program to complete the cataloging of all titles within aggregators, Indiana University has volunteered to provide authenticated records for the approximately 100 titles lacking within EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier.  The project is currently at the halfway mark. 

The Technical Services Programmer/Analyst began customizing vendor-supplied MARC records according to our local input specifications.  This has greatly facilitated our ability to batch load large files of free MARC records for purchased microformat collections and e-resources.  

A group of audio-visual catalogers worked with the Department’s programmer/analyst to develop an Access-to-MARC crosswalk for a large gift collection containing approximately 5,000 16mm films.  This was our first attempt at converting information from an Access database to MARC records.   The project has been so successful that plans are currently underway to use a similar model for the University Archives’ serial collection.  Students will enter information into prescribed fields within Access and then the database will later be converted into MARC records and loaded into the online catalog.

We recently contracted with OCLC to purchase Wade-Giles-to-pinyin conversion records for approximately 68,000 Chinese language bibliographic records.

Access to Electronic Resources

Providing support for the acquisition and accessibility of electronic resources continues to be a top priority of the Libraries.  A new University-Electronic Resources Administrator librarian position was created and hired in April.  This position will lead a new initiative among all eight Indiana University campuses to increase a common set of databases to support undergraduate teaching and learning. 

We continue to struggle with electronic resource management.  Although we are managing with our current approach, it is not a sustainable system.  Paper files of licenses are kept, which include contact information.  Orders for each resource are placed in the acquisitions module of our library system in order to track expenditures.  New orders are tracked using an Excel spreadsheet.  Database holdings are kept in an Access file which includes expiration date information.  We are challenged to integrate print and electronic version orders, particularly when the license prevents cancellation of print subscriptions.  This summer we will be evaluating electronic resources management system software currently available in the marketplace.

Mechael D. Charbonneau
Director of Technical Services & Head, Cataloging Division
Indiana University Libraries
Main Library, Rm. E-350
1320 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47405-3907

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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Becky J. Lyon lyonb@mail.nlm.nih.gov

National Library of Medicine Update
ALA Annual Meeting
2004

Personnel

Duane Arenales, Chief of the Technical Services Division, retired on April 2 after 31 years at NLM.

Becky J. Lyon, Deputy Associate Director for Library Operations, is serving as Acting Chief, TSD pending recruitment of a new Chief, TSD.

Christa F.B. Hoffmann, Head of the Cataloging Section since October 1980, retired on February 27. During her career at NLM, Ms. Hoffmann led the Cataloging Section into a fully automated environment and played a key role in NLM’s participation in national bibliographic programs, such as the Cataloging in Publication program, and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, a coalition of libraries organized to promote effective cooperative cataloging by increasing the availability of standard bibliographic records.

Alice E. Jacobs, also Assistant Head of the Section, is serving as Acting Head of Cataloging, pending the recruitment of the new Chief of TSD.

Collection Development Manual of NLM

Revision of NLM’s Collection Development Manual is currently underway.  Pending NLM Board of Regents approval of the revision, the manual should be available in Fall 2004.   A full web version of the manual will be available, facilitating update of individual sections and including a printable .pdf version.  The web version will contain links to related resources, such as the NLM Preservation Policy.

NLM Classification

NLM published the NLM Classification 2004 in April 2004.  Notably, the 2004 revision to this online tool was published only nine months after the previous edition, demonstrating the efficiencies gained in moving this publication and its maintenance to an online environment. 

This edition incorporates all 2004 additions and changes to the schedules and to the index, which has been updated with appropriate MeSH concepts.  New class numbers were added to reflect changes in the biomedical and related sciences, in MeSH, and in the literature cataloged.  Beginning with this edition, canceled class numbers appear in normal sequence within the current schedules for informational purposes.  These canceled numbers appear in square brackets, clearly marked with the caption: “This number not used”.

NLM (Web) Archives and Metadata Initiative

NLM has developed a system to indicate to users which of its Web documents will be kept permanently available and whether the contents of those documents could change over time. The NLM Archives became available online in May 2004, in tandem with the complete redesign of NLM’s Website.  In conjunction with the development of the NLM Archives, NLM implemented a workflow to ensure the creation of metadata by staff contributors of all NLM electronic resources, including the assignment of NLM permanence levels to Web documents.  In addition, NLM has begun cataloging those NLM resources designated as “permanent” for inclusion in LocatorPlus and modifying the initial metadata to include enriched subject and classification tags emanating from the cataloging process.

NLM Bibliographic Products

In May 2004, NLM began to include vernacular data for Chinese and Japanese bibliographic records in Catfile, the MARC 21 product containing cataloging records distributed to licensees.   Approximately 2500 records previously distributed to users only in romanized form have been reissued with the vernacular data.  Note that although cataloging in the vernacular is not currently possible in Voyager, NLM has been able to incorporate the Chinese and Japanese characters by performing the cataloging in OCLC (utilizing OCLC TechPRO or the OCLC CJK software) and importing the records containing the vernacular into Voyager for future use and display.  These are the candidate records that have been included in this redistribution.

NLM has completed the development of an XML DTD for the bibliographic records residents in LocatorPlus, NLM’s online public access catalog, and plans to make its bibliographic products, CatfilePlus and Serfile, available to licensees as XML products in July 2004.

Alternative NLM Catalog Search Interface under Entrez

As an outgrowth of the preparation of the XML DTD for NLM bibliographic records, NLM has designed an alternative search interface to the records resident in LocatorPlus utilizing the Entrez software developed by NCBI and used for PubMed.  This alternative search interface, which maximizes subject searching for books, journals, audiovisuals, and other materials and includes links to the holdings displayed in LocatorPlus, is in the final phases of testing; NLM plans to make it publicly available in September.

XML DTD for Authorities

NLM initiated the development of an XML DTD for authority records for the names and titles in Voyager that will be used to enrich the cross-reference structure for the Entrez-based catalog database and to support the exchange of authority data with other NLM Web-based projects.

Wade-Giles to Pinyin Conversion Project Completed

With the completion of all manual review and updating of pre-AACR2 Chinese authority records, NLM concluded the final phase of its multi-year project to convert Wade-Giles romanization of bibliographic and authority records to the pinyin romanization scheme.   The project, initiated in 2000 along with those of other libraries in the United States, is now considered complete.  During May and June 2004, all of NLM’s Chinese bibliographic records were reissued to subscribers of NLM MARC 21 formatted bibliographic products, Catfile, CatfilePlus, and Serfile.

Improved Access to Free Electronic Journals

Phases II and III of the Free Electronic Access Team (FEAT) project were implemented.  With FEAT II, links were made available in DOCLINE and Loansome Doc for articles available free electronically that are identified in PubMed LinkOut, even if the title is not in PubMed Central.  (Phase I included this information for titles in PubMed Central).  In addition, information was added to LocatorPlus to inform users when titles (with data in LinkOut ) were available free electronically.  FEAT III features include redesign of the “On Order Processing” pages within DOCLINE and Loansome Doc to make more prominent the alert that an article is available free electronically and the addition of an icon next to the links for the free text.  Another new feature is the capability to search for free (electronic) articles when users input requests in DOCLINE with search parameters that do not include the PMID.

Electronic Resources Management

A project to develop specifications for an electronic resources management system and to evaluate existing ERM systems was undertaken.  The recommendation is for NLM to build a system in-house, based on the fact that NLM has a well-developed system for extracting data from the ILS to be used in various other applications, including DOCLINE and NLM's indexing system.  Utilizing this foundation will create the greatest potential for achieving system integration.

DOCLINE Redesign

DOCLINE 2.0 included a redesigned interface that is easier to navigate and incorporated the use of more “plain language” to reduce the amount of NLM-specific terminology.  As a part of this process, the DOCLINE SERHOLD module is now called Serial Holdings or DOCLINE Serial Holdings, and DOCUSER is now called Institutions.  References to batch update have retained the SERHOLD designation and the fact sheet will remain unchanged.  This policy may be revisited with DOCLINE 3.0, which will incorporate major changes to the Requests and Serial Holdings modules.

ISSNs

The Shared Serials Data team examined how ISSNs for multiple formats can be recorded and handled within NLM’s internal systems, and in PubMed processing.  Currently, all of these files are only programmed to handle the display of two ISSN types.  Due to NLM’s “single record” policy, several types of media for the same title might be described in one bibliographic record.  Each media type will usually have a distinct ISSN.   Proposals for a solution to this multi-faceted problem are still under consideration.

2004 Publications

The 2004 List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus (LJI) and List of Serials Indexed for Online Users (LSI) were produced.  The LJI is available in print and PDF, and the LSI is available in PDF and XML.

ILS:

NLM installed Voyager's release 2001.2 in production on February 13-14, 2004.  NLM is currently an early release partner for Voyager release 2003.1 (Unicode) using our test server.

ENCompass:

May 1, 2004 was the debut of the pilot release of IndexCat, ( http://indexcat.nlm.nih.gov), NLM’s digital version of the printed Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office.  IndexCat uses Endeavor’s ENCompass system. Currently Series 2-5 are available. Work continues on the load of Series 1 of Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General into ENCompass which will be available later in June.  When completed IndexCat will be comprised of over 4 million citations.

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NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY


NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY UPDATE, June 2004
From: Cynthia Clark cclark@nypl.org

Administrative Changes

David Ferriero was selected as the next Andrew W. Mellon Director of Research Libraries and will begin his appointment on September 1st. 

Cataloging

The Research Libraries contracted with Backstage (formerly MARC Link) to supply record matches for approximately 135,000 titles in a backlog of mostly foreign language publications. All have brief order records dating back to when the Research Libraries used the RLIN acquisitions system. The match rate is approximately 50%. Backstage will also add item record data to the full records they deliver and will supply smart barcodes. The titles that do not get enhanced will be slowly fed into the Cataloging Division for local staff to catalog.

We are in discussions with Casalini to begin supplying records this summer for Italian publications we purchase.

Presevation

Evelyn Frangakis was appointed Aaron and Clara Greenhut Rabinowitz Chief of Preservation and began work on March 22nd.

The Barbara Goldsmith Preservation Division completed a 3 year cooperative mass deacidification project funded by New York State. Participating libraries also included Columbia University, New York University, and the University of Rochester, with NYPL taking the lead.

ReCAP – Remote Storage Facility

Construction on module 4 is underway and scheduled to be completed by summer 2005. Locally, we are designing a new workflow that will facilitate transfer of newly processed materials to storage from Technical Services. Selectors are advising on which categories of materials are appropriate to send to storage immediately.

Recruitments

Recruitments are underway for an Associate Chief of the Acquisitions Division, CATNYP Systems Administrator, and Head of Conservation Treatment.

Systems

The NYPL website was redesigned and debuted on May 3rd (http://www.nypl.org/). Some design elements were carried over into the web opac, CATNYP. Hebrew search and display functionality were added to the CATNYP. By mid July, CJK search and display functionality will be also be available.

This summer, the III Millennium Acquisitions and Cataloging modules will be implemented.

In July, the New York Public Library will implement filtering software on all public and staff PCs throughout the library system in order to comply with CIPA.

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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Arno Kastner aak2@nyu.edu

ALCTS Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Group
New York University
June 2004
Arno Kastner

I. Search for a new ILS. After an extended evaluation process, we have selected a system and signed a letter of intent. We hope to have have a signed contract this month and plan a June 2006 implementation.

II. Renovation of Bobst Library. From late March through mid-May, our tech services work area endured major reconstruction. We were able to relocate 27 cataloging staff to another floor, but another 12 were nomads, moving several times during the construction work. We are now living with the dust and noise from demolition work from a neighboring space that will be a renovated for a group and individual study area and electronic resources center. Over the summer, renovation work will be done in our first floor reference area, mezzanine reference offices, and A-Level study areas. Additionally, we will have a larger, much improved preservation work area.

III. Set records. Our Electronic Access Policy Committee has forwarded to tech services a long list of purchased sets for which analytic cataloging records are available. Every set requires communication between our database manager and vendor, and then extensive review by cataloging staff. Tracking progress on cataloging becomes an extension of our efforts to monitor selection and acquisitions.

IV. Offsite storage. We met our first year's goal of relocating a modest 66,000 volumes 400 archival boxes. We will continue to use a temporary storage facility 60 miles north of us until we secure our own land next to that facility. So far, our criteria of not circulating within the past 5 years seems to be working out, but this was for science and social science materials. This fall we will move out more science journals, older NYU dissertations and low-use humanities titles.

V. Projects. We are working with a funding agency to propose the creation of an "archivist's toolkit", a suite of software that will help manage archival collections from the point of consideration for aceptance/purchase through receipt, provneance regis tration, ingest of legacy data, preservation treatment, inventorying, loaning etc.

VI. Backlogs. We are attacking backlogs with a combination of adjunct professionals and OCLC's TechPro service for Greek language material.

Arno Kastner
Director of Technical Services
Bobst Library
New York University
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
212-998-2477 (Voice)
212-995-4366 (Fax)

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OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


June 2004
ALA Annual Round Robin
Sally Rogers rogers.19@osu.edu

Preparation for renovation of Main Library

Progress continues on the project to transfer monographs, serials, and microforms out of the Thompson Memorial (Main) Library to the Libraries' off-site compact storage facility in preparation for a major building renovation scheduled to begin 2005/06.  Some cataloged special collections materials also are being sent to the Depository.

Schematic design for the renovated library is underway. The target date for all personnel and collections to move out of Main Library is summer 2005. Technical Services personnel, along with many units, will move to a swing space facility recently acquired by the University about two miles from the library. Technical Services, Preservation, and Information Technology personnel currently housed in the Main Library will not be returning to the renovated building. They will remain in the temporary facility an extra year (for 4 years rather than 3) while less extensive renovation is done to another library building that will be their new home. 

Budget Issues

Like many libraries, OSU is looking for ways to adapt to a basically flat budget, devaluation of the dollar abroad, rising cost of most materials, and shrinking state support for local and consortium acquisitions, including maintenance of high-cost online resources. Collection development and technical service personnel developed a multi-part Materials Budget Adjustment Strategy to address this environment. The Libraries are using the Strategy to meet current needs while remaining committed to long-range changes in patterns of scholarly communication.

Serials Cancellation Project
Another major serials cancellation project (the third in 3 years) has just been completed to reduce serials expenditures for 2005 by an estimated $1.1 million. This particular cancellation project included a component that focused on canceling duplicate copies (e.g., the print copy for titles available electronically). In spite of the cancellation of more than 5000 titles this year, we anticipate the need for another round of serial cancellations next year. We have taken the position that we will use strategies other than asking for more money to fund excessive journal price increases. The University’s Council on Libraries and Information Technology has drafted a resolution that supports the budget reduction strategies being used by the Libraries--inc luding serial cancellations in consultation with faculty—as well as participation in open access initiatives designed to provide scholarly communication alternatives.

Duplicate Monographs Test
The number of monograph funds at risk of being expended too early increased over previous years. In addition to cutbacks in approval, firm orders were addressed with a Duplicate Monographs Test. The change in pre-order searching has staff notify collection managers if circulating copies of a requested title are held elsewhere in the state, accessible through OhioLINK. Collection managers may request a copy for OSU, but a reason must be provided, such as ready reference or high use. Reasons are logged in order records and will be tabulated at the end of the fiscal year to determine if further savings can be obtained by relying more heavily on statewide resources.

Approval Reprofiling to Slow Expenditures
Non-subject descriptors on our major domestic approval plan were adjusted to bring in fewer titles. This has been successful in slowing spending in some subject areas. We plan a limited test of "virtual approvals" this summer, based on online selection of titles generated by the approval profile without book in hand. This is being tested to address budget concerns as well as plan for next summer when all personnel and collections vacate the Main Library for the 3-year renovation project.

Internal Audit
The university schedule for internal audits includes the Libraries materials acquisitions areas this year. These areas have traditionally maintained detailed procedures and records. It is hoped that the audit may identify areas where streamlining can take place without affecting quality.

OCLC Connexion Implementation

Based on the results of a Connexion training test with a small number of staff, we decided to conduct hands-on training for all Technical Services personnel in house. The in-house training allows for customization and creates a core group of trainers who remain available to answer questions and to assist in making a smooth transition to Connexion. The training sessions are being conducted this month.

Access to Special Collections

New attempts to highlight "Hidden Collections" (outgrowth of ARL's agenda) include linking from bibliographic records to databases, oral history abstracts, and other forms of deep description.

Staffing

We were very pleased to fill our newly created Metadata Librarian position with an excellent candidate who began work June 1. This position will support metadata creation for content to be contributed to the Knowledge Bank, OSU’s institutional repository . It will also support further implementation of EAD in appropriate special collections.

The head of the Cataloging Dept. has been very successful at recruiting practicum students from the library school program that is conducted on OSU’s campus by Kent State University. This spring, a practicum student inventoried and analyzed the materials in the department that are waiting for problem resolution. She wrote an excellent report that will assist the department head in allocating resources to handle these materials while managing the additional workload created by the transfer of many items to the Book Depository in preparation for library renovation. The student has also resolved some of the problems to help implement her recommendations. We are please to benefit from the efforts of the practicum students while we provide them with practi cal experience and exposure to issues faced by a large research library.

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PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Round Robin, June 2004
Rosann Bazirjian, Assistant Dean for Technical & Access Services rvb9@psulias.psu.edu

Serials Issues:

Penn State completed two large serial cancellation projects last year.  The first was the result of Penn State's annual serial process in response to budgetary constraints and the second in response to our need to cancel print when available electronically to support the costs of the larger packages such as Elsevier.  We expect this trend to continue as Penn State renegotiates its package deals with other publishers. 

While the full impact of the print cancellations has yet to be felt, there is already an appreciable reduction in the number of issues checked-in and processed (estimated at approximately 6000-7000 issues)  At University Park approximately .3 FTE has been freed up from print processing for other duties.  This is expected to increase this year.  Check-in staff is now shifting from print to electronic resources management.  This includes several large order record creation projects for the large packages and will eventually include data entry and management in a soon to be acquired context-sensitive linking product and management of licensing data in Penn State's in-house developed ERLIC2 system.   Receiving (check-in staff) is very much looking forward to the changes which of course may also impact on their classification levels.  We are finding that while some of the routine workloads are diminishing, the overall complexity of the work is due to the increasing emphasis on electronic resources.

Penn State has participated in the CONSER Publication Pattern Initiative and is now looking at the possibility of contributing serial cataloging in the future as a CONSER Associate member. 

Web Content Management System:

A User-Focused Web Steering Committee has been created to make decisions regarding the basic architecture of the libraries web pages, and to develop an RFP for a content management system for our web. The group is examining how each unit in the libraries manages it’s web content, and from that is examining contributor requirements, technology requirements, communication channels, internet information architecture, intranet information architecture and user interface design. This information will be used to develop the RFP.

Personnel:

Nancy Stanley is retiring as Head of Acquisitions on June 30, 2004.  Rebecca Albitz will serve as Interim Head while a national search is being conducted.

Vendor/ILS Partnerships:

The Libraries are working with EBSCO and SIRSI to develop EDI capability for periodical invoicing. We are also working with Yankee Book Peddler and SIRSI to develop an interface between GOBI2 and our ILS.

Cataloging Services:

Penn State has trained nine librarians and staff to create NACO series headings, and has started to contribute those headings to the national authority file.  We will be training an additional eight faculty and staff in July.

We plan to implement PromptCat and full-shelf ready processing for our Yankee Book Peddler firm order titles by the end of June or July.

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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


From: Katharine Farrell kfarrell@princeton.edu

Princeton University Libraries
HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS
ALA Annual Conference, June, 2004

Princeton Update June 2004

Several years ago the Trustees approved a 10% expansion of the undergraduate student body. The incoming freshman class will be the first expanded class and the Library is gearing up to deal with increased numbers of first year students.

We have finally broken ground for the construction of our first consolidated science library. Completion date is sometime in 2007, but the prospect of a consolidated library is present in much of our planning now.

Our Systems Office has hired a web development specialist and a digital photographer. We are beginning a search for a digital programmer as well.

In an effort to keep all library staff better informed about activities in Technical Services we have begun to distribute an online newsletter. Thus far the publication has been quarterly, but we anticipate picking up the pace in the fall. It has been very well received by our staff, both within and without the department. The newsletter is distributed on a local list and archived on our website.

Acquisitions:

Following the success of purchased catalog records for our main English language Italian approval plans, we are beginning to explore the possibility of purchasing catalog records for monograph titles supplied on series standing orders. We are also in discussion with several of our Middle Eastern vendors regarding acquisition of machine readable in process records for approval plans from that area.

Order Division has begun to develop interactive online tutorials for staff learning to use our integrated library system. A demo of this is available at: http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/order/ordoc.html

Future plans include developing scenarios that will be useful to collection development and public services staff who use the acquisitions and cataloging clients too infrequently to recall all the details.

A task force has been formed to undertake a full review of our current binding practices and develop recommendations for reducing our expenses. The groups report will be due in August.

Cataloging:

Effective May 3rd we have reorganized our Catalog Division to create a new unit: Approvals and Copy Cataloging Unit. Our goal in creating this unit is to expand the amount of cataloging done on receipt. The responsibility of this unit will include both acquisitions and cataloging on receipt approval plan material that arrives with some kind of vendor records. The new unit draws together staff whose primary responsibilities include processing high volume approval plans for which we receive online vendor records and which have a high incidence of cataloging copy on receipt, and staff whose responsibilities focus on LC and non-LC copy cataloging and selected original cataloging of titles on receipt and from the Hold. Staff in this unit were previously assigned to other units in the Catalog Division. We will be opening a search for permanent unit head shortly.

We have appointed Joyce Bell as Catalog Division Coordinator. She will have primary responsibility for planning and operational management of the Division.

With the arrival of our first full-time electronic resources cataloguer on April 1, Catalog Division has reorganized the cataloging of all electronic resources into a single unit.

Circulation:

Space in the main library, Firestone, continues to be a serious problem, despite the volume of material that has been moved to our storage facility. A recent stack shift to accommodate about 3000 new titles required moving 1,100,000 volumes, just to provide some idea of the magnitude of the problem.

Firestone is also undergoing a security upgrade. The first phase, now underway, includes the installation new emergency lighting and signage. The impact on both staff and patrons using the collections is just beginning to be felt. The current phase of the project should be completed before our fall term begins. The second phase, the installation of a fire suppression system, is tentatively scheduled for next summer, and promises to be even more disruptive.

Electronic resources and metadata:

Princeton has just become a partner with Endeavour Information Systems, Inc. in the development of an electronic resources management system.

 

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STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 18, 2004
From: Catherine M. Tierney ctierney@stanford.edu

Stanford University Libraries
Catherine Tierney, AUL for Technical Services

Budget, FY 2005
We will not be taking the anticipated 3-5% budget cut for fiscal 2005, so we have begun filling open positions that had been held. There will be a salary increase program at the University this year; there was none for FY2004. Collections budget received 7% increase, partly in response to the dollar’s poor performance against Euro and British pound. Nevertheless, we are in midst of another round of serial cancellations, including 10% for STM journals.

Collection Deployment
Massive efforts are underway to identify and prepare materials to go to remote shelving (SAL3), the maw of which requires 32,000 items per month. Load staff at SAL3 will increase 50% (from 4 to 6) in September, so ingestion numbers increase to 48,000 per month.

Simultaneously, we are integrating into SULAIR on-campus space about half of the book collections of the Hoover Institution. Classifications A-C were added in March; D-Z and newspapers are targeted for thirteen-month project starting this November. We estimate 25,000 bundles of newspapers and somewhere between 400,000-500,000 selected volumes.

Cataloging & Metadata
Metadata work is nicely migrating into jobs of Data Control staff, who are evaluating the descriptive metadata that Apex, the GATT fiche digitization vendor, is generating. It is first time that line staff are routinely assessing data that is outside the MARC format. Metadata librarian’s work has expanded beyond developing control of library objects to that of course management objects (CourseWork and onto Sakai) and faculty projects using Dspace prototype. East Asia Library has begun its 3-year reconproject for 250,000 titles via Backstage Library Works.

Acquisitions
We have extended cataloging-on-receipt to include DVDs and videos. As of 9/1/04 we will expand our Casalini fast track to include classification numbers and subject headings.

Digital Projects
We are one of four partners in the Archive Ingest & Handling Test (AIHT) funded by Library of Congress, running until February 2005. The objective is for all four to analyze and ingest the same objects into our repositories, and then to test the means of describing and delivering content among ourselves. The content is a fixed collection of objects related to the events of September 11, 2001.

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARIES


HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS
ALA annual conference, June 2004
From: Cynthia Shelton, Associate University Librarian, Collections and Technical Services ( cshelton@library.ucla.edu)

New Library System:
As of Wednesday, July 7, UCLA went completely live with our new system, Endeavor's Voyager. The new system is named the UCLA Library Catalog and the URL for the OPAC is: http://catalog.library.ucla.edu. We have had relatively minor problems with functionality and the performance is very good. We continue to make improvements to the OPAC interface based on usability studies. We are facing some rather large migration workloads related to serial record linking and addition of predictive patterns. We have also accumulated backlogs, such as in our OCLC record loads and our receiving of materials. There is a lot to do in designing new workflows. But there have been very few ugly surprises. Our implementation team led by Sara Shatford Layne did an amazing job. The collaborative efforts and hard work of the entire staff have made for a successful implementation.

Budget:
Last year we responded to a 7.5 percent budget cut in part through consolidations and centralizations in acquisition and cataloging operations. There is now a single UCLA Cataloging Center and two main acquisition units: Social Science and Humanities Acquisition and Sciences Acquisition. The staffs of these units handled extremely well the challenge of re-organization and centralization while preparing for migration to a new system. This year, the UCLA Library has received a 2 percent cut. We expect to cut both the collection budget and return positions to achieve the cut.

Digital Collection Management and Licensing unit:
We have just created a new unit to manage licensing, acquisition, and trouble-shooting of electronic resources. One of the main tasks of the unit will be to continue development of our home-grown electronic resources management system. Sharon Farb heads the new unit.

Conservation Lab:
I don’t recall if I reported on this in the January round robin. UCLA established the UCLA Conservation Center in January with the completion of the construction of our conservation lab and the hiring of a conservator. The lab is funded by a grant and matching endowment from the Mellon Foundation. It will focus on preserving our highly used materials both in the stacks and special collections.

UC Libraries ERMS:
UCLA is pleased to be active participants in identifying/developing a system wide tool for collaborative management of electronic resources, with a focus on the managing of licensed journals. A taskforce had put out a Request for Information and will have a report by the end of July.

Shared Print Pilot:
A pilot completed in January to create a shared print archive of Elsevier and ACM journal electronic titles proved cost effective and scalable. UCLA serves as the acquisition and cataloging unit; the Southern Regional Library Facility is the physical location of the “"dim" archive. We will be moving forward to create a shared print archive of additional publishers as we negotiate new licenses.

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
submitted by Lisa German lgerman@uiuc.edu

University of Illinois Round Robin Report
June, 2004

Since January's report, the Technical Services Division at the University of Illinois continues to move forward, concentrating on activities that put the needs of our users first and creating an environment where innovation and creativity are encouraged. We have a very young division with 8 untenured faculty out of 11 and their new ideas, creativity, and energy are wonderful. I'd like to recognize Maria Porta, Wendy Shelburn, Gail Hueting, K.C. Elhard, Qiang Jin, Atoma Batoma, Michael Norman, Naun Chew, Jennifer Hain and Tom Teper, along our research programmer Stephanie Baker, our Brittle Books coordinator Annette Morris, and the staff of our division for their hard work during this year of managment transition in the Division and budget uncertainty for Illinois and for the University.

Technological Advances

We completed a review of the Blackwell's approval plan and began implementing Promptcat for both approvals and firm orders. Thanks to the work of several acquisitions staff, Junghae Lee from Systems, Naun Chew from Serials Cataloging, and Kathleen Kluegel and Cindy Ingold, two of our subject librarians, we were able to transform the way we place orders. Selectors began using Blackwell's Collection Manager for order placement. We hope to merge acquisitions and copy cataloging functions together even more this next year. This year marked the first year we used the acquisitions module of Voyager and the first time that acquisitions functions have been integrated with the other library functions.

Michael Norman and Wendy Shelburne worked closely with John Weible in Systems to implement our new online resources registry. Using weekly feeds from TDnet, and data from several other sources, we've increased the number of journals that are accessible to our users by almost fourfold.

National Initiatives

Our participation in national cataloging initiatives keeps increasing. Just as we've grown in our preservation program, we are also growing in our cataloging programs. Gail Hueting, a senior faculty member in the Modern Languages Library, began a one year appointment in Cataloging so that she could assist with the training of new catalogers. Her assistance and expertise has proved to be very valuable. Qiang Jin has led the library in its quest to be a full NACO member. Thanks to a grant from the Mellon Foundation, we have been able to convert over 1 million short bibliographic records to full bib records in our catalog. We continue to participate in the CONSER publication plan initiative.

Preservation

Established as a centralized operation only 2.5 years ago, UIUC's Preservation and Conservation Program has made great strides in meeting the needs of the institution's collections. Whether improving existing services such as library binding, establishing basic services such as centralized triage operation for damaged materials, or developing training programs for the Library's personnel, the program has been making great progress. The last year saw the following five significant accomplishments:

Lisa German
Head of Acquisitions
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Dr.
Urbana, IL 61801
lgerman@uiuc.edu
phone(217)244-2071
fax (217)244-9004

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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Phelix Hanible ( phelix@umich.ed)

University of Michigan
Libraries Update
June 2004

The Library has been focused on implementing the Aleph integrated library system as the new Mirlyn, the Library’s online information system which will go live for staff on July 8 and to the campuses at large on July 12. I say campuses in that the UM-Flint campus as well as the Bentley Historical Library and the Clements Library for the study of early American history and culture are part of the implementation which will result in one merged online catalog. The Aleph system replaces the NOTIS catalog and the Innopac acquisitions system. A number of data clean-up projects were undertaken in preparation for implementation; among these was the updating of all serial holdings records. The Library implemented the Ex Libris SFX module in the spring and will implement MetaLib in September.

The Library is facing a potential 2.5% cut in the FY2005 budget. The Provost asked us to model this cut on both the operational and the materials budget. In the past the materials budget has always been protected. Collection development and selectors have cancelled some serial titles in anticipation of the cuts. We will know if the cuts will be necessary will probably not know before August as the State has not yet finalized the budget.

Cataloging loaded the Library of Congress resource file offered by Peter Ward. The file is the first search for copy. They also implemented OCLC CatMe for monograph and serials cataloging which has led to more efficient workflows. Acquisitions will implement CatMe for acquisitions searching as well prior to shift to production in Aleph. As a result of these changes we have been able to reduce the number of telecommunications ports twenty-five percent.

The Library sustained staff cuts in FY2003. As a result we changed our CONSER status from full member to enhance status. We hope to revisit this decision next year. Most of our NACO submissions had been as a result of our CONSER work. We are now submitting heads that are established primarily as part of our special collections cataloging efforts.

Cooperative Access Services implemented the ILLiad Interlibrary Loan Management System for all services, interlibrary loan, 747-Fast campus delivery service and Michigan Information Transfer Service fee-based service in 2003. We joined the RAPID project on a pilot basis in January 2004 and will continue it for the next year to assess the value of the service which thus far has improved turnaround time for document delivery to less than one day for items available from RAPID participants.

Preservation worked on a number of digitization projects in addition to continuing to use digitization as the preferred preservation mode for brittle books. Projects included the NEH Philippines I and II, the Coalition of Library Directors Michigan County Histories and Atlases, Making of Ann Arbor, and others. These along with the brittle books make up the 21,000 item General Collection of digitized items that are available to users.

The Library Metadata Specialist provided consultative support to the campus Digital Asset Management System initiative whereby materials developed by faculty in the dentistry, education, and psychology are being digitized in support of instruction. This initiative is in conjunction with IBM and is still in early stages of development as it was only in April that objects were able to be ingested. We will continue to support the project on a trial basis to determine the role that the Library should play in such activities.

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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LIBRARIES


Bigheads Round Robin,
June 2004
From: Barbara A. Stelmasik b-stel@tc.umn.edu

Technical Services: We have renamed and reorganized technical services following on a year long planning process. The new organization is largely function based with allowances for geographic issues and the efficiencies inherent in cataloging on receipt. The new structure and staffing assignments go into effect July 1, 2004. We hope the outcome will be greater efficiencies through process improvement and that the new structure will allow us to survive challenging budget situations and position us to make strides metadata and project work. We are actively sharing information about Technical Services activities and accomplishments in the Libraries’ internal e-newsletter via brief monthly announcements with links to more information on the Technical Services Web site.

Staffing: We eagerly await applications for a new Metadata Librarian position. The job posting is at http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/employment/openings/job124473.html The position reports to the Director of Technical Services and will work cooperatively with digital initiatives in other Departments in the Libraries and on campus. It is a great opportunity for someone to participate in a defining moment in new directions for the Libraries. We have hand several retirements and are looking at how to re-deploy those salary lines creatively to advance our goals (efficiencies, metadata, and projects).

Technology: We have made great strides in a number of areas. Uthink, a blogging service for the campus, was developed by the Libraries Digital Development Lab and was unveiled in early April. It has been a great success across campus and is being using internally by the Libraries, including by Technical Services. The Undergraduate Virtual Library interface should be ready for fall Semester. SFX implementation is well in hand, and the process for acquiring a Metasearch tool is well underway.

The Special Collections and Archives units have embarked upon a major EAD project, with the goal of creating a central repository and search engine for discovering and accessing U of M archival finding aids. In preparation for the large volume of encoding work, a standard for local finding aids was developed. This will allow for greater standardization of MARC collection level records, and facilitate efforts to map EAD tags to MARC tags, for easier data conversion from one standard to the other.

ILS and OPAC: We have made significant progress extracting management information, in post-migration cleanup work and in record import and export. We exported records to the bibliographic utilities this month and should soon be caught up and on a regular schedule. We successfully batchloaded DigitalEvans records this past weekend. We have made extensive use of macros in much of this work. We expect to set up SFXMARCit loads very soon. We are likely to migrate to version 16 of Aleph this coming winter.

Budget: Our overall budget situation remains uncertain. The Legislature failed to pass any funding bills this session, and the University of Minnesota has had to once again increase tuition and make some cuts to balance the budget.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Robin Fradenburgh r.fradenburgh@mail.utexas.edu

HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN LIBRARIES
ALA Annual Meeting, June 2004

PERSONNEL
Fred Heath, our new Vice Provost and Director, has been on the job for 10 months now.  The general excitement and renewed energy I mentioned in January is still very apparent amongst the staff.   Although it's too early to expound on Fred's many plans to improve staff salaries, status, work environment, etc., the knowledge that they are in the works has done much to elevate staff morale.

Ernestine Potter, Head of Cataloging, is retiring August 31 after 38 years of service.

RECRUITMENT
After last year's freeze and budget reduction, professional recruitment has been very active this spring.  We hired a new Head of the Fine Arts Library this month, Laura Schwartz, previously, Art Librarian, in the Fine Arts Library.   Catherine Hamer, Head of Access Services at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, will start as Document Delivery Librarian, Sept. 30.  We are currently conducting interviews for the Head of Music Cataloging, which is the first new cataloging position in over 15 years.

Recruitment is underway for an Education Bibliographer.  A posting for the Head of Cataloging should follow.

SEARCH FOR INTEGRATED LIBRARY SYSTEM
Four vendors responded favorably to our RFI process and presented demonstrations to our staff in April and May.  We are now embarking on the next phase of the process, the RFP, which we hope to submit in the Fall, pending funding.

BUDGET
The FY2004/2005 budget contains some bright spots. The Provost has provided $400,000 in recurring funds for the materials budget and there is a 3% merit pool for staff salary increases.

PLANNING PROCESS
The strategic management planning process continues. Throughout the spring various groups have met to discuss our vision, mission, goals and objectives.  Four different sets of stakeholders were identified and meetings were held for their input.  In March, an all campus summit was held with a cross section of University staff and students, including the President, Vice Presidents and Deans.  Goals and objectives have been formulated from the results of these meetings.  We are currently in the process of working on the strategy to complete these objectives.  Given we've never done this before, it's been an interesting and sometimes frustrating exercise.  But in the end, the Library should be much better situated for visibility with the Provost and much needed funding. 

RETROSPECTIVE CONVERSION
We are still on track to finish with retro conversion this Fall.  We'll still have some in-house recon going on and clean-up, but our major projects should be finished. We're currently finishing up with South Asian, Middle Eastern, and the Textbook Collection.

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UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA LIBRARIES


HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS
ALA Annual conference, June 2004
From: Beth Picknally Camden ( bpcamden@virginia.edu

University of Virginia Big Heads Round Robin Report

June 2004

1.  Staffing

  • Tabzeera Dosu was hired as the Director of Library Financial Services
  • Douglas Hurd, former Director of Interlibrary Services, was appointed as Director of Library Facilities
  • Jean Cooper, was appointed as Acting Director of Interlibrary Services

2. Special Collections Library: Construction is nearly complete on the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture and Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.  Staff and collections will move summer 2004 (http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/newlib/). 

3.  Digital Library/Fedora Project: The UVa Library is nearing the launch of its Central Digital Repository based on the Fedora system.  Phase 1 of the Repository was a prototype released for review in summer 2003.  Feedback on the functionality and design was used to develop the functional specifications and priorities for the next release of the Repository, aka "Phase 2."  Collections of digital images of art and architecture, electronic texts, and electronic finding aids will be included.  The goals for the project include development and refinement of production workflows for local digital content, online search services, including a cross-format discovery search and two full-text search indices for electronic texts and finding aids, and tools for working with the image collections.  Full implementation with an initial set of collections is set for August.

4.  SIRSI Rooms: The Library began the process of evaluating the SIRSI Rooms product.  Prototypes of Single Search and the Open URL resolver have been implemented, and the resolver database has been populated.

5. Elsevier: The Library negotiated a very favorable 5 year license in which we agreed to sustain expenditures with reasonable price rises over the term of the contract and in return we get access to all the titles on Science Direct.  We did this in collaboration with six other Universities in the Commonwealth with the negotiating team led by a UVa law professor who also works as a Special Assistant to our University Librarian.

6.  Metadata:  A Metadata Steering Group (MSG) was created to approve and maintain metadata standards for the Library's digital initiatives.  MSG accomplishments thus far include: the thorough review of the UVa Metadata standards (DescMeta and AdminMeta); preliminary review of the GDMS (General Descriptive Modeling Scheme) element set; mappings from other international standards to UVa Metadata: the establishment of various UVa metadata best practices; and the creation of a UVa Library metadata website: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/digital/metadata

7.  Planning Teams: Planning Day 2003 at the University of Virginia Library resulted in a list of five priorities, "What we will do today for the library of tomorrow" and eight Planning Teams were established to forward those priorities.  The Access-Content Planning Team was charged with documenting workflows (including ownership and timelines) for bringing new purchased, licensed, or locally produced content into an integrated environment as well as for the migration of existing content.  The team developed workflow diagrams to bring both new and existing digital content into the production stream and recommended steps for their implementation.  Implementation of the workflows is targeted for 2004-2005.

8. Authority Control:

  • Cataloging Services established ongoing authority control processing with Marcive.
  • The Library brought in an LC trainer for a week-long NACO training/refresher workshop.  Fifteen catalogers participated, from Cataloging, the Music Library and Special Collections.

9. Digital Dissertations:  In order to better preserve the intellectual heritage of the University, we are currently working with ProQuest (UMI division) to microfilm then digitize dissertations produced at UVa from the first one in 1885 up to and including 1929 (~140 dissertations).  These will be added to the Digital Dissertations database. 

10. Casalini:  Cataloging Services is now receiving Casalini Libri MARC records.  With this change in workflow, titles are now cataloged within our 4-6 day through-put standard for member cataloging, rather than sitting 20-30 days before cataloging. 

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UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Joyce Ogburn jlogburn@u.washington.edu

Report from the University of Washington Libraries
June 17, 2004

BUDGET
The UW Libraries is please to report that we will be getting an influx of funding from the university to add to our resources budget. We have many people to thank for making the case that the libraries is a major contributor to the success of the research enterprise and that we should be funded at a level that enables us to provide the numbers and kinds of resources required.

DIGITAL ACTIVITIES
One the digital front there are numerous activities underway. As members of the DSpace Federation, we contributed to a project to harvest image metadata from Contentdm for indexing by Google. The Libraries, in conjunction with UW visual resources units and slide libraries, were the recipients of a university grant to acquire digital image collections and make them widely available throughout our three campuses. This ad hoc partnership will enable us to move in concert in providing image-based services and eliminate duplicative efforts and purchasing. Moreover, we will develop joint standards on image scanning for display and preservation, and anticipate we will provide a much more broad and diverse set of images than we could working independently.

VIRTUAL COMMUNITY MUSEUM
Work continues on grants for creating a virtual community museum with tribes on the Kitsap Peninsula of Washington and participating in the Greater Western Library Alliance Western Waters project, albeit this is still a slow process. We are garnering ever more interest from faculty in contributing to the institutional repository. We are learning more about the practical issues of selecting material, obtaining permissions, and adding metadata to incoming materials by asking our librarians to contribute professional publications and by adding practice documents from our cataloging unit.

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
The implementation of the Electronic Resources Management module of III is well underway. The system was brought up recently and we are now in the process of record clean up.

SPECIAL PROJECTS
Endowment funds were used to start new processes that will fund two areas of need: preservation and scholarly communication. The preservation program created processes for submitting, reviewing and selecting projects. We also used money from the sale of our card catalogs to supplement the funding initially identified. For scholarly communication, the steering committee for this area funded initiatives, such as Project Euclid or the Public Library of Science, for up to three years. Previously we may not have identified and funded initiatives or our selectors struggled to find funds in the midst of serials cancellations. We hope to continue both programs now that processes have been established.

We conducted a project to create a set of computing best practices for our staff, prompted by a spate of security issues and service attacks. We discovered there was a distinct lack of knowledge about how individual practices compromised the security of the network. The process of investigating this problem led to numerous other revelations about practices, myths, and misconceptions about the use of personal computers. The initial work was expanded and adopted into other areas of the library. The new practices have enhanced our security as well as staff skills and productivity. This summer we will be planning a "clean up your computer files day," giving staff time to work on their personal computer files, shared documents, email, and web pages.

Other initiatives included a work flow and budgeting analysis of our marking activities, a binding needs review, and an overhaul of our scholarly communications web site.

STAFFING
Two searches are still in progress - one for an assistant acquisitions librarian and a librarian to add to our team in Collection Management Services dealing with electronic resources.

Joyce Ogburn

Joyce L. Ogburn, Associate Director of the Libraries
Resources and Collection Management Services
University of Washington
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
jlogburn@u.washington.edu
Phone: 206-685-2889
Fax: 206-685-8727

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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Richard Reeb rreeb@library.wisc.edu

University of Wisconsin-Madison
ALA Conference 2004
Round Robin Report

Collection Budget:
In early 2004 campus administration approved one-time funding of $217,500 enabling the libraries to maintain core research journals especially in the sciences, and to offset some of this year’s increases for other acquisitions, both print-based and electronic. We also successfully secured from campus a base budget increase of $400,000 for FY 04/05. Despite this supplemental funding the strength and purchasing power of the collection budget continues to decline. One clear indication of this for the current year was that we had to cease the normal processing of invoices on June 3rd, the earliest date in recent memory when the budget was more or less fully expended.

Shelving Facility:
This summer we will gain occupancy of the ground level of the former Health Sciences Library; it will become an on-campus shelving facility. Compact shelving has been ordered and is scheduled for installation by fall. A committee is at work identifying categories of low-use materials that will be likely candidates for transfer. The transfer of volumes into the facility with an estimated capacity for 335,000 capacity should begin before the end of this year.

Pinyin Conversion:
This month more than 63,000 Chinese bibliographic records are being converted by OCLC from Wade-Giles to the Pinyin romanization system. We are also using this record conversion as an opportunity to add to OCLC our holdings for approximately 11,000 CJK records which had been cataloged on RLIN until 1991. Cleanup work and other local editing of the records will ensue.

Embedded Order Confirmation Records:
The benefits of full implementation of Embedded Order Confirmation Records (EOCR) for titles firm-ordered fromYankee are now being realized. The process has had a noticeable impact on the workload of the Order Unit which is no longer required to transfer titles into the database at the time of order.

Staff Vacancies:
Search committees are underway to review applications to fill two important positions: Head of Public Services at Memorial Library, and Head of the Acquisitions and Serials Department.

Miscellaneous:
Progress is being made on the implementation of Ex Libris’ SFX and Metalib software. The former product should be available this summer and the Metalib software is expected for rollout by the winter semester.

Finally, the libraries conducted a user survey in the spring using the LibQual+ instrument. The findings will be reported after training on data interpretation has been received this summer.

Submitted by Richard Reeb

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YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES


Round Robin Update, June 2004
From: Joan Swanekamp joan.swanekamp@yale.edu

ALA Annual Meeting 2004
ALCTS Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Group
Report of Recent Activities at Yale University

Library Budget.  The Library was asked to take a 5% decrease in its general appropriations budget for 2004-05.  This year the Library was able to achieve the cuts without staff layoffs.  The Collections budget was not affected.

Process Improvement.  The Library has just completed a successful year-long quality improvement redesign initiative directed at the selection through acquisitions processes.  With the help of consultants, the Library built a cross-functional non-hierarchical team first to work through the redesign, and then to develop an implementation plan.

Acquisition Improvements.  We are loading embedded order data for most of our large approval plans and are very pleased with the improvements to the workflow.  Receiving backlogs have disappeared and the Fiscal Support unit is current with payments.

Record Set Loads.  We have resumed large record set loads that were deferred during our first year with Voyager.  This includes Serial Solutions records including updates and deletes and a number of large digital sets.

Voyager Unicode Release.  We did a thorough evaluation of the Voyager Unicode release and have decided to implement it during the summer ’05. The Voyager Unicode release is not a complete implementation of support for Unicode.  As is, it provides limited improvements to our ability to serve our area collection readers and support staff working with these collections.  Full Unicode support will not be achieved without the inclusion of the following three components:  1) Culturally appropriate functionality for the searching, sorting, and display of non-Roman records. 2) Within the Cataloging client, the co-location of Roman and non-Roman tags in the MARC record display.  3) Unicode support within the Acquisition module.

Federated Searching.  We conducted an evaluation of MetaLib (ExLibris) and EnCompass (Endeavor) and made a decision to implement MetaLib beginning with the Medical Library. 

Establishment of Integrated Access Council.  Following on strategic planning recommendations, an Integrated Access Council has been established to provide cross-functional leadership, coordination, and centralized communication to guide the review, revision, development and implementation of the action plans for integrated access/digital library developments including digital preservation initiatives and integrating interfaces.

Rescue Repository. A task force was charged to create a requirements document for a Rescue Repository for the Yale University Library digital collections.  The requirements include: ingest, storage and backup and retrieval functions, and access control. The repository will be implemented by the end of the summer 04.

Library Systems Office Reorganization.  The office has been reorganized to better support the Integrated Access goals. The new LSO (tentatively renamed Integrated Library Technology Services) consists of two interlocking teams for digital library research and planning, and implementation and operations. The groups will work closely with the Integrated Access Council to establish priorities for development work based upon the library’s strategic directions.

Finding Aids.  Joan Swanekamp is leading an effort to develop a coordinated Finding Aid Program for Yale.  The current practice is that the various Yale Library special collections each create and manage their own Finding Aids.  The program requirements will include development of EAD best practices, training, library systems support, implementation of a common tool for creating EAD records, and a recommendation for a decision-making mechanism. 

Joan Swanekamp
Chief Catalog Librarian
Yale University
June 21, 2004

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