Berkeley -- Technical Services Training Program (Lee Leighton)

All branches perform some technical services functions though not necessarily cataloging. Since not all branch staff are equally trained Berkeley introduced a program to bring all to the same level. They plan to do an overview of monographic cataloging, serials cataloging, ordering, preparation of materials for storage, replacements; and public services interpretation of records. The program involves offering multiple sessions of the same topic.

Bob Wolven (Columbia University) asked whether the training documents are available on the Web. Leighton said that they will be; Berkeley is still at the stage of creating documentation but making them available on the Web is also one of the program goals.

Jeffrey Horrell of Harvard University, a very decentralized environment, asked how Berkeley planned to avoid duplication of work. Leighton said they had reached no conclusions on that point. They lacked the space in Central Technical Services to move branch staff there. A great deal of independent thinking goes on in the branches.

? Someone asked where Berkeley performs monographic ordering? The answer was CTS. To the question of where serials are received, the answer was mixed. For the more easily controlled titles, receipt is decentralized; the rest are received in CTS.

Arno Kastner (New York University) commented that serials checkin is a problem in a decentralized system; there is a need to upgrade some staff person to serve as the point person to answer serials-related questions. Leighton noted that claiming at Berkeley is done in CTS.

Judith Nadler (University of Chicago) asked whether Berkeley was working on deciding what work needs to be done? Leighton responded that they had done that first. It had been essential to determine what steps were really necessary since Berkeley had lost 30% of its technical services staff.

Barbara Stelmasik (University of Minnesota) asked who measures performance? Leighton answered that performance standards had been mounted on the Web. Branch supervisors measure the performance of their staff but often in consultation with CTS.

Cornell, et al. Analysis of Technical Services Costs (Christian Boissonnas)

LC ILS implementation impacts on us; what are we tracking?

Beacher Wiggins (LC) : There will be some negative impact on output, through October 1, 1999 when the ILS is scheduled for full implementation, and beyond. LC is not sure what the learning curve will be after the October 1 implementation date. LC has told Congress that the numbers will not likely start climbing until after October 1, 2000. LC will concentrate on current receipts rather than arrearages except in some specialized areas such as CJK. The period to eliminate the print arrearages has been extended to Sept. 30, 2004 while the period for dealing with the Special Formats arrearages (approx. 18,000,000 items) has been extended to June 30, 2007.

Bob Wolven of Columbia wondered what we could do to minimize the impact of LCs productivity drop in our libraries. Brian Schottlaender (UCLA) said that the drop in productivity for the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) is important for all other PCC libraries as many of them are also implementing new systems; he is looking at a 20% drop in productivity at LC. Sally Sinn (NAL and PCC Chair) said that PCC isn't forecasting any decline in productivity, based on members' estimates of bibliographic record contributions for FY 1999, but there has been a reluctance for new libraries to join PCC while they are implementing a new ILS. Judith Nadler (University of Chicago) said we should not under-estimate the drop in productivity because of a new ILS.

Bob Wolven asked if the LC drop in productivity would impact the distribution of MARC records to OCLC. Beacher Wiggins (LC) said that while the number of records available to be distributed will drop he did not anticipate any decrease in the speed with which new records will be ready to be distributed. LC's Cataloging Distribution Service will be able to pick up newly created records as of Cataloging Day 1 in June 1999. Duane Arenales commented that NLM anticipates a 5-month delay in distributing records. Carton Rogers said that the University of Pennsylvania had gotten back to initial productivity levels but has a one and a half year backlog in loading records to its utility.

Bob Wolven (Columbia) asked what is the relationship of ILS implementation to LCs overseas offices? Beacher responded that they are impacted but that impact should be transparent to users of records. The overseas offices are not getting client-server software loaded.

Wade-Giles to pinyin conversion.

Beacher Wiggins said that LC is looking at spring or summer 2000 for pinyin conversion, after the implementation of the ILS. Its impact on subject headings, authorities, and classification will affect Big Heads libraries. Any record with a Chinese heading will be affected. LC is considering asking the PCC members to cooperate in this work.

Judith Nadler (University of Chicago) said she had not seen anything about OCLCs commitment to pinyin conversion. The Big Heads group should find out what their plans are and to lobby for action.

Mike Kaplan (Indiana) asked if LC had a feel for the number of headings involved in the conversion to pinyin. Wiggins said they don't have a grand total but there are 916 name authorities that include Peking alone and over 2,800 associated bibliographic records.

Beth Warner (Michigan) asked about cooperation with libraries in China to adopt their standards. Wiggins responded that the pinyin romanization scheme is based on what Chinese libraries use. Otherwise there is little cooperative effort with Chinese libraries.

Bob Wolven (Columbia) said that there would seem to be real potential for automated assistance in authority control conversion. Is anyone working with vendors who provide automated authority control on the impact that conversion to pinyin will have on their systems and what their plans are to deal with it? Lee Leighton said that Berkeley planned to adopt pinyin on day 1 of LCs implementation. They hope to have software that can search both Wade-Giles and pinyin romanizations.

Karen Smith-Yoshimura (RLG) said from the audience that RLG plans to produce a list of all headings that will be affected by conversion from Wade-Giles to pinyin; RLG will make the list available as an FTP file free to anyone who wants it. This weighted list of headings, with the number of times the headings have been used on bibliographic records, will help to determine which authorities to convert first.

Mike Kaplan (Indiana) suggested that Big Heads continue discussing this topic at the ALA summer conference in New Orleans.

Cataloging and/or analyzing aggregator databases

Bob Wolven started by asking what exactly is meant by aggregator databases? There is no uniformly perceived answer even within Columbia. What vision do we want to accomplish by cataloging aggregator databases? Various models have been proposed, e.g., some form of the multiple versions approach with all formats listed as part of one record, different levels of fullness of records, aggregating sub-components of these databases, etc.

Christian Boissonnas (Cornell) said that Why we want to do something is an important question to ask. It is not clear that anything is jelling yet at the directors level but is jelling at catalogers level.

Karen Calhoun (of Cornell) said from the audience that Ruth Haas of Harvard is chair of the CONSER Task Group on Access to Serials in Aggregators which is working on the cataloging of aggregator databases. The Task Group has done two surveys; the first assessed the feasibility and ease of providing title level access to titles in full-text databases such as UMI's Proquest, EbscoHost, Lexis-Nexis, etc. The second survey followed on the first to assess the need for access at the title level, the most desired forms of access, and willingness to cooperate. Sixty-two libraries responded, 95% of which license full-text aggregator databases. Access methods currently in use (respondents could choose all appropriate methods) were:

• 65 % of respondents are using a single record
• 60% are using web lists
• 42% are using separate records

As to the desired form of access (respondents had to choose one):

• 31% favored single records
• 29% favored separate records
• 23% said None of the above (Half of these said they chose None of the above because they wanted to choose more than one approach, with lists, single records, and separate records all playing a role)
• 10% favored using lists on the web

Combining those who responded either Single records or Separate records plus the half of the None of the above responses who wanted multiple approaches means that 71% of the responding libraries wanted records in their OPACs so as to provide a single point of access to ALL library resources.

There is a great deal of interest in collaborating to solve the problem of providing access to electronic journals within full-text databases. Over half of the responding libraries said they would be willing to work with CONSER libraries to create and maintain record sets, and over half were willing to work with vendors to create metadata for these titles. Almost 75% said they wanted to purchase sets of records.

As a next step the Task Group will be meeting to discuss how it might work with vendors.

Judith Nadler (University of Chicago) asked whether there was a way to assess how respondents came up with choices? Karen said that the technical services respondents had been asked to check with their reference staff. Many respondents provided rationales for their choices.

Sally Sinn (NAL) commented that libraries don't have systems for dealing with multiple versions and so, pragmatically speaking, we are constrained by the tools we now have; people may say they prefer separate records because they lack workable systems for providing data relating to multiple formats on a single record.

Duane Arenales (NLM) commented that no-one has promoted multiple versions more and longer than NLM but they are a bit nervous about dealing with electronic journals and how much they diverge from the print version and how often they change. How can one determine if both versions are the same work?

Beth Warner (Michigan) asked has anyone thought beyond description to how to show holdings? Karen Calhoun said from the audience that the surveys had not asked questions about maintenance but had gotten lots of comments on that topic. One suggestion: preparation of a list of desiderata to present to vendors; people are concerned. There will be more discussion of this topic at the Big Heads meeting in summer 1999.

Other items for cooperative action?