"1) Stay on top of distance learning developments at Cornell and elsewhere

2) Advise the University Librarian on distance learning issues and recommend actions and strategies the Library should undertake

3) Develop a model for providing effective library resources and services to distance learning students using as a test case the Deborah Streeter/Margaret Hubbert Fall 1998 course, 'Entrepreneurship Certificate "Distance learning Program, Cornell's online solution for start-up entrepreneurs.'

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DUKE UNIVERSITY

From: "Lubans, John" jl@mail.lib.duke.edu

Duke University Library Update for Big Heads, ALA, Summer, 1998

RECON:
After a decade we are nearing the end of the conversion phase of our manual card catalog, which we expect to complete by the end of this Fiscal Year. At the end of May, we celebrated the conversion of our 1 millionth record, ("He Made Money Immortal" a tribute to the founder of Duke published in 1943) leaving only 15,000 records to be completed in-house and 125,000 for outsourcing. Following this, staff will shift their efforts to dismantling the card catalogs and the final stage of the residual but, alas, extensive clean up.

ACQUISITIONS:
Innovacq's Approval Plan Interface software will be used to download approval plan records from selected vendors to speed up access to materials in the process of being cataloged. Instead of manually updating these records to add local information, we plan to overlay the bibliographic records following the completion of cataloging and to use custom software to update the order records.

Innovacq's File Transfer Software (FTS) will replace our local program that allows us to add records to the database in batch mode. This software will enable us to continue and fine-tune our automated record creation for books and will facilitate the full automation of our ordering process. We are in the process of testing a new work flow for batch loading order records into the database. We anticipate sizable staff savings from the elimination of typing order records.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES:
The library, in collaboration with the University, is in the process of designing a performance evaluation system for all employees. For Technical Services, this means identifying core responsibilities and developing performance standards. Training workshops are planned. The planning stage is expected to last until October, with implementation planned for January 1999.

What is happening in other institutions re evaluation efforts?

TOURS OF TS:
We developed and conducted two non-librarian tours of Technical Services this Spring. Our decision to split the tours into four pieces with participants seeing a piece of the puzzle seemed to work well. The Library Advisory Board (our advice and fundraising group of alums) and the Library Council (faculty) gave excellent feedback to us about the tour and what they learned, including insights on how to improve what we do.

ELECTRONIC JUXTAPOSITIONS continue apace at Duke:

• we are creating analytic hot links through the on-line catalog to specific full text titles contained in aggregations like UMI's PQD, IAC's Expanded Academic fulltext file; Ethnic Newswatch, Project Muse, etc. This duty is now part of the job descriptions of those managing serial holdings.

• we are developing with a task force a systematic approach to "collecting", cataloging, and hot linking from the on-line catalog to non- commercial Internet resources, and thus re-defining what our on-line catalog represents.

• we are counting electronic titles as "titles added to the collection"

• we now do more ordering from Internet resources such as Amazon.com and Bibliofind (for out of print), as well as electronic ordering from traditional book dealers. Books are arriving more quickly.

  John Lubans, Jr.
  Deputy University Librarian
  Duke University
  Durham, NC 27705 USA
  jl@mail.lib.duke.edu
  Phone: 919 660 5800 (work)
  Phone: 919 493 4979 (home)
  Fax: 919 660 5923
  Web: http://www.lib.duke.edu/staff/orgnztn/lubans/john.html

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  UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

  From: Sharon Elizabeth Clark s-clark3@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Update

  RENOVATION
  Rennovation of the Main Library is beginning. It is assumed that Technical Services will be the first beneficiary of the rennovation which is a four to five stage project. Each phase is allocated at $800,000.00. The firm is Ross-Barney and Jancovich of Chicago.

  MIGRATION TO THE DRA-ILS
  Migration to the DRA-ILS remains a top priority. Along with the other 44 libraries in the Illinois Library Computer System (ILCSO) Consortia, we are entering the final countdown. A hybrid of the DRA Classic/TAOS system is being implemented initially for Cataloging/Maintenance/Authority Control (NETCAT), Circulation (CIRCLE) and the Public Access Catalog (TAOS: Web Interface as well as Information Gateway Interface). We plan to go live the first week of August. We have been celebrating milestones along the way, such as when we were able to complete our profiling last March in just three weeks.

  Training has been a focal point all year. Using a "Train the Trainers" approach, the trainers were trained by DRA staff in April and May and local training designed by the implementation teams is being conducted this month and through July for the entire library. Timelines and cutover dates are being communicated and publicized regularly. Technical Services staff have been trained in new DRA/ OCLC input conventions and current shelflisting for newly cataloged items has been mounted on the Library Home Page for access by catalogers as well as the public during the "Gap" period. Over the course of 1998-99, additional modules will be implemented to handle acquisitions and fund accounting as well as serial check-in. For migration timelines consult: http://www.ilcso.uiuc.edu

  TECHNICAL SERVICES REENGINEERING
  Technical Services reengineering plans are also progressing. Two reports have been issued by Alvan Bregman, Head, Research and Planning, Technical Services and are available on the Library Technical Services home page. Technical Services staff participated in two workshops this spring to learn more about working and decision-making in the team environment. The reorganization into teams with team leaders is targeted for implementation this fall, following our DRA ILS migration. For more detail, consult the Library Technical Services Home Page: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/techserv/

  RECON
  Recon still remains for an estimated 5,000 analytic titles which were never entered into LCS in the l970's. Approximately 55,000 analytics are accessible in short record form.

  Sharon Clark, Coordinator
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Technical Services Division
  216 Main Library - MC 522
  1408 West Gregory Drive
  Urbana, IL 61801
  Fax: (217) 333-2214
  E-Mail: s-clark3@uiuc.edu
  

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  INDIANA UNIVERSITY

  From: Michael Kaplan mkaplan@indiana.edu

  Indiana University Libraries Update

  MASTER PLAN FOR RENOVATION OF MAIN AND LILLY LIBRARIES
  We are in the preliminary stages of developing a master plan for the long overdue renovation of the Main Library and the Lilly Library (rare books). Shepley, Bullfinch, Richardson and Abbott have been out twice for focus groups and will be back several more times before late fall as they gather information for the use in developing the master plan. Like many of you, we are struggling with the twin challenges of trying to update a building that (1) predates the computer era at the same time as its physical fabric has been allowed to deteriorate and (2) is also vastly over capacity. A part of the plan is an offsite repository into which we probably need to move 2 million volumes over the next 10 years, and then at least 100,000 volumes a year thereafter.

  At the same time we need to complete the remaining 750,000 volumes requiring Recon before we move books to storage in any quantity. We would like to have these titles completed within 2 years, but funding is proving elusive. We hope we'll have a final go-ahead sometime in July. The current plan is to do about 200,000 that have local records in house, along with about 125,000 non-Roman titles, but to outsource the conversion of the remaining 425,000 titles.

  HORIZON IMPLEMENTATION
  Implementation of the Horizon library management system continues, but so far only the Indianapolis campus is up. Production has taken a big hit there, and we are in no hurry to implement it in central technical services until it is a truly functioning system. Current plans point toward the summer of 1999. In the meantime, however, we are loading NOTIS 6.4 to deal with the last remaining Y2K bugs.

  TECHNICAL SERVICES REORGANIZATION
  Technical Services is in the middle of a fundamental reorganization from its current 3-department arrangement to a single umbrella department with different functional divisions under it. We will be advertising for a Head of the Acquisitions Division shortly. And then we will begin to fill a number of other new managerial positions, mostly internally. One very likely result of the reorganization will be the need for much more cross-functional training than has been the case until now. Our riches in professional language expertise are spread unevenly across the current departments, and we need to be able to make use of this very deep expertise in a much more flexible fashion.

  CZECH LANGUAGE MATERIALS
  For those of you who conduct heavily in Czech language materials, we have recently instituted a new policy to mainstream most Czech language books. We are particularly interested in upgrading to BIBCO standards (and in a timely fashion) those titles that are represented in OCLC by batchloaded records from the National Library of the Czech Republic (symbol LGP). LC will use its distribution means to put out a press release about this.

  Michael Kaplan, Ph. D.
  Director of Technical Services
  Indiana University Libraries
  Main Library C245
  Bloomington, IN 47405-1801
  Email: mkaplan@indiana.edu
  Voice: (812) 855-3403
  Fax: (812) 855-2576
  

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

  From: Beacher J E Wiggins bwig@loc.gov

  I'm providing information below from the 24-page ALA Update for the Library of Congress that we prepare for each ALA meeting. I've gleaned what I think might be of interest of Big Heads members. I've retained headings so that you can easily browse, skipping what doesn't attract your interest. You may see the full update at (gopher://marvel.loc.gov:70/00/services/ala98mar.txt) We're also providing a link from the "LC at ALA" Web page.

  LC/AMERITECH NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY COMPETITION
  The second round of the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition resulted in the selection of seven successful proposals. Five were from individual institutions: the Chicago Historical Society; Duke University; the Nebraska State Historical Society; Northwestern University; the University of Iowa; and two were from consortia: The University of Miami, Florida International University and the Historical Museum of South Florida; and the University of Washington, the Eastern Washington State Historical Society, and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. Nearly 70 applications from more than 30 states were reviewed by independent panels of distinguished scholars, educators, archivists, administrators and technical specialists. The collections proposed for digitization by the successful institutions will continue to add text and images of great interest and complementary regional diversity to the web-accessible American Memory collections.

  INTEGRATED LIBRARY SYSTEM
  On May 15 the Library awarded a contract to Endeavor Information Systems of Des Plaines, Ill., to provide comprehensive integrated library system (ILS) software and support to the Library. The Voyager system from Endeavor Information Systems will replace many of the Library's standalone automated systems, some of which date to the 1960s. Voyager is a client-server system that will support all standard library operations, including acquisitions, cataloging, inventory and serials control, circulation, and the online public catalog.

  Planning for the ILS began in 1995 with the Shelflist Task Group, which concluded that the only feasible way to automate shelflisting at the Library was by obtaining an integrated library system. The Library issued a Request for Proposal in July 1997 and began evaluating responses to the RFP in September 1997. Concurrently with the evaluation process, the Library presented its implementation and training plans to Congress. A Congressional appropriation of $5.6 million in fiscal year 1998 will cover the Endeavor software, training, maintenance, and support, in addition to some new system hardware and other items to support inventory tracking and the initial conversion of the shelflist card file and serials manual check-in file.

  Full-time ILS Program Office staff members include Program Director Barbara Tillett; ILS Program Manager Lucinda Leonard; ILS project coordinator Beth Dulabahn; assistant ILS project coordinators Sara (Sally) Arason, Erik Delfino, Ann Della Porta, and Linda Geisler; and Information Technology Services ILS project coordinator Jane Mandelbaum. The implementation is expected to involve the efforts of 500 to 1,000 LC staff members organized in approximately 70 project implementation teams.

  Implementation of the ILS is one of the Library's highest priorities. The ILS will improve the security and accessibility of the Library's collections and provide inventory control for the first time. The target date for implementation of the first release is October 1999.

  PUBLIC ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
  The Committee on Electronic Resources and Access (CERA) was established as a result of the work of the Public Access to the Internet Committees. CERA is addressing all issues relating to onsite public access (in LC reading rooms and other research areas) to electronic materials (from Internet resources to CD-ROMS). The committee is addressing technical, administrative, and legal issues.

  NATIONAL SERIALS DATA PROGRAM (NSDP) IN SERIAL RECORD DIVISION
  The directors of ISSN centers are participating in a preliminary online discussion of "seriality" issues related to revision of AACR and how these issues will affect the ISSN system. Regina Reynolds, head of NSDP, will lead a discussion on this topic at the meeting of ISSN directors to be held in Brussels in September, 1998. Representatives from NSDP and the ISSN International Centre have been participating in DOI (Digital Object Identifier) workshops. Serial publishers using DOIs are often incorporating the ISSN (or ISSN-based SICIs (Serial and Item Contribution Identifier) as the identifier in the "suffix" portion of the DOI.

  NETWORK DEVELOPMENT AND MARC STANDARDS OFFICE (NDMSO)
  

  • Resource Files
    The Library of Congress loaded more than 235,000 MARC bibliographic records from external sources to its internal resource file during fiscal 1997. Most records are now received via electronic file transfer directly on LC's FTP file server. All records received are preprocessed (usually minimally) to eliminate certain anomalies and make the records conform more closely to AACR2 and LC cataloging practices. LC's acquisitions units continue to use these records for initial bibliographic control. Records from 19 sources are currently being loaded. Additions during 1997 included new sources from Canada (John Coutts), France (Jean Touzot), and Uruguay (Luis Retta Libros). NDMSO is working with potential sources in the Netherlands, Israel, and Japan that should begin supplying information during 1998. The source in Israel will most likely send records directly to RLG where they will be loaded to support vernacular cataloging in Hebrew script.

    Access to these resource records at LC is provided via a Z39.50 interface from LC's internal MUMS system to SiteSearch, an off-the-shelf MARC system marketed by OCLC. The future of this arrangement vis-a-vis LC procurement of an integrated library system has not yet been decided. During 1997 OCLC and RLG began loading records from some of the same foreign sources as LC. LC plans to reconsider whether it needs to load these records duplicatively in its own resource file. The financial implications of copying these records, which LC receives for free, from one of the utilities will need to be considered before any changes are made.

  • Web Versions of MARC Documentation
    Expansion of the MARC Documentation available from LC's Web site continues with the soon-to-be-released addition of Web compatible versions of the USMARC Code Lists for Countries, Geographic Areas, and Languages. The USMARC Code List for Relators, etc. was made available on the Web in late 1997. The remaining parts of the USMARC Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, and Exchange Media will soon join the Web version of the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) specs already available. The latest updates to the USMARC Authority and Bibliographic Formats were also made available at the same time as print copies of these updates began to be shipped.

    Behind the scenes, changes were made to allow improved support for both printed and Web-compatible versions of MARC documentation. The Web version of the 1998 printed edition of the USMARC Concise Formats, as well as updated ASCII versions of the USMARC "field lists" are now generated from a single machine-readable file; thus, when an addition or error correction is made in one version, it is made for all. (The availability of a Web version of MARC documentation has had no apparent effect on the sales of printed documentation.) Feedback from users has been consistently positive. All MARC related documentation can be accessed through the URL: http://www.loc.gov/marc/

  • MARC DTD Development
    In late 1997, LC reached a long-awaited goal with the completion of work to develop MARC-SGML conversion software to go along with the beta test version of the MARC Document Type Definitions (DTDs). The two MARC-SGML conversion utilities, one to convert from MARC to SGML and one to convert back from SGML to MARC, have been made available for testing with the beta versions of the MARC DTDs. It was known that the success of using an SGML implementation for MARC was dependent on the availability of conversion software, but development of the conversion utilities was delayed by lack of funds. During 1997 money became available and Mulberry Technologies, Inc., Rockville, Md., worked with NDMSO to develop the programs. NDMSO also developed test files of MARC and SGML-MARC records to use during testing. Modifications were also made to the MARC DTDs to correct problems found during alpha testing. Correction of the MARC DTDs resulted in minor changes to USMARC to eliminate conflicts in the definition of data elements in the USMARC Bibliographic, Holdings, and Community Information formats. People interested in experimenting with the DTDs and the software will be encouraged to check out the information in the MARC DTDs section of LC's MARC web page, URL: http://www.loc.gov/marc/

  • WWW/Z39.50 Gateway
    The LC WWW/Z39.50 Gateway, implemented by the NDMSO with Information Technology Services, now connects users of the LC WWW server to over 280 bibliographic databases. Recent interface enhancements include search result navigational aids and display corrections for Latin-1 diacritics and special characters.

    Of the approximately 280 databases listed, about 235 are American sites. The other 45 sites include sites in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and Wales. The foreign sites of particular interest (and most used) are BIBSYS (Norway), COPAC (England), LIBIS-Net (Belgium), LIBRIS (Sweden), and UNILINC (Australia), which are union catalogs for a number of institutions.

    The gateway also provides access to LC's own files (books, computer files, manuscripts, maps, music, serials, visual materials, preMARC (retrospective file), APIF (in process books file), and authority files). LC uses this capability as the primary search option for keyword searching of the LC catalog over the Web. LC compression key (derived key) searching is also now available via the gateway.

  • Music Cataloging Sabbatical
    The Special Materials Cataloging Division hosted three music catalogers for the Music Cataloging Sabbatical in 1997 The sabbatical is an opportunity for working music catalogers to come to the Library of Congress for three to six months and receive one-on-one training with a senior music cataloger in cataloging sound recordings and participate in various arrearage reduction projects. For more information, please contact Susan Vita or Deta Davis .

  • OCLC Research Contract
    As a result of the joint research project between the Library of Congress and OCLC, LC has loaded 64,194 machine-derived name authority records (NARs) into the National Authority File. These records may be used, modified, and upgraded according to normal LC/NACO authority procedures. However, if appropriate, the "Preliminary" encoding in the 008/33 should be replaced. If encoding becomes available for machine-derived authority records, the legend "Machine-derived authority record" will be retroactively removed from the 667 and replaced by an appropriate code in the fixed fields.

    The project is creating authority records for music because, according to established guidelines, LC music catalogers do not create authority records for all uniform titles used in bibliographic records. Authority records for uniform titles are not created unless references are needed or the results of research need to be recorded. Therefore, the bibliographic file in conjunction with the authority file serves as the authoritative source for uniform titles. As a result of the research project, several thousand bibliographic records which have not been and will not be examined by Library of Congress catalogers will be added to the MUMS Music File. In order for the music catalogers to continue to have access to authoritative headings, the headings currently in the MUMS Music File not covered by authority records have had machine-derived authority records created for them. In the clean-up after the load, over 500 bibliographic records were corrected and over 1,300 NARs changed or corrected. Further development and completion of the uniform title correction algorithms are expected to be completed in 1998. LC will then have the sound recording bibliographic records it has purchased processed and will add the records to its Music File.

  • BEOnline Update
    BEOnline is a pilot project intended to serve as both a model and a catalyst for developing approaches to meet the challenges of identifying, selecting, and providing bibliographic access (as well as direct access) to electronic works that are remotely available on the World Wide Web. This project is concentrating on business- and economics-related materials, especially those which will facilitate business reference in the area of entrepreneurship and small business. The project has three major objectives: to establish selection criteria guidelines to enable Library staff to determine which digital resources warrant bibliographic control and access; to establish a cataloging framework to identify levels of access and cataloging approaches for the digital resources selected; and to establish a cost-effective workflow to provide bibliographic control of resources selected.

    Cataloging of both monographs and serials is progressing. As questions have arisen about sources of information, level of description, and fields to be included, the project team's response has been to take advantage of the testbed nature of the project and try some highly experimental approaches. All the resources selected to date for the test-bed are now listed on the BEOnline home page, URL http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/business/beonline/beohome.html . Comments on the project are welcome and should be eMailed to Allene Hayes , project coordinator, or John Byrum, project manager.

  • Digital Table of Contents (TOC) Project
    BEAT initiated a project in early 1997 to investigate the economic and technical feasibility of using the World Wide Web to link MARC bibliographic records for selected business books represented in the LC catalogs to Tables of Contents (TOC) data for those works. The results of that pilot were sufficiently promising that it was authorized to move into a limited production mode. The project creates TOC data from surrogates of the actual TOC, and by using scanning and optical character recognition (OCR) as well as original programming written by project staff, materials are subsequently HTML-encoded and placed on a server at the Library. In the process the underlying MARC records are also modified and links to the TOC data are inserted into the MARC record, using the 856 field as a pointer to the TOC files on the Web server. The operations are largely automated and use "off-the-shelf" desktop computer and scanning equipment and conventional software, supplemented with the applications programs developed by Library staff written in VX-REXX, and running under the OS/2 operating system.

    In addition, HTML meta-tags -- which contain key words and other index terms -- are also being encoded in the TOC files, so that a general Web search can also result in a user anywhere finding a TOC file, and through the links built into the TOC file, be pointed in turn to the actual bibliographic record as well as to access to other related works in the LC catalog.

    The Project is preparing to expand the subject coverage of materials, possibly Computer Science, Technology, and Economics (in broader terms than BEAT's earlier scope).

    The Digital TOC Project is uploading records weekly, and has been meeting its original target of making available TOC data for approximately 100 titles per month.

  CATALOGING POLICY
  

  • Data Elements in Authority Records
    CPSO has begun testing some of the additional data elements approved by MARBI for names and subject authority records as part of Updates 1 and 2 of the USMARC Authorities Format. Currently, CPSO expects that the new data elements for both names and subject authority records will be implemented no earlier than August 1998. The subject changes include 18X fields for subdivision authority records, subfield code $v for form subdivisions, and the 781 field for subdivision forms of geographic names. The Library plans a phased implementation of these new USMARC data elements in subject authority records and bibliographic records. According to current projections, LC staff will begin coding form subdivisions as $v in LC subject headings assigned to bibliographic records on Nov. 1, 1998. More information on subject authority data elements and form/genre implementation is posted to the CPSO home page at URL http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso. The Library will make further announcements as the date of actual application approaches.

  • PREMARC Replacement Process
    The PREMARC file is the retrospective component of the Library's machine-readable catalog containing approximately 4.74 million records. It was initially built in the late 1970s and early 1980s from records purchased from Carrollton Press. Subsequently, the Library has added various categories of records to the file. Because of various factors related to how the file was built, the records in it exhibit varying characteristics that affect their usefulness (they are uneven in terms of their completeness; the accuracy of the content designation varies; in general, the records reflect a pre-AACR heading structure). One means of addressing these deficiencies was to secure replacement records. In 1997-1998 LC sent to OCLC copies of PREMARC records for books that were candidates for replacement. The records selected were the most likely to have replacement counterparts in OCLC and were the least likely to cause complications upon replacement at LC. During the week of April 20-24, 1998, 1.475 million records obtained from OCLC were loaded into the PREMARC file replacing counterpart PREMARC records that previously resided there. The replacement process was the culmination of several years of planning by staff from the Automation Planning and Liaison Office, Cataloging Policy and Support Office, and Information Technology Services working with staff from OCLC. Subsequent to the replacement process, the CPSO PREMARC/Quality Control and File Management Team is working on various clean-up projects needed to ensure the replacement records fit the LC environment and qualify as acceptable candidates for possible future distribution.

  CORE LEVEL CATALOGING IMPLEMENTION
  The Library has completed bargaining the impact of implementing the core level cataloging record as LC's base level of cataloging. Cataloging teams will be permitted to develop quality control procedures to ensure core level cataloging quality. A Core Level Cataloging Manual has been added to the Descriptive Cataloging Manual for LC internal users. Implementation of core level cataloging has begun, with the expectation that all teams in the Cataloging Directorate will implement core level by the end of fiscal 1998.

  The core bibliographic record was defined by the Program for Cooperative Cataloging and CONSER to establish a national standard that is less complete than full cataloging but substantially more complete than minimal-level cataloging. All core bibliographic records include a classification number and one or two subject access points where appropriate; all name, series, and subject access points are supported by appropriate authority work. The Library of Congress will include some data elements, in addition to PCC requirements, in all core level records it produces or copies: 504 fields for notes on bibliographical references; LC call numbers; Geographic Area Codes and language codes if readily ascertainable; and Decimal Classification numbers for items in scope for such treatment. Like core level records produced in other PCC libraries, LC core level original monograph records carry the legend "pcc" in the 042 field.

  MICROFORMS
  The National Register of Microform Masters Reconversion Project (NRMMRECON) was completed early this spring. LC and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have been cooperating on this project for more that a decade, with OCLC, Inc. as the major contractor. This project created 579,556 online records for the monographic and serial preservation microform masters which were listed in the National Register of Microform Masters (NRMM), published annually by LC until 1984, consisting of reports sent to LC by hundreds of libraries and publishers between 1965 and 1983. These online records are of special value to preservation librarians, catalogers, and inter-library loan.

  PINYIN ROMANIZATION: MOVING TOWARD CONVERSION
  In September 1997, the Library announced its intention to convert to pinyin romanization of Chinese. The Library has consulted the library community for suggestions concerning new pinyin romanization guidelines and received many useful comments. Final guidelines will be issued in the near future.

  The Library has accepted a proposal by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) to convert Chinese records in the RLIN files, including the over 100,000 Chinese bibliographic records contributed by LC. The Library is working with RLG to fashion an implementation timetable that will include development of conversion specifications and thorough testing procedures. This undertaking will ensure that LC and RLIN files remain compatible. OCLC is being kept abreast of this planning process.

  It is assumed that machine-readable records will be converted, and that, insofar as possible, conversion will be performed by computer program. Of course, a certain amount of human review will be necessary. A small group has begun investigating which subject headings (or portions thereof) should be converted, and which should not; and also, how conversion will affect classification schedules. As few classification changes as possible will be made, following the precedent of adoption of AACR2. This evaluation is important and will take some months to complete.

  Also in preparation for the conversion, the Library recently surveyed interested parties both within LC and among its constituents regarding word division and syllable aggregation issues. The responses are now being assessed, and a strategy for resolving these issues is in development.

  CATALOGING (BOOKS AND SERIALS) PRODUCTION
  

  FY98FY97
  (Oct. 1997- April 1998)

  CATEGORY	OCTOBER 1997	APRIL 1998
  LC Full-Level Cataloging	98,651	177,448
  Copy Cataloging	23,240	43,744
  Minimal-Level Cataloging	14,410	35,612
  Collection-Level Cataloging	1,579	2,863
  TOTAL records created	137,880	259,067
  TOTAL volumes cataloged	NA	289,154

  Authority Records	OCTOBER 1997	APRIL 1998
  Names	122,779*	108,089
  Series	5,886	9,965
  Subjects	4,167	8,132
  TOTAL	132,832	126,186

  *includes 64,194 machine-generated Names

  For more information contact: Beacher J. Wiggins, Director for Cataloging, Library of Congress, LM 642, Washington, DC 20540-4300 (telephone: 202-707-5333 or Internet: bwig@loc.gov).

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  UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

  From: "Barbara A. Stelmasik" b-stel@tc.umn.edu

  Minnesota Update

  MINNESOTA LIBRARY INFORMATION NETWORK (MNLink)
  The MNLink vendor selection process was completed in late winter. OCLC was chosen as the vendor for the Gateway System. The state wide Library Planning Task Force is negotiating with OCLC leading to a formal contract to install a Gateway system for the MnLINK Project. DRA TAOS was chosen for System X (which will replace NOTIS at the University of Minnesota) and PALS in other locations. Negotiations with DRA are expected to be complete by June 1999 with a goal of July 2000 for installation at the University of Minnesota. Current information on the process can be found at http://www.heso.state.mn.us/www/mnlink/mnlink.htm

  CONSTRUCTION
  The state legislature approved significant renovation of many of the old buildings on the mall of the Minneapolis campus. This includes complete renovation of Walter Library. In the meantime, contracts have been let for construction of the new Minnesota Libraries Access Center (MLAC) on the Minneapolis campus. There is enormous excitement about both of these projects but also great concern because of difficult timing elements. The University has space for only about one fourth of the staff, equipment and collections which will be displaced by all the reconstruction. We had planned to store Walter materials in the new MLAC building while Walter was under construction. However, delays in MLAC construction will cause a possible 6 month gap between availability of MLAC and evacuation of Walter. During the coming year staff time and resources will be heavily invested in preparing collections for these moves. Preparation will include cataloging and barcoding projects, de-accessioning, and cleaning.

  REVIEW OF LIBRARIES
  A blue ribbon committee has been appointed to review the libraries and prepare to showcase the University of Minnesota Library in the next legislative request.

  LIBRARY-WIDE INITIATIVES
  Library wide initiatives include: distance education (Bush grant), user education, partnering with IBM to develop a test bed digitizing project, implementation of preservation recommendations from a recent study, internal communications process improvement (consultants report due this summer), start up of an NEH grant to catalog manuscripts, illustrations and books in a children's literature collection, and efforts in the Digital Media Center to use the transition to semesters as a springboard for incorporating library resources into the curriculum.

  PROCESSING PROJECT
  We have just implemented a pilot shelf-ready processing project with YBP. Preparation for the pilot let to several process improvement decisions. During the first six months of the pilot , only firm ordered materials will come fully shelf-ready. Approval materials will come with cataloging only.

  CONTRACTS AND LICENCES
  A new Contracts & Licenses Working Group has revised local procedures for dealing with all aspects of contracts and licenses and sponsored two highly successful training sessions for affected staff.

  WEB PAGE FOR UNCATALOGED COLLECTIONS
  Our web page to track uncataloged collections and related projects has been well received and is proving to be a useful tool for defining projects and identifying categories of material which can be covered by collection level records. The page is at http://www.lib.umn.edu/ts/mac/kt/ulibuncat.html

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  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

  From: "Duane Arenales" arenaled@mail.nlm.nih.gov

  NLM is heavily involved in the transition from our home grown legacy system to Endeavor's Voyager. The NLM ILS Team is preparing data for a test conversion load in late August/early September. If all goes well with the test, preparations for a final data conversion will begin in late September/early October depending on when Endeavor has beta released the 98.1 version. The beta version will have a number of NLM's enhancements that will be tested in the October/November timeframe. All modules will be implemented in this beta release, but the OPAC will be for staff use only until the 98.1 version has been completely tested by NLM. The ILS Team is finalizing the profiling decisions for the new system along with scheduling training and developing training materials for staff on all the modules. Equipment (pcs, printers, software) have been upgraded for all of the Technical Services staff to accommodate the Voyager system.

  For additional information about current NLM activities, please see the NLM Home Page at http://www.nlm.nih.gov and the Cataloging Home Page at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/cataloging

  Duane Arenales
  Chief, Technical Services Division
  National Library of Medicine
  

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  UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

  From: "Larry P. Alford" alford@email.unc.edu

  Library Update for Big Heads, ALA, Summer 1998

  DIGITIZATION PROJECT:
  The UNC Library digitization project, Documenting the American South http://sunsite.unc.edu/docsouth/ received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to expand its content. The site now contains more than 100 digitized texts with full SGML encoding. The project currently includes three distinct sections: African-American slave narratives, 1st person narratives from the period 1860-1920, and southern literature to 1920. The site has been featured in a New York Times article, and an article about it just appeared in the French publication, Le Monde. All texts have received full cataloging in OCLC.

  MERGER OF SERIALS ACQUISITIONS WITH MONOGRAPHIC ACQUISITIONS:
  With the retirement of Marcia Tuttle, Head of Serials at UNC for more than 27 years, the Serials Department was abolished. The Serials Acquisitions and Monographic Acquisitions were merged into one department. Serials binding and the current issues and reading room maintenance functions were assigned to Preservation Services. We are continuing to sort out the workflow and management issues created by the elimination of the Serials Department.

  PROGRAM FOR COOPERATIVE CATALOGING:
  Many of our professional catalogers received BIBCO training in the spring of 1998. The Library became an independent BIBCO participant three weeks later and is now a participant in all the PCC programs.

  AUTHORITY CONTROL:
  An authority control section was established for the first time in the Catalog Department and an Authority Librarian hired to manage authority control throughout the library system.

  SHELF LIST CLOSING:
  Cataloging Department staff identified obstacles to closing the main shelf list. Many of those obstacles related to the formatting of call numbers that prevented proper sorting in the online system. Most of the problems have been resolved and the library will close the main shelf list for LC classified material effective June 30, 1998.

  WEB ACCESS LIBRARIAN:
  The Library redefined a position from Serials Cataloger to Web Access Librarian. This Catalog Department position along with other original catalogers is responsible for the assessment of the content and organization of existing and potential electronic resources and services that the library offers to staff and users and the enhancement of access to and bibliographic control of such material. This position will represent the Catalog Department in library-wide electronic initiatives; will keep up-to-date with changes in national standards for management and bibliographic control of electronic journals, digital documents, and other electronic resources; and will help develop standards on appropriate access to these resources.

  LICENSING:
  Technical Services and Collection Development staff developed procedures for the internal review of licenses and designed a database for maintaining records of licenses. The Head of Collection Development assumed responsibility for negotiating licenses effective June 1998.

  NC LIVE:
  A colleague at North Carolina State University, Amy Dykeman, and I served as the co-negotiators for database licensing for NC LIVE, a state-wide network of electronic resources. NC LIVE will license data from OCLC FirstSearch, UMI, EBSCO, and Silver Platter. These databases will be made available to the University of North Carolina System Libraries, member institutions of the North Carolina Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the community colleges in North Carolina, and the public libraries in North Carolina. Resource selection and vendor negotiation occupied much of the past year. The resources became available in April 1998. NC LIVE has been funded with appropriations for the public institutions from the North Carolina Legislature and with contributions from the private colleges and universities.

  UNDERGRADUATE LIBRARY RENOVATION:
  The Library hopes to receive funding for a complete renovation of the Undergraduate Library, a building constructed in the 1960s. A completely redesigned interior will provide a number of training labs and collaboratories for staff to work with students in the use of electronic and print resources. It will also include network connections at almost every seat in the building and will house the electronic reserve operation. This renovation will necessitate reducing the collection from about 150,000 to 75,000 volumes. Cataloging staff have been working with Undergraduate Library staff to develop procedures for weeding the Undergraduate Library Collection, for transferring materials to storage or to the main collection, and for discarding unneeded duplicates. The weeding and transfer of the collection is expected to take approximately one year. The Library has also developed plans for housing the various services now in the Undergraduate Library during the renovation when the building will be closed and serving the 4000-5000 students that now use that building on any given day.

  LAPTOP SERVICE:
  The Library is planning to implement a laptop computer check out service beginning in the fall semester of 1998. Technical Services staff have done much of the planning for this service which will be housed in the main library Circulation Department. Laptops have been purchased and are being configured; circulation procedures have been written; training programs are being designed for staff who will operate the service; and network connections have been installed in portions of the stacks to enable faculty and students to connect to the campus network. One goal of the program is to encourage use of the print collections with electronic resources.

  SPACE PLANNING:
  Technical Services staff working with a University Architect have proposed a major reconfiguring of space assigned to Technical Services Departments. When implemented, we hope the plan will greatly improve workstation ergonomics. New state-of-the-art workstations will be purchased for all staff and a number of private offices and conference rooms built to resolve complaints about lack of privacy.

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  NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

  From: ARNO KASTNER kastnera@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu

  SEARCH FOR NEW DEAN OF NYU LIBRARIES.
  Carlton Rochell, dean of NYU Libraries since 1976, announced his retirement in February. He has agreed to stay on until a successor is appointed. A search committee has been formed and an executive recruitment firm has been retained to assist with the search. Until we have a new Dean, we are in a holding pattern on two recent initiatives: planned reconfiguration of services and facilities within Bobst Library and implementation of elements of a strategic plan.

  ELECTRONIC ORDERING.
  We continue to use Yankee Book Peddler's GOBI service for electronic ordering and recently worked with Geac to set up a customized approval loader that appends ordering information to MARC records that Yankee Book Peddler FTP's to us weekly.

  USE OF GEAC ADVANCE'S GEOCAT Z39.50 CLIENT.
  In May we began to use the GeoCat Z39.50 Client for cataloging the collection of the New York School of Interior Design--a library which has recently joined the NYU consortium. Over the summer we will consider using GeoCat in the Acquisitions Unit for pre-order searching in RLIN and OCLC and importing records for ordering.

  NEW SERIALS VENDORS.
  After a lengthy review process, the Library selected Swets as its primary vendor for foreign serial titles and Ebsco for domestic titles. Blackwell/North America will handle continuations.

  NEW FINANCIAL SYSTEM.
  The university is in the middle of a rocky installation of a PeopleSoft financial management system. It is having unpleasant effects on Acquisitions Unit operations.

  AUTHORITY CONTROL.
  We have run into some snags, but now expect to be loading the first batch of several hundred thousand authority records, processed by WLN, into our online catalog this summer.

  DIGITAL ISSUES.
  A three-year cataloging position that had been funded by a Mellon Foundation grant to help us develop an integrated library multi-media information system terminated this Spring. Cataloging of electronic resources is now being coordinated by our serials cataloger but will soon be mainstreamed to all catalogers. We have received an LC/Ameritech grant to participate in the American Memory project with the New-York Historical Society.

  Arno Kastner
  Director of Technical Services
  Bobst Library
  New York University
  70 Washington Square South
  New York, NY 10012
  voice:212-998-2477
  email:arno.kastner@nyu.edu
  

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  NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

  From: Roxanne Sellberg sellberg@nwu.edu

  What is happening at Northwestern?

  VOYAGER SYSTEM
  We are implementing the Voyager system. This has been job one for me all year, and we are making final preparations now. Our production data load will take place the weekend after ALA. We have already had test loads. The production load will be followed by about three weeks of intense system configuration work, as well as the upgrade to a new software release. At the last minute before our projected implementation date (August 3 or thereabouts) we will load a "gap tape" of bib data and circulation transactions. We are planning to implement all modules and all libraries at the same time.

  GIFT
  On another front, we have recently had good news in the form of an anonymous 10 million dollar donation. The income from the endowment will be used to improve our collections. This was one of the lead donations for the University's billion dollar comprehensive campaign, which officially began a few weeks ago.

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  OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

  From: Carol Diedrichs diedrichs.1@osu.edu

  The Ohio State University Libraries HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS June, 1998

  1. OhioLINK Approval Plan
     The OhioLINK Approval Plan Project seeks to contract with a single vendor for the provision of English language approval plans. OhioLINK libraries not involved in approval plans will be able to place firm orders via the same vendor at the same discount as approval materials. Libraries will also have access to shelf-ready options, PromptCat services and standing orders plans from the same vendor as desired (but likely at a different yet consortial pricing structure). Approval profiles will be controlled by each local library. The profiles will be accessible to all OhioLINK institutions via a Web-based vendor tool. This tool will enable collection managers at each local library to look at their own profiles online as well as those of their colleagues in other OhioLINK libraries. Staff could search and view a list of books that match their profile and see what action had been taken for their library on each title, e.g. received as book, notification slip, etc. as well as the action taken for other OhioLINK libraries. We also envision the system keeping track of the number of copies of each title profiled for or ordered by OhioLINK libraries. As a result of this calculation, the user could be alerted if their order surpassed a pre-defined threshold for copies but would not be prevented from placing the order or approval shipment flag.

     Bids have been received for this project. Academic Book Center, Blackwell's Book Services, and Yankee Book Peddler are the three vendors invited to make presentations to OhioLINK members at open sessions scheduled for July 13-14, 1998. The RFP is available at http://gold.ohiolink.edu/consortia/ under OhioLINK RFP for Statewide Approval Plan. We anticipate signing a contract later this summer with implementation beginning in January 1999. OSU will be one of the libraries moving their English language approval plan to the successful vendor on January 1, 1999.

  2. Retrocon
     We are in what we hope is also our last push on retrocon. Our goal is to complete processing on these titles by the end of 1998.
     • SERIALS: Completed, except for problem-solving about 800 titles

     • MONOGRAPHS: 258,502 records. Of these approximately 160,000 await some local programming and we expect to load them our local system this summer. Approximately 88,000 no-hits are at TALX Corp., in St. Louis, for manual card conversion with completion expected later this summer. Approximately 18,000 records for a regional campus are to be converted by OCLC in 1998.

     • ANALYTICS: Approximately, 90,000 to be loaded to replace short records. Previously we had only very brief records with the serial (series) title and volume number, and no access by author or title of specific volumes. These 90,000 records will full records for each volume we own.

     • MICROFORMS: Approximately, 125,526 records for major microform sets purchased on our behalf by OhioLINK. There were no short records for these titles and this load will greatly increase access to these titles and allow us to loan them to our OhioLINK colleagues.

  3. Authority Control
     This activity is on hold because our former authority service provider, BNA, sold its business to OCLC last Fall and OCLC has not made the service available yet. On April 1, they announced that they expect to offer such service later this year. This also means that the 250,000 retrocon records mentioned previously will likely be loaded initially without benefit of authority control. They will be written out later once an authority control service is available.

  4. Library Task Force
     The Library Task Force (charged to review the University Libraries in advance of starting a search for a new Director of Libraries in late 1998) has completed its report. Our new President, William Kirwan, arrives permanently on July 1. Our provost, Richard Sisson, has just announced his return to the faculty ranks effective August 31, 1998.

  5. Environmental Improvements
     New furniture, computers and carpeting have arrived in the Technical Services Division. These new items have resulted in a quantum leap of improvement in the working environment for technical services staff.

  6. TechPro
     We continue to use OCLC TechPro for Slavic materials and are actually making inroads on our Slavic backlog. We are also in the process of evaluating our test use of TechPro for serials cataloging.

  *****************************************************************
  Carol Pitts Diedrichs
  Interim Assistant Director for Technical Services and Head, Acquisition Department
  Editor, Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory
  The Ohio State University Libraries
  1858 Neil Avenue Mall
  Columbus, OH, 43210-1286
  tel: 614-292-6151
  fax: 614-292-7859
  Internet: diedrichs.1@osu.edu
  ************************************************************

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  UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

  From: Carton Rogers rogers@pobox.upenn.edu

  University of Pennsylvania Update:

  1. The Library's new high density storage facility has just opened. For the last month we have been moving the 165,000 volumes that currently comprise our storage collection to this new, state-of-the-art facility. The move has been plagued by loading dock contention and elevator problems which didn't come entirely as a surprise considering the seedy and rapidly declining state of the building we're leaving behind. The storage collection was moved in call number order to facilitate retrieval while awaiting high density storage processing. A project team consisting of one professional (already hired) and four clerical staff will handle the transition which we expect will take at least three years. At the same time, regular storage staff (2 FTE's) will begin accepting new storage transfers and putting those items in high density storage. The projected capacity for the new facility is 2 million volumes.

  2. As of July 1 we will have a consolidated domestic approval plan with Yankee Book Peddler (YBP). After years of having split plans (trade and university press) we've opted to go with one plan primarily for cost and efficiency reasons. We will also be receiving PromptCat cataloging when the YBP shipments begin. We've been testing PromptCat for the last couple of months and are very pleased with the results.

  3. Recon: the final frontier! We are in the midst of what we hope will be our final recon push (subject, as always, to the availability of continued funding). We have contracted with RetroLink Associates to convert Dewey classes 0,4,5 and 600s as a first stage. Work on this phase is expected to to be completed late this fall.

  4. Phase 4 of a multi-phased renovation of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center is nearing completion. This phase, which has been the most difficult and time-consuming, will result in a new entrance to the facility and totally revamped space for Circulation, Current Periodicals and Microforms. The building renovation, which has already provided new space for Technical Services and Reference, has been entirely self-funded by the Library.

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  STANFORD UNIVERSITY

  From: Catherine Tierney ctierney@sulmail.stanford.edu
  1. CONTRIBUTING RECORDS TO THE UTILITIES.
     Within next 2 weeks, we will send to RLIN the 200,000 record catch-up file from 9/1/96 to date, since Unicorn migration. RLG plans to begin loading in early August; elapsed time for completion depends on whatever else is in queue. We will do *weekly* ftp files for new activity after the 200,000 are loaded. Sending to OCLC will be accomplished in summer.

  2. REDESIGN - EDIFACT.
     A milestone in Technical Services Redesign was accomplished in April -YBP and Casalini bib records and EDIFACT invoice transactions are transmitted to Stanford. Bib records are loaded into Unicorn production, and items, orders, and invoice records are built, linked, and loaded behind the scenes so when the carton of books is received and opened, our staff just scan each barcode and all the necessary records display for QC check, adjustments, and final OK. Although we're just short of making it "real" for Harrassowitz (ironing out some EDI glitches), their bibs are according to standard, and we use them without the EDI piece. YBP, Casalini, and Harrassowitz transmit "cyclable" book-in hand description for most books they send us. We provided them with descriptive standard based on the Marcadia matching criteria. (These are in line with OCLC Repeat Search elements that we saw in draft.) We eventually will send these records to Marcadia (and/or elsewhere) for batch matching.

  3. REDESIGN - BATCH RE-SEARCHING.
     Also in April, the next Marcadia run of 18,000 title backlog (1990-1995 imprints) resulted in 56% "perfect match" rate. These matches, which we use manually for overlay, are indeed "perfect matches" for the bibs. Next step for our redesigned process is automatic overlay of perfect matches; I'm much more encouraged that automatic overlay isn't a huge risk to data integrity than I was 6 months ago. I'm very pleased with the RLG/RLA product. We use separate reports of "related matches" and no hits to streamline what will always be a manual review and overlay (or original cataloging).

  4. FLOOD RECOVERY.
     All 75,000 books have been dried by Document Reprocessors (DR). Thirty cartons (300-600 books) of very muddy books needing careful cleaning remain at DR; we might reformat those depending on how stained they are. I'll hand out statistics at Big Heads for rebinding, repair, etc.; very, very few are total loss. Everything else has been reshelved and we're about to dismantle the project team. We're very pleased with the results of the DR drying process and with all services they provided; they were flexible and accommodating to our creative ways of approaching problems.

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  PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

  From: "Richard J. Schulz" rjschulz@phoenix.princeton.edu

  SYSTEM DEVELOPMENTS & RECON
  It was decided in March to suspend plans to implement the Horizon (Ameritech) integrated library system. Delays in releases possessing desired functionality in the Windows version of the product, performance problems experienced at other large sites, and our own inability to complete necessary cataloging-circulation data integration in time made it too problematic that we would be up and running for the opening of the fall term. In order to maintain our now integrated database of cataloging and circulation records in NOTIS, we have decided instead to bring up circulation this summer on NOTIS. Ameritech staff have been most accommodating adjusting to the turn of events and are assisting us in this effort. There is still a lot of data reconciliation resulting from the merge of Geac circulation data with NOTIS cataloging data undertaken preparatory to the projected transition to Horizon. The extra time staying with NOTIS in this semi-integrated system mode will give us the opportunity, in conjunction with our retrospective conversion project, to clean up a great deal of this data. Future plans with respect to Horizon have not been finalized at this time.

  The project, for which we contracted OCLC, to convert our union card catalog got under way in earnest in March. A lot of systems related pieces had to first come together to allow us to go forward with this effort. The aforesaid Geac-NOTIS data integration had to be completed to allow OCLC operators to locate brief sub-standard circulation records in the NOTIS database (which were migrated from Geac) so they can be linked to and overlaid by converted records loading down from OCLC. NOTIS had to be upgraded to version 6.4.1.1 and a new OCLC loader program had to be written (by Ameritech). All of this work has now been completed.

  JSTOR
  The new JSTOR Production Coordinator (Princeton) has been hired and renovation of the space for the new JSTOR offices has been completed. The next order of business will be to hire a staff of production technicians. Production operations are expected to commence in late July or early August. This will be a learning experience in the year ahead both for the new coordinator and equally for me as the administrative supervisor of the new operation.

  ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
  Several separately spawned university and library initiatives involving new technologies have begun to coalesce. Under the direction of the new Coordinator of Humanities and Social Sciences Computing, an officer of the provost's staff (not of the Computing and Information Technology department), a Center for Teaching and Learning http://www.princeton.edu/~tlc/index.html has been established and will be located in Firestone Library until permanent offices are completed in the new Campus Center, which will be under construction for the next two years. The Center for Teaching and Learning seeks to assist faculty and students in becoming aware of and integrating new technologies and electronic resources into research, teaching and course materials. The Library is assisting in this venture. A collateral initiative undertaken also in partnership between the Coordinator of Humanities and Social Sciences Computing and the Library is the establishment in the same area of a Center for Electronic Texts which seeks to bring together the many electronic resources acquired and supported by the Library http://infoshare1.princeton.edu:2003/digital_collections/ with like resources provided and/or developed by other campus agencies. Promoting and coordinating this effort is the Consortium for the Development of Digital Collections http://alvarado97.princeton.edu/~cddc/index.html#TOP which, among other things, is working its way through issues relating to electronic resource description, organization and metadata to which Technical Services is lending its support through the person of Don Thornbury, the Head of Cataloging, our representative on the consortium. We expect efforts to move from the discussion/planning stage to the action stage in the year ahead.

  A parallel Library project with linkages to the above is our pilot electronic reserve project currently in progress and slated for release this fall. (Circulation and course reserve management for the main library, Firestone, are within the province of Technical Services at Princeton.) New processing procedures have been developed, staff are now learning how to use the new scanning equipment and to work with the Copyright Clearance Center, and a staff member of Library Systems is writing the support programming for the new system and designing an interface to it. Working through this while simultaneously moving from Geac to NOTIS for reserve circulation is providing a lively time for the staff this summer.

  PROJECT 2000, etc.
  A major campus-wide initiative, called Project 2000, has involved the Library over the past year. Its goals are the automating of university operations which have not already converted, the replacement of important legacy systems with modern technology, and the integrating of automated systems which have heretofore been primarily stand alone (e.g., library invoicing and controller accounts receivable). In conjunction with this initiative, staff of Technical Services have been engaged in the migration of our locally developed invoice system, which is a Paradox relational database running on a departmental server, to ORACLE where it will be supported and maintained by university Database Management Services. Separate but related projects include the following:

  • PDI--The Princeton Desktop Initiative. This program, inaugurated and directed by the provost, has promoted the standardization of administrative computing equipment across campus through centrally provided funding for the purchase of new equipment or the upgrading of existing equipment which met PDI standards, along with priority technical support and special training programs. The standard is based on the Windows NT operating system and a common suite of software components. Approximately 2000 workstations have been either purchased or upgraded by administrative departments under the auspices of PDI, including ca. 100 for the Library (22 in Technical Services). One of the PDI mandates is a campus-wide inventory of equipment purchased or distributed through the program. Another is the requirement that participating departments periodically upgrade equipment acquired under the original plan as the PDI equipment standard evolves over time. A third is the centralized distribution of software changes, upgrades and fixes.

    A Desktop Systems Council http://www.princeton.edu/desc/ was established to oversee the continued implementation of PDI and the setting of new standards as computer equipment increases in power and capability. Marvin Bielawski, The Deputy Librarian and Library Systems Coordinator, sits on the Desktop Systems Council. I serve as a member of the Software Standards Task Force, the arm of DeSC charged with evaluating proposals for additions to or deletions from the PDI standard software sets and upgrades to applications in those sets. I am now engaged as co-steward of the effort to decide upon a campus email client standard to be included in the central software set.

  • The Administrative Process Teams http://webware.princeton.edu/Teams. These are teams of upper-level management staff from representative university departments charged with developing means and procedures which promote greater efficiency relative to an administrative process of importance to a large number of campus departments (e.g., mail, hiring, document management). Team recommendations approved by the president's cabinet are backed with the necessary directives, policies and resources necessary to put them into effect. Project 2000 system development and especially PDI provide much of the necessary underpinning to accomplish many of the recommendations of the AP Teams. Over the past year, I chaired a team which secured approval for the implementation of a shared server to facilitate document management university-wide, and developed a web-based manual teaching staff how to use it for file exchange and document collaboration.

  • "Pay for Performance". The university administration is requiring that managers across all departments and at all levels observe more rigorous standards in the evaluation of staff performance, and that pay increases be more rigorously tied to clearly demonstrated merit. A management development initiative has been launched and a number of new reward systems have been instituted to achieve these goals, as well as far more intense scrutiny, on the part of administrative auditing agencies, of salary advancement, promotion and continuing appointment recommendations. This is related to the foregoing in that it is recognized by the leadership of the university and its trustees that the university will continue to progress not merely by investing in new technology, but for this investment to bear fruit in the form of increased efficiency and productivity, managers have to assume greater responsibility for staff development and staff have to assume greater individual responsibility to learn, adapt to and make the best use of the new tools and capabilities being put at their disposal, and that both groups will be held to a higher standard of accountability for achieving this in the future.

  MISCELLANEOUS TECHNICAL SERVICES NOTES
  

  • Princeton is now a member of BIBCO.
  • A new cataloging production record was set this FY -- 78,000+ new titles cataloged -- the 5th time we've broken all previous records in the past six years. This time it is largely due to the integration of LC copy cataloging functions into the monograph receipt process performed by Order Division staff, an organizational change which we have lagged behind the field in prosecuting because of our lack of an integrated system.
  • All staff engaged in acquisitions, serial control, cataloging, database maintenance, and related functions now have individual computer workstations. Older workstations are in the process of being upgraded to 32-40 megabytes of RAM and Windows 95 and equipped with bar code wands. The remainder of department staff (Circulation Division) will receive individual workstations this summer as part of the implementation of NOTIS circulation.

    We have established standards for workstation interfaces plus software and file configurations to be used throughout the department in order to facilitate workstation sharing (with student assistants), training, maintenance, trouble-shooting, repair and upgrading.

  • Dealing with the bewildering array of license agreements for electronic resources and the difficulty of regularizing a processing stream for these resources continues to bedevil us as it appears to everyone else.
  • Complementing the electronic reserve pilot project alluded to above, we launched our new Online Reserve Request Service this past spring semester. This allows faculty and their administrative assistants to request items for course reserve by filling out a web form. The form sits on top of a networked Access database which allows for the easy locating and flagging of items designated for reserve in prior semesters which in turn obviates the need to repeat request information for those items. The service has proved very popular and has made the work of reserve processing more streamlined and efficient at both ends.
  • Over the past two years the following positions were added to the central staff of Technical Services: Microcomputer Coordinator, Integrated Database Administrator, Special Projects Manager. All lines were created out of existing positions formerly devoted to more traditional functions. I fully expect to see a "metadata & electronic resources cataloging coordinator" type position joining them in the foreseeable future. A sign of the changing times for technical services.

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  UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

  From: Sue Phillips s.phillips@mail.utexas.edu

  INFORMATION RESOURCES FUNDING:
  1997/98 has brought UT Austin the first full year of funding from the Student Library Fee of $2.00 per semester credit hour. Given our enrollment, this adds about $2 million in badly needed information resources funds on an ongoing basis.

  In addition, we received a special $1 million allocation from the University of Texas System Academic Library Collection Enhancement Program to provide for one-time purchases of scholarly materials needed by all academic components of the UT System, but which are to be located on the Austin campus. The consideration and prioritization process for this program resulted in the identification of some collections for digitization and the licensing of significant full-text files in philosophy.

  LICENSING:
  UT Austin has placed the responsibilities for electronic resource license negotiations within the Electronic Information Programs Division. This librarian works closely with collection development and acquisitions staff as well as campus and UT System legal advisors on establishing license terms. We anticipate handling over 100 licenses this fiscal year, supporting campus, UT System, and TexShare programs.

  INFRASTRUCTURE:
  We are currently installing 110 Pentium workstations in technical services areas throughout the libraries. These workstations will replace outdated equipment in cataloging areas and will provide networked workstations to staff in Acquisitions for the first time.

  PROCESSING:
  We are receiving shelf-ready processing from Yankee and BNA in an experimental mode and continue to work out problems daily. At this point, it is unclear whether we will continue with OCLC PromptCat and / or consider extending this service to other vendors.

  Since June 1997, OCLC TechPro has cataloged 2,265 monographs for UT Austin, primarily original cataloging of Latin American materials. We send about 420 monographs a month, with turnaround times averaging about five weeks. TechPro does all end processing except security stripping and ownership stamping.

  In May, we began a 162,000-title recon project with OCLC, which will last a little over a year. When this project is completed, we anticipate approximately 350,000 titles will remain to be converted.

  VACANCIES:
  Metadata Librarian: We are currently recruiting for a Metadata Librarian to develop and coordinate appropriate strategies for access to digital library information, to investigate new approaches to description, subject analysis and classification in the electronic environment, and to actually create metadata. The position is assigned to the Cataloging Department, but will work closely with the Electronic Information Programs Division.

  Collections Conservation Librarian: Within the next month, we will be posting a position with responsibilities for the physical care of a wide variety of library materials throughout our collections.

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  UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

  From: Geri Bunker bunker@u.washington.edu

  Update - University of Washington

  WEB INITIATIVES--gateway to resources, digital registry for dynamic update
  --University of Washington is moving public access to electronic resources and services from a locally-written public access system (Willow) to the Web. Migration of the public catalog, A&I and full-text sources is on an ambitious schedule--we are hopeful of offering some services through a locally-configured gateway beginning in Fall, 98. Preparations are also being made to continue some form of character-based access to the catalog and other databases. We have used the Innovative Interfaces system internally and for circulation services since 1993 and there are no plans at this time to migrate the base services to any other ILS vendor.

  The Web gateway will provide dynamic pages fed from a "digital registry", an SQL database which will begin as a subset of the base Innovative Interfaces catalog. Staff from all departments may submit template-generated records for electronic resources. After batch loading from Innovative to the registry, tech services staff will enhance the records. A broad working group composed of cross-functional teams is planning and implementing the new gateway.

  AUTHORITY WORK
  --We are currently bereft of authority vendor services, and are interested in knowing what strategies and services our peers are using.

  DIGITAL INITIATIVES--metadata, collaborative projects
  --Tech Services staff are actively engaged in digitizing initiatives, scanning local and library collections and organizing them using various metadata schemes. The Dublin Core is the default template distributed with Content, a UW-written, multimedia database system. Cataloging staff are configuring the databases, mapping custom labels to DC in collaboration with the database providers. We're partnering with not-for-profit museums across the region as well as within various academic departments on campus. Several image-databases are underway, including historic photos, reproductions from the works of artist Jacob Lawrence and architectural and scientific 35-mm teaching slides. We received an LC/Ameritech grant to participate in American Memory along with our partners, the Museum of History and Industry and the Eastern Washington Historical Society. Tech services staff will be involved in the digitization and cataloging of materials, as well as the enhancements to the Content system used for managing the collection.

  ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
  --Several process improvement teams are underway in the department, spanning ordering, cataloging and processing of materials in all formats. Two self-managing operational groups are also in their second year of performance; the Monographic Cataloging Section gave an invited paper at the recent U of Arizona conference "Living the Future II".

  --A Libraries-wide middle-management group (Library Operations Group) has recently celebrated its first anniversary under the leadership of Joe Kiegel, Head of Cataloging. (Joe will represent us at Bigheads later this month.) System-wide decisions, including the allocation of hourly and equipment budgets were handled by the LOG this past year.

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  UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

  From: Richard Reeb REEB@macc.wisc.edu

  SEARCH FOR NEW ILS
  For more than a year the University of Wisconsin System Libraries have been involved in the process of selecting a new system that will replace the current NOTIS installations for the Madison and Milwaukee graduate degree granting campuses, the eleven four-year campuses and the thirteen two-year programs located throughout the state. Following the evaluation of the vendors' RFP responses by the Library Automation Task Force and its several functionally organized committees, three vendors have been invited to present system demonstrations in June and July: DRA, Endeavor, and Ex Libris. It is our hope that by the end of the year a decision will have been reached on the system which will support our local library operations and also promote resource sharing among the various campuses.

  RETROSPECTIVE CONVERSION
  This spring we reassessed the amount of work involved in completing our retrospective conversion project. Based on several sources of data including measurement of the card files and statistics on our online titles/copies, we have revised our estimates of unconverted titles as follows:

  • LC classified including East Asian: 260,000
  • Theses: 36,800
  • Serials (bib. and holdings): 19,000
  • Cutter (classification used prior to our adoption of LC): 214,000
  • Other: 5,600

  We reaffirmed our goal of completing the LC classified and theses collections by Jan. 2001 but have decided that in order to reach this objective it will be necessary to involve a significant number of our regular technical services staff in the project. Until now conversion work has been primarily assigned to non-permanent staff largely supported by funds from system and campus administration. According to the current plan we will convert nearly 300,000 titles, the first two categories above, in the next 2.5 years.

  NETWORK UPGRADE
  The library's technical platform is being upgraded this summer from Windows 3.1 to NT in both the public and staff areas. However, due to the fact that the library cannot afford to replace all the low-end 486s, which will not function in the NT environment, some of the oldest PCs will still remain connected to it as their network lifeline. Technical services has been fortunate enough to purchase 25 Pentium Pros this spring to replace all of the 25 mhz 486 PCs so that we can fully migrate to the NT platform over the next few months.

  WISCONSIN ELECTRONIC READER
  May 29th marked the 150th anniversity of Wisconsin's statehood. As a contribution to the sesquicentennial celebration, the General Library System and the Wisconsin State Historical Society collaborated in creating the Wisconsin Electronic Reader, a website representing more than 1,200 pages of documents from and about our state's storied past. Its URL is: http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/WIReader. The Reader has already been cited by USA Today as a featured web resource, has been added by the Library of Congress as a link on the Web pages, and will be the subject of a broadcast of the C-Span School Bus program later this summer.

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  YALE UNIVERSITY

  From: Joan Swanekamp joan.swanekamp@yale.edu

  Yale University Update

  ORGANIZATION AND FACILITIES:
  

  1. Interviews for the Associate University Librarian position were just completed; a decision is expected soon.

  2. A new Library Systems Steering Committee has been formed and a Digital Infrastructure Committee has been appointed.

  3. Construction of our Library Shelving Facility is on schedule for a fall opening. Much effort is going into developing reports to identify candidate titles and workflow plans are being refined. A Manager of the facility has been hired and begins shortly.

  4. Renovation of Sterling Memorial Library and Music Library construction (within a Sterling Library courtyard) has had a direct impact on Technical Services. Staff relocations and disruptions are a daily occurrence, but the end appears to be in sight.

     RETROSPECTIVE CONVERSION:
     

  5. Retrospective conversion activities are moving along. Over the last year we have completed Art, Divinity and Walpole. We are preparing the specifications for our Official Catalog, Serials Catalog and Medical Library conversion projects. We currently project another seven years to complete approximately 4.5 million titles, but efforts are underway to develop a funding strategy to complete in a shorter period of time. Our thanks to all of you who provided retrospective conversion progress reports to help support our interest to step up the pace.

     LIBRARY SYSTEMS:
     

  6. We are installing NOTIS release 6.4.1.1 over the July 4th weekend-our year 2000 solution.

     PRESERVATION:
     

  7. We have received a one-year grant from NEH to complete preservation microfilming approximately 5000 titles in the British History collection. Our next request will be for funding to support preservation microfilming of American literature.

  8. Project Open Book is hibernating, but there are preliminary plans to migrate from the current proprietary Xerox system.

  9. Yale has a continuing commitment to the preservation of the artifact and we are about to fill two positions-Assistant Conservator and Collections Care Librarian.

     ACQUISITIONS:
     

  10. Finally, Yale University is in the midst of implementing an ORACLE Financial System that has some significant implications for our Acquisitions work (vendor file and fund code changes).

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  File loaded 6/22/98; updated 6/24/98 For comments on the construction of this file (NOT on it contents) Judith Hopkins, Secretary to Big Heads