These reports were distributed over the Big Heads electronic discussion list in the weeks prior to the Chicago, IL annual conference.
For the minutes of the Big Heads meeting at Chicago, click on http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ulcjh/bha2000.html NOTE: This is just a place-holder URL. The minutes are not yet ready. When they are this URL will be replaced with the actual URL and their availability will be announced. J.Hopkins, 8/2/2000.
This compilation was prepared by Judith Hopkins, University at Buffalo
SOME OF THE FOLLOWING LIBRARIES DID *NOT* ISSUE A ROUND ROBIN REPORT.
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Harvard University
Indiana University
Library of Congress
National Agricultural Library
National Library of Medicine
New York Public Library
New York University
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Princeton University
Stanford University
University of California at Berkeley
University of California at Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Princeton University
Stanford University
University of California at Berkeley
University of California at Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
University of Pennsylvania
Stanford University
University of Texas at Austin
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin at Madison
Yale University
From: Lee Leighton
lleighto@library.berkeley.edu
Subject: Berkeley Round Robin Update, June 2000
Jerry Lowell, our University Librarian, has resigned, and he will be leaving the University at the end of August. A faculty member will be appointed in the interim until a search for a new University Librarian can be completed.
We have continued to work with the Academic Book Center to implement E-Link, a process which will load inventory records from the vendor's online system into our INNOPAC installation to be used as order records. We will be handling both firm order and approval materials through this process.
The Academic Book Center is already supplying us with shelfready domestic science materials, and we will be working with Yankee Book Peddler as well to begin receiving shelfready materials for the majority of our domestic humanities and social science materials.
I have already reported on the augmentation to our collections budget two years ago. The library administration has also approved 4 new library assistant positions for Technical Services to help us cope with the influx of new materials. The new positions will be added to the Order Division (1), the monograph receipts unit (1), and copy cataloging (2). The greatest challenge facing Technical Services right now is coping with the huge number of lower level records that we are encountering in the utilities from several European vendors, and the new positions will place us in a better position to cope with them.
In order to help some of the smaller libraries in the system that have not yet recovered from the budget crises of the 90s, we are considering adding two additional staff who would rotate among units that experience staffing shortages due to illness, jury duty, vacations, etc. When they are not rotating, one of those staff members will be located in the main library Circulation Department, and one will reside in central Technical Services.
Among the professional staff in Technical Services, we expect one retirement each fiscal year for the next two or three fiscal years. We hope to be able to replace most of the professional vacancies with librarians, although in the past professional vacancies were routinely filled with non-librarian, exempt employees.
The University is completely revising its Chart of Accounts as part of the process of installing a new campus financial system. All funds numbers in the University will be changed to a new format, and we estimate that this change will take several months to implement.
Lee Leighton
Associate University Librarian and
Director of Technical Services
From: Karen Calhoun
ksc10@cornell.edu
Subject: Cornell Update, 6/26/2000
The implementation of our new library management system, Voyager, has occupied the lion's share of our time and energy for the past six months. We went live for cataloging on June 8, and acquisitions is due to come online this week along with circulation and the OPAC. Due to some large start-up projects--the largest of which is laying the necessary groundwork for predictive check-in and serials claiming--Central Technical Services will be shifting 7 FTE from cataloging to acquisitions activities for the next year. We are working to post our training materials and the beginning of our Voyager documentation at Cornell's s Voyager implementation site, http://www.library.cornell.edu/iteam/ .
This April, we completed a two-year project that reduced our backlog by about 60,000 titles. We achieved the goal of reducing the arrearages to a working backlog (i.e., one year's worth of cataloging in Central Technical Services, at current staffing levels). The necessary staff time and funds for reducing the backlog were created through internal adjustments to processes and workflow. We expect to use the similar methods to reduce the backlog that is likely to build up during the time we are adjusting to Voyager.
In February we completed a large project to convert the remaining records for materials classed in LC P, D, and E classification. With the completion of this project, we estimate we are about 70-75% finished with recon.
Our university librarian, Sarah Thomas, has just released the "Cornell University Library Digital Futures Plan: July 2000-June 2002." It's available at http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/CULDigitalFuturesPlan.html . The library management team has been working on the plan since last fall, based on the outcome of a day-long CUL staff retreat last January. Some of the activities and implications for technical services include:
******************************
Karen Calhoun
Director, Central Technical Services
107-D Olin Library
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853
Voice: 607-255-9915
Fax: 607-255-6110
E-mail: ksc10@cornell.edu
******************************
From: Jeffrey Horrell horrell@fas.harvard.edu
Subject: Harvard Round-Robin Update, June 2000
Harvard Round Robin Update, June 2000
The Harvard University Library continues its search for a successor system to HOLLIS and anticipates closure on a decision sometime in the fall. We continue to weigh our options among several vendors.
As a necessary element of our renovation of the Widener Library Stacks (Harvard College Library) and to provide more effective and ergonomically appropriate space for the majority of Widener technical services as well as to reconfigure user space in the building, several units are being combined and relocated to a newly renovated space outside Widener. The space, leased by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is located one mile from Harvard Square in Central Square in Cambridge. We expect to occupy the new "Harvard College Library Technical Services" unit by the end of the calendar year. We are merging the workflow and responsibilities of the acquisitions and cataloging units which are forming new language-based divisions. The Collection Development Department bibliographers will remain in Widener as well as Area Studies (Judaica, Slavic, and Middle East). The Modern Greek section will become part of Collection Development.
Jane Ouderkirk, currently head of Widener Cataloging will become the head of this new unit along with Lynda Kresge as the Associate Head and Bruce Trumble as Principal Cataloger. Approximately eighty staff members will be moving to the new space.
Following the stack renovation project, we anticipate renovating the remaining spaces primarily for public use-the main reading room as well as combining serials records with a newly configured Periodicals Room and adding retrospective microtext into a ne w service.
Also, in the fall we plan to begin discussions on the Report on Future
Directions for Technical Services in the Harvard College Library completed
late last year which outlines various scenarios for centralizing technical
services College-wide ranging from administrative centralization to
various degrees of physical integration. We see this as the long term
thinking necessary for developing our acquisition and cataloging processes
over time.
From: Duane Arenales
ARENALED@mail.nlm.nih.gov
NLM ALA UPDATE - June 2000
In March NLM joined the OCLC CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog)
project on an experimental basis. Our intent is to evaluate the Dublin
Core data element set and to apply the experience gained to develop a
metadata element set that can be applied NLM-wide. We are in the process
of developing supplemental data elements to indicate the level of
permanence that NLM intends to guarantee for its own electronic
publications. More about this later.
Monograph acquisitions and cataloging production have returned to pre-ILS
implementation levels. In the second quarter of the fiscal year, the
Serial Records Section processed a record 37,258 pieces, more than during
any other quarter in the Section's hi story.
The Preservation and Collection Management Section PSD, is developing a
plan to sample the NLM collection to determine the extent to which it
could benefit from deacidification. At the end of the project, several
hundred volumes will be deacidified so th at PCM can evaluate the results.
As agreed with the Library of Congress, NLM will join the ECIP (electronic
cataloging in publication program) for biomedical titles. The target date
for implementation is the end of August 2000. NLM already cooperates with
LC to provide CIP copy for print galleys of biomedical monographs.
Extending the program to cover galleys received electronically should
shorten the cataloging process and improve tracking of cataloging data To
publicize the extension of the program, NLM will be contacting U.S.
publishers of biomedical titles to encourage them to participate in ECIP.
As reported in January, Cataloging is integrating
several thousand MEDLINE type records for monographs or portions of
monographs created by specialized data producers into its
Voyager/LOCATORplus database. To date records from four specialized
databases, i.e.; HSTAR, HISTLINE, SPACELINE, and BIOTHICS, have been
successfully loaded. Programming for conversion of POPLINE, the final
database, is well underway, and it will be loaded this summer.
The Cataloging Section completed work on the NLM Classification fifth
edition revised, 1999 at the end of June. A November or December
publication date is anticipated.
Reinvention of DOCLINE, NLM's automated interlibrary loan routing and
referral system is nearing completion. After a last update at the end of
May, approximately 1.4 million serial holdings statements for over 3,000
U.S. and Canadian biomedical libraries were converted from the legacy
mainframe system to the SERHOLD module of the new DOCLINE system. On June
9, production SERHOLD was released. During June, 374 libraries took
advantage of the new web-based editor to add or update 13,621 records, and
62 libraries deleted 108 records. This improved online update capability
significantly improves the ability of biomedical libraries to route ILL
requests based on up-to-date holdings information. Single Record Approach
After much consultation within the Library, NLM has determined that we
must use the single record approach for all serials issued simultaneously
in print and online formats. Both ISSNs (print and electronic) will be
recorded in the bibliographic record, with local subfielding to
distinguish which ISSN is applicable to which format. Indexing will carry
the appropriate ISSN in the actual bibliographic citation to indicate
which version is being indexed. This change will not be implemented until
the new indexing system is operational. We are taking this approach to
accommodate our users varied service needs.
NLM recently unveiled its illustrated catalog of Islamic medical
manuscripts on the World Wide Web at
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/arabichome.html
NLM has just announced that it is providing $102,000 to the Medical
Library Association (MLA) to encourage minority students to choose health
science librarianship as a career. Through this support, the NLM will
enable MLA to strengthen the Association's programs for recruiting
minorities into the medical library profession and to increase scholarship
opportunities for minority students seeking degrees in librarianship. NLM
funds will be used to increase the size of the MLA's existing minority
scholarship, to support, in partnership with MLA, the American Library
Association's Spectrum Scholars program to attract students of color to
graduate programs in library and information studies, and for outreach to
minority college and high school students. For many years NLM has actively
recruited minority graduates of library schools to the NLM Associate
Fellowship program, a post-masters internship program designed to develop
future leaders in health sciences librarianship. (Information about the
program is at funk@mlahq.org .
STOP BY THE NLM BOOTH IN THE EXHIBIT HALL FOR DEMOS OF PUBMED,
MEDLINEplus, etc.
Duane Arenales
From: ARNO KASTNER
kastnera@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu
New York University Big Heads Report
Collections Services and Technical Services managers have been
meeting to discuss the possiblity of moving to shelf-ready processing
for at least certain categories of our Yankee Book Peddler approval
titles. Discussion of this topic at Big Heads and follow-up
discussions with institutions that are leading the way in this effort
will help us in our decision-making.
With the help of a small grant, we will complete conversion of our
Arabic, Persian and Hebrew vernacular script material by the end
of the year. This is the last part of our collections to be
converted, but as I have reported in other round-robins, we
continue to find hundreds of unconverted titles while inventorying
our stacks.
We are continuing to look for ways to simplify and rationalize access
to electronic serials. Selectors and bibliographers have been
maintaining subject pages with linked lists to e-journals and we
continue to provide full cataloging for all individually-subscribed
e-journals and stable e-sets like JSTOR and Project Muse. We do
not, however, have the resources to continue labor-intensive list
maintenance or to catalog all e-journals that are available through
ever-changing aggregators, so we are looking at ways to load
vendor-supplied records into our catalog. This would fly in the face
of our "multiple versions/single-record" principle, but an
over-riding principle is maintaining our online catalog as a single
point to identify resources selected for the NYU community.
We are not participating in CORC, but are experimenting with
automatically building provisional MARC records from data in
fields extracted from EAD-encoded finding aids.
Between copy found in RLIN, OCLC and through the Marcadia service, we
are keeping our working backlog under control, but as many of you
have noted, we are finding the evaluation of copy more and more
time-consuming because of the growing number of sources of utility
copy and varying standards being followed by contributors.
We know we need one and it will probably be across the river and it
better be ready by 2002. In the meantime technical services is
preparing journal runs for transfer by inventorying holdings and
adding item records to the catalog.
Work also continues on clean-up of current serials check-in
information and the verification/establishment of correct publication
pattern information.
We are interviewing for two senior administrative positions: Director
of Information Technology Services and Director of Collections and
Research Services. Additionally, we are recruiting for a librarian to
help us develop a program of library support for an East Asian Studies
Program.
Arno Kastner
From: Roxanne Sellberg
sellberg@nwu.edu
When last I reported, my mind was on the need to do some re-engineering of
monographs selection and acquisitions processes, as part of a plan to
restore balance between print materials coming into and going out of
Technical Services. That is still number one on my list of worries, but we
have made some progress.
One important step has been negotiated with the Collection Management
Division. A new account has been set up for FY2001 to pay for our Yankee
approval books. In the past, selectors have examined and assigned
individual fund codes to all approval books. Selectors will continue to
have an opportunity to review incoming YBP approval books, but will not
assign separate fund codes. This sounds like a small thing--but it was
difficult to arrange, and I think it will help a lot. Initially, it will
help acquisitions staff process YBP approvals faster, and encourage
selectors to turn in firm orders year round (rather than holding back
orders and saving money in all their funds for potential approval plan
needs). In the longer term, it will make it easier to automate PO and
invoice creation. I hope it will encourage the selectors to trust the
approval process more, which could have a number of longer term positive
effects. If it works well for Yankee, we will try to do something similar
for our other approval plans.
In the mean time, PromptCat has helped us process YBP materials faster.
Taking the title-by-title OCLC search-and-download steps out of the process
has made a big difference--estimated 20 minutes per box of approval books.
We are now ordering recent domestic titles on Yankee's Gobi system and not
on Voyager. The books and corresponding PromptCat records come in
automatically and firm orders can then be processed like approvals. There
is a brief delay during which we've ordered a book but the encumbrance
doesn't show in Voyager. Because we get all our recent domestic books from
Yankee (and Gobi warns you if you try to order a duplicate from them), the
delay in encumbrance has not caused any significant duplication problems.
Again, we hope the success of the arrangement with YBP will lead to similar
arrangements for some other of our large vendors.
We have also been experimenting with having selectors place orders in
Yankee's Gobi system (like ordering from slips, except
electronic). Although selectors don't love everything about it, the
selectors who have participated like not having to handle paper slips. At
least one seems to like ordering the materials himself. More selectors want
to join the arrangement this fall. Order data from records ordered on Gobi
come into Voyager with the PromptCat records, which acquisitions staff use
to create PO and invoice records. In the next Voyager release, we hope to
be able to have PO and invoice records automatically created when PromptCat
records are loaded.
The whole University is suffering from staff shortages at the entry level
and lower-paid positions, and this is distressingly exemplified in our
monographs acquisitions and copy cataloging unit. Turnover has always been
rather brisk in this kind of position, but in the past we've had less
trouble filling open positions with qualified people who can be quickly
trained to the point of productivity. The crux of the matter:
college-educated people, regardless of their specific qualifications, can
find much better paid jobs elsewhere in the Chicago area job market.
The Voyager implementation-related project to create purchase order records
and prediction patterns for currently received serials is just about done.
Ironically, we will have to revisit a great many of the records again soon,
because of the merger between Swets and Blackwell. Northwestern became an
official member of CONSER recently, after many years of thinking about it.
The Catalog Department recently conducted a survey of all NU Library
departments in order to determine the extent of "hidden collections." A
hidden collection was defined as library material that is not accessible
through Voyager. It also includes materials accessible by a collective
title, but without online analytic records for the individual titles.
(Note: Cataloging backlogs were not included in the study; retrospective
conversion of the card catalog has been done).
132 Separate collections of uncataloged material were identified, defined,
and documented. Initially, the results of the study will be made available
throughout the Library (and on the Library's web site), to try to increase
awareness that these collections exist and are available for
consultation. A task force will also work on prioritizing the collections,
and will make recommendations about what kind of access would be
appropriate for the highest priority collections.
From: cclark cclark@nypl.org
Round Robin Report from New York Public Library
Since I began work as Director of Technical Services on March 1st, my
main focus has been on getting to know the staff and operations.
Strategic planning discussions for the Research Libraries have nicely
coincided with my arrival. I expect to have more to report on specific
recommendations and actions at Midwinter. Below are a few highlights
of activities since my arrival:
*Roman monograph retrospective conversion is proceeding on schedule.
The multi-year project is expected to be completed before the end of
December, with approximately 1.8million records converted.
*Planning is well underway for a three year serials recon project
which is targeted to begin in September.
*Work has just begun to convert manual Chinese, Japanese and Korean
records. We expect this work to be completed by early 2001. In
addition to creating online records, we are adding the vernacular when
it is not part of the manual record. We will complete as much of the
recon work for Chinese as we can before October 1.
The Research Libraries has received support from our Board of Trustees
to implement a circulation system to manage use of collections and to
register patrons. Planning for circulation implementation will
commence very shortly including preparations to start routine
bar-coding of newly accessioned materials. Since we're a closed stack
library, we're also looking forward to using technology that will
feature patron initiated online book requests to replace our manual
call slip system. We've contracted with III to develop this capability
and have it interface with the circulation module.
NYPL Research Libraries is entering a relationship with Columbia and
Princeton to build a cooperatively managed storage facility called the
Research Collections and Preservation Program (RECAP). In preparation
for opening that facility next year, NYPL will outsource bar-coding
and some item record creation for collections targeted to be stored
there. Technical Services staff will be responsible for item record
creation for serials.
We have several vacancies in the Catalog Division as a result of
retirements or movement due to promotional opportunities. We're
discussing ways to be more aggressive in our recruiting, especially
since our entry level salaries are low.
I am recruiting for a new Preservation Division Chief.
From: Richard J. Schulz
rjschulz@Princeton.EDU
Princeton Update
Starting off with a quote from Karen Calhoun's update: "The
implementation of our new library management system, Voyager, has
occupied the lion's share of our time and energy for the past six
months." Ditto for us. We also had the dubious distinction of having
to do two full-scale system migrations this past fiscal year. We
completed the main portion of the migration of acquisitions and
cataloging to NOTIS (from Geac and RLIN respectively) less than one
month before commencing preparations to move the whole show to Voyager.
In addition to Voyager centered implementation planning, we spent a good
bit of time over the past six months in cleaning up data from the NOTIS
migration preparatory to transferring it Voyager. We did manage to get
everything ready in time to come up live for all functions on Voyager
exactly on schedule tomorrow, July 6th.
ADDENDUM DATED JULY 12, 2000:
As of yesterday [Tuesday, July 11, 2000] we are live on Voyager for all
library functions. Our
schedule was disrupted at the last moment by, of all things, an attack
of the Love Virus which infected all of the library's NT servers last
Thursday only hours before a push of the final client configuration
files was to take place. Thursday and Friday were lost fighting the
spread of the virus, disinfecting all public and staff workstations and
developing a work around to distribute the files in question. All
functions were in operation by yesterday afternoon and today was our
first full day of production and circulation on the new system and
everything is going quite well. The address of our new opac is as
follows:
http://catalog.princeton.edu/
Our primary outstanding problem is a data issue. We have a lot of
record duplication resulting from the migration of Geac circulation
records which were not linked to the corresponding NOTIS bibliographic
record. These show up as brief a bibliographic record with an item sub
record paralleled by a full bibliographic record with no item sub
record. So we have an integrated database with not quite integrated
data. I estimate it will take us a while to get this situation cleaned
up. Otherwise the data migration and system implementation seem to have
gone pretty well, and I am now looking forward to a little vacation.
END OF ADDENDUM
Our retrospective conversion project (OCLC contract) was completed in
April on schedule. Just under 1.5 million card records were converted
finally achieving the 20 year goal of an integrated database of the
library's holdings which we haven't had since the advent of AACR2. The
project included the identification and overlay of more than 600,000
skeletal circulation records representing unconverted card catalog
holdings migrated from Geac when circulation was transferred to NOTIS in
1998. The local CJK catalogs of the Gest Oriental Library, which had
never been included in the library's union catalog, are the only
remaining card files of significance still extant. The digitized
version of our old union card catalog will be officially
"de-commissioned" soon after going live on Voyager.
Columbia, NYPL and Princeton signed the partnership agreement in June to
jointly construct and operate the previously announced remote book
storage facility. Ground-breaking is scheduled for next month (August
2000) with the processing center, cold storage vault and first three
modules of the facility ready for operations on October 1, 2001. A
load-in rate of more then 11,000 volumes per day is currently projected
for the first year of operation due to the need of all three
institutions to address inadequate and/or expensive existing storage
situations as soon as possible. The initial three module facility has a
projected capacity of 7.5 million book volume equivalents; the
processing center has a capacity for and land has been reserved for an
ultimate build-out to 15 modules.
The library completed implementation of a pilot pay-for-performance
program for unionized support staff this spring, culminating in a new
"trial" appraisal/distribution process (i.e., the appraisals are real,
but the salary increases are theoretical). Under the current contract
with the union, two years of actual merit distribution according to the
new program will be undertaken following which the program will be
renegotiated as a permanent fixture of the labor-management contract.
Integral parts of the program are new staff performance standards, a new
appraisal "instrument" (i.e., form), and a new system to calculate
salary merit increases based upon the former.
All management and
support staff library wide spent an incredible amount of time on this
project this past year. In Technical Services, appraisals took FAR
longer to complete than previously, partly because of the learning curve
relevant to the new process and partly because of everything else that
was going on this year, but also because there was far more interaction
between managers and the staff they supervise. Most of the interaction
was quite constructive; some of it was very much the opposite. Most
Technical Services managers did a noticeably superior job of appraising
their staff than formerly with a lot of emphasis on highly specific,
individually tailored "action plans" to improve performance in the year
head. It was gratifying to see action plans to further develop good
performers as well as to address the problems of poor performers. The
former customarily got little more than a brief "keep up the good work"
as an appraisal. It is too soon to predict whether or not this new
appraisal approach will be accepted as a regular part of the union
contract. However, speaking for myself and my managers, we certainly
all learned a great deal from having gone through it.
Not unrelated to the pay-for-performance initiative, but primarily as a
result of the need to prepare both the support staff and the
non-supervisory professional staff to be ready for changes in department
organization and workflow proceeding from implementation of Voyager, in
June I launched a program of both education and discussion for the staff
of Technical Services focused on these two aspects of the work
environment. The kick-off session (actually two identical
presentations, each for ˝ the staff), which was called an "information
retreat", featured an address by Librarian Karin Trainer on the chief
factors impacting the library which translate into increased demand for
more, better, faster service on many fronts and also shifts in the
service paradigm. Trainer noted how the library, analogous to the
corporate world, faces increasing competition for its products and
services while financial and human resources essentially remain static
prompting the need to be continuously assessing, adapting and/or
changing technology, organization, workflow, and staffing to become ever
more efficient and customer-oriented. The retreat then progressed to a
review of current department organization and workflow, and concluded
with a review of the major events in Technical Services history of the
past 25 years (joining OCLC as the starting point) as a means to show
the forces which helped shape the department into what it is today.
From here we progress to small group sessions of no more than 10 staff
per session drawn from units whose workflow interacts. These sessions,
to be held in late July and August, are designed to promote
brainstorming relative to Voyager and how the department might improve
its efficiency and service orientation as a response to the things
touched on by Karin Trainer.
We are not, however, in stasis waiting for the outcome of the
aforementioned brainstorming sessions. In response to shifts in the
service demand paradigm noted above, we made a successful push last
winter to reduce central serial check-in turn-around time from 2-3 weeks
to 24 hours. We have just embarked on a pilot program of distributed
serial check-in for three science branch libraries commencing with
subscription renewals this coming January in the hope of achieving even
more rapid availability of new serial issues to patrons. Due to
opportunities resulting from migration to integrated technical
processing on NOTIS for the past six months, we transferred approval
processing for the three major English language plans "ca. 12,000
titles received annually" along with several staff, from the Order
Division to one of the cataloging teams, which improved post-receipt
processing turn-around time for this high demand category of material
from 4-6 months to 1-2 weeks. We also did the same with smaller Greek
and Turkish approval plans, but this was driven by the desire to
reallocate Order Division staffing formerly engaged in this processing.
Similar re-structuring of the other approval plans is envisioned.
Following in the footsteps of a number of Big Heads libraries, we will
shortly be posting a newly defined position entitled "Digital Resources
Coordinator" to have primary responsibility for handling or overseeing
all aspects of acquisition of electronic resources for the Library from
license negotiation and review through access trouble-shooting and
cataloging.
From: Catherine Tierney
ctierney@stanford.edu
Subject: Stanford Round Robin
Stanford University
After a three-month test, SUL has just purchased Artesia's
TEAMS software (
http://www.teams-artesia.com/ ). The
first suite of projects with September deadline are focused
on control of e-journal (and database) titles so that access
to the titles through URLs in our OPAC or our Web pages
presents patrons with intermediate web page where buttons
offering the varieties of access or informational messages
are presented. An inexorably related project with same
time frame is dynamic web page listings of available e-
journals.
Our new model, which started in January, picked up steam
in the past 3-4 months, and we are on track to meet
production and quality objectives very soon. The old
backlogs sitting in the department were pushed through the
new Classification and record updating process. Our
principles continue to include: build no backlogs
(including, none at your desk); be poised to handle bulk
purchases/gifts effectively; originally catalog right now
what is most critical for Stanford programs; when in doubt
as to which standard to use, choose BIBCO. Update is at:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/catdept/midyear00.htm
Acquisitions staff are challenged this summer with
simultaneous projects which ultimately will increase
productivity and quality:
*******************************************************
From: Carol Diedrichs
diedrichs.1@osu.edu
The Ohio State University Libraries
Gay Dannelly has accepted the
position of Associate Director for Resources and Collection Services in the
University Libraries at Notre Dame, beginning her duties there on September
1, 2000. Gay began at OSU in 1976 and has served as Head of the
Acquisitions Department, Collection Development Officer, and AD for
Collections. We are pleased for Gay, but are saddened to lose Gay's
presence in the Ohio State University Libraries. To quote from our
director's announcement of her leaving: "Gay is an exceptional librarian
and administrator who has given her untiring energy, her wise
decision-making, and her deep knowledge of collection management to the
betterment of the OSU Libraries for almost 25 years."
Initial
discussion and consensus
building is underway to determine short term renovation plans for the Main
Library. We anticipate a full scale renovation of the Main Library after a
fund raising campaign but are focusing now on things we can do to improve
collections and services in the Library during the intervening years before
the full renovation begins.
As a member of the CIC, we participated in OCLC's CORC Project for the
cataloging of Internet resources. Since we are not yet digitizing original
resources, we focused our activity for CORC on the cataloging of web sites
selected by a small group of collection managers. A final report on our
project participation is expected at the end of June. A number of policy
issues about the inclusion of these records in our public catalog are
under discussion with public services. Once those policy issues are
determined, we anticipate using CORC on an ongoing basis.
A small task force has recently been charged to experiment with digitizing
a small group of images from our John Foxe collection as well as looking
at a project in the area of mass spectroscopy. These projects are
designed to give us some initial experience before we move more fully into
these initiatives. A decision on a request for funding through the
University's academic enrichment program is expected at the end of the
summer. If received, this program would provide ongoing resources for
digital initiatives.
We
are currently
engaged in considerable discussion on whether to use a single record or
multiple records for electronic resources in the public catalog. Locally
we have used multiple records in accord with national standards. OhioLINK
committees are considering this issue as the single record concept is very
appealing to librarians working with the public. OSU is engaged in a test
comparing single versus multiple records for a set of resources so that
examples of the choices can be viewed throughout the state so that a better
informed decision can be made.
A systems
librarian position reporting to our Assistant Director for Information
Technology is currently available. The position administers INNOPAC and
provides support for the local and statewide integrated library systems for
the University Libraries, Health Sciences Library, Law Library, Regional
Campus libraries, libraries of Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI) and
Ohio Agricultural Research Development Center (OARDC), and other libraries
represented in the system. We are looking for a person with at least three
years experience working with implementation, operation and maintenance of
integrated library systems, preferably in a consortial environment and 2
years experience in technical services, preferably original cataloging;
experience with data migration, writing documentation, and training for
automated library systems preferred. The job description should be
available online in a few weeks at
http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/Lib_Info/profpos.htm .
July 5 marks the
first day
of implementation
of a University-wide general ledger system. This new accounting system
will not dramatically affect the operations of the acquisitions process but
will involve a new reporting mechanism and a complete change on University
account numbers. This is the final stage of a University replacement of
its administrative systems for human resources, procurement, and general
ledger.
*****************************************
From: Leighann Ayers
layers@umich.edu
We have been working on the CIC VEL project for patron initiated ILL and
made a recommendation to the CIC Library Directors about whether to accept
the DRSS software.
Delivering ILL copy requests to a secured websit for patrons was tested
(using a combination of Ariel and Prospero software) to a test group of
"frequent flyer" ILL patrons. Patrons received an e-mail giving them
instructions and the website address for their article; an FAQ was
developed for the website. The program was eexpanded to ILL patrons May
15 for articles received via Arial. The program will be expanded to
include all copy requests in June (those articles received in paper will
be scanned and posted to the website)
Began delivering 7-Fast articles via fax. 18% of patrons selected this
option. Delivery will be expanded to all graduate students July 1, 2000.
Delivery of articles via a secured website will begin summer of 2000.
We are participating in the German Resources Project and ordering
documents for patrons through this source.
Monograph Cataloging was reorganized this year with the intent of
committing more effort to cataloging projects. The Glazer Collection of
Spanish material dates from the 16th century. Only about 25% is
represented in the utilities, a little more in bibliographies and a large
protion is unique. The Edison Collection of American Sheet Music which
dates from the late 1700s to the 1850s has been inventoried. The brief
cataloging of this material will be completed in August and contains
17,000 pieces. Retrospective conversion of the Clements Library printed
material has started. The collection is devoted to American history.
Our second year using the accounting system, Peoplesoft, was an
improvement over the first year. We were the test site for approving
payments through Peoplesoft and have been given permission to continue.
Payments are now being made to vendors within a week of our processing
them instead of the 6 to 8 weeks it was taking. Interfacing Peoplesoft
and III continues to be a high priority which we are pursuing.
From: Barbara A. Stelmasik
b-stel@maroon.tc.umn.edu
University of Minnesota, January 2000
Responses to the rfp for the MnLINK ILS (which will be
the new ILS for the University of Minnesota Libraries) have been reviewed.
Two vendors (Endeavor and ExLibris) have been invited to make presentations
in July. A final recommendation is expected in mid-September 2000. The
goal is full implementation by summer 2002.
The University wide exodus from main-frame applications has caused us to
move to the MnLINK Gateway OCLC SiteSearch Z39.50 presentation of our web
catalog. All staff were offered training in the different functionality of
this catalog.
The grand opening of the Andersen Library occurred in
April, with an open house which drew an unexpectedly large crowd of
enthusiastic Minnesotans. This move and the moves of the Science and
Engineering collection, and a number of smaller collections continue to
occupy a number of technical services staff with location code changes,
generation of acid-free barcodes and countless other maintenance tasks.
Technical services staff rely heavily on macros to expedite this work, and
public services has eased its workload with the use of web based paging forms.
Most of our public service terminals are running on
Citrix, which gives us higher speed and to run 32 bit applications on
low-end machines. Completion of the Citrix installation coincided with the
debut of a newly designed web page which has been well received.
We have experimented with e-reserves and will expand implementation for
fall semester. We have begun a process improvement project for ILL.
Our final report on CORC use is due this month. We anticipate
continued use of CORC in the Bio-Medical library where the experimental
phase was most successful. Broader implementation remains undecided as we
continue the discussion of what should be included in the on-line catalog.
Technical services completed its second survey (web-based) of
internal (reference, collections, access staff) user satisfaction. Our
first user survey was a paper survey done in May 1999. We had an
approximate 26% response rate, and an overall positive rating of 66% in the
1999 survey. In May 2000 we had an approximate 31% response rate to our
web-based survey and our overall positive rating increased to 72%. We also
did an internal (technical services staff) survey on the performance of our
technical services coordinators (lead staff responsible for training,
procedure writing and policy recommendations). In response to the question
"Is this coordinator getting the job done?" 79 of 95 responses (83%) on all
of the surveys were "yes". The results of the two surveys will be used to
refine our goals for the coming year.
Current special cataloging projects include an NEH grant
to catalog materials in the Children's Literature Research Collection, a
three year project to catalog materials in the Sherlock Holmes collection,
a project to catalog foreign census materials, outsourcing cataloging of
Arabic and Hebrew arrears, and participation in the Digital Asia Library.
We have positions open for a Serials Cataloger, Assistant Map
Librarian, Head of Reference and Consultative Services, Digital Library
Director, Assistant Curator for James Ford Bell Collection, East Asian
Librarian, Electronic Resources Librarian, Assistant Business Librarian and
a Special Collections/Archives Technical Services Librarian. Additional
details are posted at
http://www.lib.umn.edu/about/career.phtml
Barbara A. Stelmasik, Team Leader
From: Carton Rogers
rogers@pobox.upenn.edu
It's always reassuring to read everybody else's round robin reports
if only to be reminded that we're all dealing with variations on a small
number of themes. The following are just a few of the things that have
been happening at Penn in the last few months.
The lion's share of our Dewey 800 shelf list cards are now out to
our recon vendor (RLA) for conversion. The 300s and portions of the 700s
and 900s will be converted and loaded by the end of the calendar year.
What remains to be done are some serials, a large portion of our Special
Collections and the portion of the 800s represented by brief (and
unusable for external recon) shelf list cards. How we deal with the
"brief 800s" is still under discussion.
We continue to fully catalog all e-journal, Web resources, e-books,
etc. that have been indentified by selectors. In addition to our
efforts, selectors and Web folks have been maintaining hardcoded subject
pages and e-journal lists. To minimize this duplicative effort, we're
currently working on a project to build those Web pages on the fly using
the MARC records as the data source. To broaden the subject listings we
are adding "communities of interest" fields (assigned by the selectors)
to each e-journal record. This is a minor cost to pay for not having to
build and maintain those Web pages by hand. We expect to go live with
this by the end of the summer.
Unhappily, after years and years of pretending that they didn't
exist, faculty at Penn have discovered and fallen in love with film. As
a result, we have been inundated with orders for every kind of movie/tv
show/documentary imaginable. This may be old hat to many of you but
we've had to set up an entirely new processing flow to handle the volume
and the peculiarities associated with acquiring some to these titles
("Buy this video for my class next Tuesday. It's available from a grocer
in Milwaukee...").
We are working on a two-pronged project involving our Fine Arts
Slide Library collection. Retrospectively, we need to map existing data
from a dying Minaret database to our Voyager system. Prospectively, we
are working with our colleagues in the Slide Library to develop a set of
data elements to be used when they begin scanning new images and
existing images into a new image database.
Our open position is a vital one: Head of Original Cataloging. This
is a senior tech services management position overseeing original
cataloging, serials cataloging, e-resources cataloging and all
cataloging for Special Collections. The pools to date have been very
small. If you know of anyone who might be interested please have them
contact me directly.
From: Joyce Ogburn
jlogburn@u.washington.edu
University of Washington Report for ALA Annual Meeting 2000
For the next biennium, we have submitted a budget proposal that we have
termed, in our provost's words, "transformational," in that we ask for a
budget that will allow us to transition more aggressively, though
thoughtfully, to the electronic future. Our plan is to assume more risk in
our collecting strategies and to presume that archiving will be addressed
through a variety of national and cooperative efforts. Under our proposal we
will target areas in which we will give up depth (i.e. multiple versions of
the same product and duplication among collections) to continue to provide
breadth in our collections. Many of our human and other resources will have
to be devoted to managing this well.
For one, we expect to be advertising a position in Collection Management
Services to support the acquisition and management of electronic resources,
including usage studies, establishing trials, budget modeling, and the like.
One of our highest priorities for the coming year will be to create and load
records for electronic journals, especially for aggregator packages. We will
most likely go to the multiple record approach, but are still exploring
options for using one record. We are talking about creating a management
tool that will give us information on the titles in aggregator packages and
our collections with the intent both to understand their intersection (and
thereby understand where we can go electronic) and to give us a sense of how
to deal with the cataloging question, based on how many "new" records we may
have to create. Concurrently we plan to institute a system-wide standard for
collection of journal use information.
We would welcome more discussion on cooperative solutions for creating
records for aggregated titles. We are looking at JAKE, among other tools, to
help us with this project.
UW recently became a member of the Big 12 Plus. The state union catalog,
a result of Washington's Cooperative Library Project, will be launched
this summer.
We have merged the quick cat operations into acquisitions. We are
interviewing candidates for the Head of the Monographs Acquisitions
Section position and hope to have a decision in late July. We have a pilot
project to purchase e-books from netLibrary in a group purchase with
partners in the Pacific Northwest.
UW completed its research project of the CORC harvester and its
effectiveness against different kinds of sites and comparing its success
against original cataloging. It can be found at:
http://www.lib.washington.edu/msd/corc/harvestest/
We continue to create meta data for digital projects and to develop data
dictionaries to enable the use of Dublin Core across different kinds of
image databases. This spring Daniel Pitti came as consultant on using EAD
for finding aids and a pilot project is in place. The Cataloging Policy
Committee is compiling a chart of all the outstanding and anticipated
intellectual access projects (big and small) across the system. One priority
will be to do an RFP for retrospective and ongoing authority control.
We have been sampling our collections for acidity and may do a small
deacidification pilot project. We selected a new binder this year and made
the transition in January.
We have an active search for a temporary librarian to provide computer
support for International Studies. We filled internally the position for
the Head of the South Asia Section. Planning continues for Pinyin
conversion. We are at present focusing our discussions on whether to
classify the periodicals collection in conjunction with the conversion.
Although it appears a costly option on the surface, the addition of call
numbers may simplify some of the processing, such as the relabeling of
materials, and would facilitate the move of older materials to and from
offsite storage.
Suzzallo Library renovation has been slightly postponed, but plans have
moved forward to relocate some of the technical services staff to an off
campus facility for approximately one year. The move will allow us to
compress the time needed to complete the renovation. Intensive planning
has gone into this to determine what units should go, workflow changes,
design of the space, equipment and supplies needed, and other such things.
Joyce L. Ogburn
From: CYNTHIA SHELTON
cshelton@library.ucla.edu
UCLA Library
UCLA has developed plans to load MARC records into our local system
that were created by UC San Diego. These "shared" records represent
digital resources (predominantly electronic journals) licensed for all
campuses by UC's California Digital Library. Once CDL/UCSD have
implemented a PURL server, the original file for UCLA consisting of
3000 records will be loaded. We are working on a workflow to deal
that will be as automated as possible, and will therefore lead to the
loading of the information from these records into our local system
relatively quickly. The original records will be supplemented weekly by
update files of new, changed, and deleted records.
UCLA participated in the CORC pilot program starting in January 2000.
We established a project structure that included a general coordinator
and site coordinators at each of our cataloging centers. Each site had
a small team of catalogers and selectors/bibliographers that used the
experimental period to test workflows and well as the CORC tools for
resource identification and description. The main research library has
established a CORC Cataloging Interest Group which is eager to monitor
the development of both the Pathfinder segment and the Cataloging
software.
The Young Research Library Cataloging Department has been very pleased
with the results of creating a new position in October for
coordinating the training and writing of policies and procedures. This
was created as a high-level library assistant position. The T&DC's main
responsibilties are coordinating and conducting training and
compiling, editing and writing departmental documentation.
The Cataloging Department has remodeled a meeting room to
accomodate group training needs.
Performance and stability met our minimum targets earlier this
year. Both continue to improve slowly but surely for the
cataloging, circulation, and OPAC modules. DRA is also adding some
key functionality to these modules. We look forward to working
with DRA's first phase of the serials module later this summer. The
unplanned consequences of migration for cataloging and technical
processing have been something to have to live through to fully
appreciate--establishing many, many work-arounds, shifting into project
mode, triaging, adjusting and adapting to ups and downs in system
performance and stability. The staff has been amazingly adaptable.
The library has launched into a new phase of its digital library
development. The Library Information Systems department and the
Digital Library Coordinator have put in place models, tools,
standards, procedures, and criteria that will allow individual units
to carry out development of digital library projects. The Library will
make available "seed" money to plan and pilot projects at the same time
that it pursues strategic development of digital content and
architecture.
The Young Research Library has begun the planning of a major
multi-million dollar remodel. The Cataloging, Acquisitions, and Serials
Departments will be brought together on one floor. Making these
departments physically adjacent to each other is allowing for
discussions of shared processing opportunities.
phone: (310) 825-1201, 825-1202
From: Judith Nadler
judi@midway.uchicago.edu
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARY
The Information Resources Management Division, conceptualized in the
context of a broad-based library reorganization process, is slowly taking
shape.
Encompassing Integrated Library Systems, Acquisitions, Cataloging, Serials,
Preservation, and the Digital Library Development Center, the new division
brings together the operations that support the processes of acquiring,
preserving, and providing intellectual access to information resources in
both traditional and electronic forms.
To balance traditional library priorities with those introduced by the
increasing emphasis on the acquisition and access to materials in electronic
forms, the reorganization has:
The Digital Library Development Center provides coordinating, management, and
technical functions in support of the University of Chicago Library's
distributed digital library activities. It engages in development activities
as well as providing production services. For information about DLDC
projects, programs, and challenges, see
http://w
ww.lib.uchicago.edu/h/reports/dlf-member-report-0600
As part of the same reorganization, the previously separate departments of
Acquisitions, Cataloging and Serials, were merged into two format-blind
operations: Acquisitions and Cataloging. Jobs were newly defined or
rewritten for the new structure. Securing a common space and furnishing it to
reflect
this new structure, proved to be the slowest part of this process. We are
still working on it and hope to accomplish it this fall.
Functional description and chart of the of the Information Resources
Management Division are attached:
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ulcjh/rrchicagoIRMDivision.htm and
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/dldc/reports/irm.jpg
We have been participating in CORC since its beginnings. To date we have
created records or edited existing records in the CORC database for a
number of our Oriental Institute's web sites referenced in their fairly
elaborate set of web pages.
We have also conducted a very successful test project in the sciences
using the pathfinder function. The project report is available at:
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ulcjh/chicagocorcreport.html
To date we have exported MARC records in our OPAC for every site we
catalog in CORC. In future there may be some materials where we only want to
work with
the DC records and we are in the process of developing an infrastructure to
support this option.
A presentation for the CORC User's Group Meeting on the University of
Chicago's CORC Workflows is now available at:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~cc21/corc/index.htm
The June 1st issue of Library Journal featured a cover story on
the
University Library. In case you didn't see the hard copy, you might be
interested in reading the electronic version at
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/ephemera/lj2000-06-01.pdf
This is a pdf file, 4.0, color high resolution, so will be slow.
Judith Nadler
From: Richard Reeb
rreeb@library.wisc.edu
Wisconsin Update, July 2000
Our number one priority for most of the last eighteen months has been
migration to and then implementation of our library management system,
Voyager. FY 1999/2000 was a year that not many of us want to relive in
our careers because of all the stress and frustrations that accompanied
customizing the new system to our local situation and needs. We began
the current year on a particularly high note, having successfully run
fiscal year close in Voyager last month for the first time. Although
most of the implementation tasks are behind us, we still have several
big projects to undertake this year before we will consider ourselves in
pull production mode. The uncompleted tasks include "approving" 18,000
open orders which migrated from NOTIS, creating 20,000 check-in records
that will support predictive check-in, resume claiming missing issues on
a regular basis, implement name and subject authority control, and
expand use of EDI for invoice loading to all our major vendors.
Besides completing Voyager implementation this year, we eagerly await
Voyager release 2000 which is expected to be distributed soon and will
feature a totally redesigned acquisitions module. We remain hopeful
that besides providing additional functionality, the interface for
revamped acquisitions module will permit our staff to work more
efficiently and eliminate some of the workarounds we have been forced to
devise.
Excluding the East Asian collection whose conversion will probably not
be completed for a several more years, we expect our LC-classified
collection to be finished before the end of the current fiscal year.
Beyond that we still have to add to the OPAC over 214,000 titles
assigned Cutter classification numbers, the system which was employed
prior to the adoption of LC, as well as 35,000 Wisconsin theses, and
19,000 serial records whose bib and/or holdings records have either not
yet been converted or are only partially online.
In January I reported that we were then on the verge of launching a
pilot project for shelfready books for titles we were firm ordering from
Yankee Book Peddler. Initially we restricted the pilot to social
science monographs; later it was expanded to include the subject of
Western European history. Reactions to the service from Collection
Development, Public Service and our own technical services staff has
been so positive that we will be looking at ways of expanding its scope
later this summer, including the possibility of extending it to our
approval plan receipts.
In response to the explosion of licensed electronic resources and the
expectations of our users that they be readily accessible through our
website and in our OPAC, we have converted one of our support staff
vacancies into a professional position, titled the Electronic Resources
Librarian. This person will not only assist our Acquisitions
Coordinator in reviewing licenses, but the position includes cataloging
responsibilities as they relate to the ever-changing world of metadata
and integrating this information into our catalogs. This vacancy is
now being advertised, and we hope to hire a most qualified candidate by
early fall.
From: Joan Swanekamp
joan.swanekamp@yale.edu
Report of Recent Activities at Yale University
Retrospective Conversion activities continue. The projects to
convert the Official Catalog and the Serials Catalog should be completed
in early 2002. Arabic conversion is underway as an inhouse project. We
have just signed a contract with OCLC for ca. 150,000 Chinese, Japanese
and Korean titles, and we are exploring vendor solutions for our Hebrew
language collection.
The Library is moving ahead with plans for a new library management
system. Audre Novak, currently Senior Database Administrator in the
Library Systems Office, has been appointed Project Manager and initial
Work Groups have been appointed. We expect to have a decision in late
Fall. Our LMS website is located at:
http://www.library.yale.edu/orbis2/public/orbis2.htm
The Technical Service units are engaged in a "process improvement"
effort. A group of 36 staff participated in a retreat and two planning
meetings earlier this spring, and identified a number of processes that
are likely candidates. Draft task force charges are currently being
vetted and appointments will be made shortly. · We continue to
recruit for a Chief Acquisitions Librarian and the Assistant Head of the
Acquisitions Department.
We are expanding our off-campus shelving processing to include
serials and multi-volume works, maps and microforms.
We extended our automated searching activities to include our
Slavic and East European cataloging backlog. We used OCLC's FullMARC
Service and were pleased with a 50%+ hit rate. We loaded the records
directly into our online catalog and will complete the cataloging over the
next year with the item in hand. We also loaded 240,000 records for
Marcive for U.S. government publications.
With the assistance of our Systems staff, we successfully
loaded over 2200 records for full-text electronic journals for two EBSCO
products: Academic Search Elite and Business Source Premier. As product
coverage changes, we have created a means to remove all the records and
reload the new set, minimizing record maintenance.
Though effort of the Workstation Support Group and the Catalog
Department, we have identified a number of routine activities that would
lend themselves to technology solutions in our current NOTIS environment.
These included more sophisticated macros and additional hot keys, and a
normalization routine that permits simple cut, paste and researching
activities. We are currently working on the training strategy, and a
plan
for extending this to the school and departmental libraries.
Joan Swanekamp
From: Barbara Henigman
henigman@uiuc.edu Bigheads Round Robin Report – June 2000 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Change continues to pervade the
atmosphere here at the UIUC Library. There are many times when I believe
we truly have become an organic entity. Mostly the changes have been
exciting and carry with them a feeling of moving forward. Three new
administrative positions have been created since I last reported at
Midwinter –
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
Subject: NLM's round robin
Chief, Technical Services Division
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894
Tel: 301-496-6134
Fax: 301 -402-1211
Email: arenales@nlm.nih.gov
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Subject: Report from NYU
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
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Subject: Northwestern round robin report--06/21/00
............................................................................
.............................................................................
Roxanne Sellberg
Assistant University Librarian for Technical Services
Northwestern University Library
1935 Sheridan Road
Evanston IL 60208
tel: (847)467-5359
fax: (847)491-8306
e-mail: sellberg@northwestern.edu
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Subject: Round Robin: New York Public Library
Cynthia Clark
Director of Technical Services
NYPL - Research Libraries
Cclark@nypl.org
212-930-9201
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Subject: Princeton Update
-----------------------------------------------------
Richard J. Schulz
Associate University Librarian for Technical Services
Princeton University Library
rjschulz@princeton.edu
Phone: (609) 258-5297
Fax: 609-258-0441
STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Catherine Tierney
July 3, 2000
Assoc. Univ. Librarian for Technical Services
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford, CA 94305-6004
650.723.2015 (voice)
650.723-9325 (fax)
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Subject: Ohio State Round Robin Report
HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIGHEADS
July, 2000
Carol Pitts Diedrichs
Assistant Director for Technical Services and
Liaison to the Regional Campus Libraries
Editor, Library Collections, Acquisitions
and Technical Services
The Ohio State University Libraries
1858 Neil Avenue Mall
Columbus, OH, 43210-1286
tel: 614-292-4738
fax: 614-292-7859
Internet: diedrichs.1@osu.edu
*****************************************
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARY
Subject: Michigan round robin report
____________________________
Leighann Ayers
Head, Acquisitions/Serials Division
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1205
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LIBRARY
Subject: Bigheads Round Robin from Minnesota, Chicago 2000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Materials Acquisition and Control
University of Minnesota Libraries
160 Wilson Library
309-19th Ave. So.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Mailto:b-stel@tc.umn.edu
http://staff.lib.umn.edu/
Phone: 612-625-8074
Fax: 612-625-3428
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LIBRARY
Subject: Round Robin From Penn
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON LIBRARY
Subject: University of Washington Report
Associate Director of Libraries
Resources and Collection Management Services
University of Washington
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
phone: 206-685-2889;
fax: 206-685-8727
jlogburn@u.washington.edu
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY
Subject: UCLA Report
Round Robin Highlights for ALA, 2000 Tech. Services Directors
Cynthia Shelton
AUL, Collections and Technical
Services
UCLA Library
11334 Young Research Library
Box 951575
L.A. CA 90095-1575
fax: (310) 206-4109
email: cshelton@library.ucla.edu
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES
Subject: University of Chicago Round Robin Report
UPDATE FOR BIG HEADS, JULY 2000
Associate Director
University of Chicago Library
773 702-8743
FAX 773 702-6623
judi@midway.uchicago.edu
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LIBRARIES
Subject: Round Robin Report: Univ. of Wisconsin
Richard Reeb
YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Subject: Round Robin Report from Yale
Chief Catalog Librarian and Head of the Catalog Department
Yale University
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
LIBRARIES
All three of these positions have been designed to address areas of library operations which have not had much attention over the past few years.
Technical Services continues to be involved in this ongoing metamorphosis as well. In just the past few months we have begun initiatives that include –
The goal is to be up and running by the end of the fiscal year next year. This implementation will allow us to automate these activities now and provide a transition until our Illinois consortium decides on its next system migration path.
This will be a radical change from the decentralized cataloging system put in place by Hugh Atkinson in the early 1980’s. Many factors contributed to this decision – staffing levels, reduction in the amount of original cataloging actually done for our collection now, etc.
This program will work in concert with the Library’s strategic plan objective to provide access to all items in our collection.
Since the UIUC Library has not done a comprehensive retrospective conversion, serials have been identified as a high priority. This project will be designed to facilitate access to all serials in our collection, as well as help with the implementation of the Innovative serials module.
Busy times ahead for sure!
Barb Henigman
UIUC Technical Services Division Coordinator
Information Technology Services (ITS) continued to implement the Computer Security Plan and the Year 2000 Plan in order to ensure that the Library's computer systems, applications, and data are secure, and will be fully functioning into the twenty- first century. At year's end, all of the Library's mission-critical systems were Y2K-compliant.
Staff completed the largest workstation and software roll-out and training program in the Library’s history in preparation for the ILS. Over 3,320 staff received new ILS equipment and training.
Approximately 16 million bibliographic and authority records were migrated from 6 legacy systems. Thousands of patron, order, and vendor records were also loaded.
The Library also began the retrospective holdings conversion of data in its two largest remaining manual files, the 12 million card shelflist file and the 900,000-title serials check-in file. Conversion of the holdings information from these files into the LC ILS will greatly contribute to the Library’s inventory control and materials security.
In fiscal 2000 the ILS Program is scheduled to implement LC Voyager task orders and updates, increase the system server and storage capacity, maintain the system, provide training for new software releases, and continue contract services to convert the shelflist and serials check-in retrospective holdings files.
Additional information can be found on the public ILS Web page at URLs: http://lcweb.loc.gov/ils/ and http://lcweb.loc.gov/ils/ilsfaq.html and on the LC Web page at URL: http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/faq/ilsfaq.html
At the time MUMS was frozen on August 12, Digital TOC had placed over 1,500 TOC on the Web, more than 1,000 of those completed in the calendar year ending May 31. In addition, in a related project with the Electronic CIP pilot program, more than 1 ,700 TOC records have been created for publications cataloged through the Library’s ECIP program. For the D-TOCs, both the MARC records themselves and the linked TOC data may be viewed through a Web browser by accessing the Library's online catalog directly. In addition, various Web indexing software also makes catalog and TOC records available over the Web from any location.
This new BEAT initiative is designed to enhance traditional bibliographies by placing them on the Web and including, along with annotated citations, links to the scanned tables of contents, indexes, and back-of-book bibliographies contained in the sources, as well as reciprocal links between the citations in the bibliography, the scanned elements of the works and their catalog records in the OPAC. In addition, links to pertinent online indexes to journals and other related web resources are als o included, where available.
The basis of the implementation of the indicator change is that authority and bibliographic records will be treated independently, i.e., there will be no attempt to keep authority and bibliographic records in synchronization. The goals of the implementation are to assure that: 1) all newly created authority and bibliographic records reflect the change; and 2) all existing records that are changed will be consistent within themselves. Guidelines may be found at URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/multsur.html
CDS is planning to conduct a pilot project to test external Web access to the online LC Classification system that is used within the Library. The pilot is expected to commence before the ALA Annual conference in June. CDS staff at the exhibit booth will be collecting the names of libraries interested in participating in the Web pilot. Visitors may also see a demo of the system at the booth.
The Library has formed a team to draft conversion specifications for name authorities, work with OCLC, and prepare for conversion activities at the Library. Revised conversion specifications have been drafted and sent to RLG and OCLC where they are being used to write conversion programs. OCLC and RLG will work with the same testfiles and will share results in order to achieve uniform results.
On October 7, representatives from six major collections in the United States and a representative from the Council on East Asian Languages (CEAL) met with staff from the Library of Congress, OCLC, and RLG for an unofficial day-long planning meeting. Participants explored a wide range of issues related to local systems and catalogs, and worked on a coordinated approach to the conversion project. The group reached consensus on a sequence in which certain milestones were to be achieved, along with dates and time frames for major activities. There was agreement that as many authority records as possible should be converted in advance of the display of converted bibliographic records on RLIN and OCLC. The group proposed October 1, 2000, as the target for "Day 1" to allow sufficient time for conversion of authorities. After Day 1, systematic romanization of Chinese on new cataloging and authority records will be done in pinyin. The utilities will begin to convert bibliographic records before Day 1 occurs, and will load those records into their files as they are converted. Both converted authority records and bibliographic records will be marked, for purposes of identification and to prevent re-conversion. RLG and OCLC will return snapshots of converted records to individual libraries for loading into local systems.
The Library has completed the revision of name authority records for Chinese conventional place names. More than 260 name authority records for Chinese conventional place names and 5300 related authority records have been revised so that they now appear in forms recommended by the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN). Most of these headings on bibliographical records will be changed during machine conversion to pinyin.
In response to requests from the library community, conversion of subject headings, and related changes to the classification schedule, will be undertaken shortly before Day 1 occurs.
The pinyin conversion project will be the subject of discussion at the RLG Forum, which will be held on Sunday, January 16 from 9:00 to 11:00 AM, Hilton Palacio Del Rio - Del Ray N. Panelists will include Philip Melzer of the Library, Karen Smith- Yoshimura of RLG, Glenn Patton of OCLC, Peter Zhou representing CEAL, administrators and automation specialists from several of the major library collections. The overall conversion strategy will be presented, along with a timeline jointly written by the Library of Congress, RLG and OCLC. Proposals for markers on bibliographic records (in the 987 local field) and name authority records (in the 008/07 fixed field) will also be presented.
The Pinyin Home Page provides information and status reports about the conversion project at URL http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/ .
The combined efforts of the PCC Steering Committee's program expansion and publicity campaigns as well as the public relations generated by the Cataloging Now! Workshops added seven new partners to the BIBCO program in fiscal 1999; in fiscal 2000 one new institution has already joined, the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia.
To gather information on the other series issues, the PCC Steering Committee authorized a survey to query the PCC membership on the desirability of a national-level series analysis policy and how the addition of the DPCC code to retrospective SARs should be accomplished. The survey generated much discussion resulting in the decision of the Policy Committee to implement a default series policy of fully traced, analyzed, and classified separately (FTS) inasmuch as possible.
Fourteen institutions have signed on to participate in an experiment to add publication pattern data to CONSER records. The short term goal is to be able to share this data among libraries; a longer term goal is to assure that the data is compatible to all systems in order to enable migration of check-in and holdings data to a different system. The task force charge was also expanded to include tasks of reviewing the MARC Format for Holdings Data, working with system vendors, and determining library needs.
FY00 through November FY99 LC Full-Level Cataloging 22,972 148,628 Copy Cataloging 3,004 25,662 Minimal-Level Cataloging 2,104 19,256 Collection-Level Cataloging 447 2,756 TOTAL records created 28,527 196,302 TOTAL volumes cataloged NA 205,893 Authority Records Names 11,723 80,176 Series 1,075 7,272 Subjects 1,694 5,895 TOTAL 14,492 93,343
Users will notice some changes to LC's Z39.50 service when accessing the Voyager server:
