What is challenging you right now?
MG – They are switching from B&T to YBP for ordering, and it’s disrupting the workflow. The process is complex – using a spreadsheet for data. Suggestion: The Aleph acquisitions model might help streamline the process.Ditch the spreadsheet
BS – They are with millennium and they have acquisitions and collection development librarians for the flow. They had difficulty with Gobi at first, but now it works well. They use Z3950 to bring in a temporary record until the book is in hand.
AC – you should be able to put things in directly from Gobi.
BS – suggestion: staff meetings are good, they help streamline processes.
JG – they are trying to pick out a new book vendor. Do you recommend Gobi?
WW – They are in the process of setting them up. They work well with you and it helps with faculty requests.
RDA – toolkit navigation is not fluid.
BS – the extra fields are making clutter.
AC – the interface is not elegant, it's hard to keep track of where you were and where you want to go.
Is anyone else curious about BIBFRAME?
NA – It’s not practical yet.
AC – There are active studies, but there are going to be problems like in MARC. Or the systems won’t be able to use them.
WW – read some articles about the BIBFRAME adoption in Germany.
NA – It’s a way of making the library catalog more related to the semantic web.
NN – RDA provides the benefit of having clearer information.
BS – I’ve been asked by people in the library to strip out the 300 fields
AC – you don’t have to display them. There are fields that you can turn on and off in your display. They charge you for changing the way you index things.
JG – We have had students who search for books by the fewest number of pages.
AC – the GMD is going away, but it’s not replacing it in a way that’s better.
NA – The software needs to get to a place where it does something useful.
AC – more work to do to get everything into granular fields.
Any cataloging wins?
BS – We had a gift, the donation of antique books, 1200’s to 1900’s. Leather bound, mysterious languages. They got a rabbi to interpret some books in Hebrew. The records are suppressed right now, and they will be open at the beginning of the next school year. There are about 400 books. They are all on display in one room with display cases.
WW – can they be digitized?
BS – the Hathitrust has a lot of them, and others internationally have copies of them.
NA – was able to construct a MySQL query they were looking for patrons who had fines over $10 over a certain time period.
AC – In Sierra in create list, she is trying to create a list of records that are missing a certain field.
NA – suggestion: use “equal to blank.”
BS – just managing everything is a struggle. So many ebooks coming from so many vendors.
MG – do you have a discovery layer? Are the ebooks in there? They don’t catalog them unless they need to. Are they pushing away people from their catalog? It’s working better, because they only go to the OPAC if something is on the shelf.
AC – The discovery layers don’t work for music, you need any authority record. If you don’t use the “official” spelling in discovery, nothing comes up.
MG – In their catalog, the spelling doesn’t automatically check. The discovery is functioning well unless they are looking for something new, because they only update once a week.
WW – Students want to know what the book is about before they find it. The nursing department students are under the most pressure.
NA – Saw Denise present at ALA midwinter about a missing position from her department and how she was able to work that out. Has anyone else had success with doing more with less?
AC – not getting done as well as they should be done.
MG – They are streamlining everywhere. People are not wanting to break into other people’s jobs. They’re working on more cross-training. The print periodicals need cleaning. She is doing access services in addition to tech services, working with patron records
BS – they started LibGuides last year, because no one else wants to do cataloging.
NN – They have them on their webpage.
WW – they overlap with their instruction librarians. You can borrow other people’s layouts.
Does anyone put textbooks on reserve?
MG – The publishers told them to take off reserve. How can they say that?
WW – Perhaps they can – like demo or promotional copies of albums.
AC – that’s perhaps just a request, not a legal requirement. Unless somebody signs a contract, there’s no chance they could have a legal restraint.
If the books aren’t in the bookstore in time, they library can get them. But if they circulate, it will only help one student at a time.
MG – They are taking heat for not having the books since they’ve been taken away.
WW – They have professors that put books on reserve, and some publishers are publishing campus-specific editions of books.
What do you do when catalogers don't want to take on extra work, or when they do not want to delegate any cataloging work?
One cataloger was told not to worry about mistakes, because when she was new, the senior catalogers could fix anything she did incorrectly.
AC – She’s in the branch, so she’s the only professional in music cataloging. She does anything that isn’t copy. She’s taught people how to copy catalog scores & LP’s. They digitize LP tracks for specific course, but most are under copyright, so they can’t just start digitizing things.
NA – A few libraries have special objects for lending.
MG – They are working on a multi-media room.
NN – They have an active room, and the iPads are always circulating. Ebooks are not putting catalogers out of business. There are a lot of books that aren’t available in full-text.
WW – Students prefer the physical copy, not just for the way of access, but also for professor demand.
MG – some students don’t have their own tech to read ebooks
WW – what do you say to people who are taking notes on their phone.
AC – One of the problems with RDA Toolkit is that is on the computer and can’t be scanned through quickly. It’s hard to use the drop-down menus if you don’t hit the plus sign on the menu correctly.
AC – More and more books & CD’s offer program notes and content on the website. What are people doing with that?
(Many are ignoring it.)
JG – and some of the codes are only good for one person, or for a short period of time.
MG – You have to be careful that links don’t break.
AC – They sometimes print things, and she has gone as far as calling the source to find program notes.
AC – What kind of language expertise do we have in this area?
NN – They have romance languages and Chinese.
AC – Romance languages & German if it’s in the dictionary. She did a few items in Slavic languages.
BS – What about Google Translate? It helps a little.
NA – Uses the app where you can take a picture of it in real time.
SENYLRC member catalogers convened on Friday, January 22 to talk about their shared interests and challenges. These are some of the ideas exchanged and best practices we learned about through our discussions together. If you have any questions or recommendations for edits here, please contact Carolyn Bennett Glauda.
Ann Churukian Vassar College
William Worford SUNY - Orange Community College
Nancy Nielson SUNY New Paltz
Bonnie Sgarro Bard College
Judy Gitlin Dominican College
Nina Acosta Mid-Hudson Library System Staff Only
Marla Gruner SUNY - Ulster Community College
Carolyn Bennett Glauda Southeastern NY Library Resources Council