RSIG Minutes from Thursday, Jan. 11, 2001

Present: Susan Bell, Zora Breeding, Sue Davis, Peggy Earheart, Monica Sanchez, Mary Ellen Wilson, Roberta Winjum.

The first two items on the agenda were tabled because Nancy was absent and the discussion could not progress without LTT representation. The first item was to do with Holdings codes and the second with pseudo patrons. Peg will make a list of pseudo patron records that need clean-up in preparation for the actual discussion of this agenda item.

Best time for upgrade to Unicorn 2000. While we initially said that this item would also have to be tabled, the group did discuss to some extent. Group members, especially Sue, Mary Ellen and Monica were of the opinion that Spring Break was too soon to schedule the upgrade. They believe that training issues for OS and Preservation teams would take significant training and preparation. Even greater concern was raised for end of the semester. OS strongly objects to an upgrade at that time before the end of the fiscal year.

Processing of replacement copies. CAT reports that we have implemented the new gift replacement procedure that Zora wrote and posted to the web a couple of weeks ago. It seems to be going fine.

Second copies for Dewey collection books. This topic came up when Yuh-Fen was processing a second copy of something in Dewey. She was getting conflicting information. The copy catalogers had always sent such copies to Maintenance, while the catalogers processed the copy by assigning an LC number. Peg asked that OS send such Dewey idents directly to Maintenance and Maintenance would assign the LC number and also follow up on whether to remove the old copy and if it was not removed, they reassign it to LC.

Central serials binding (Machelle and Jo’s recommendation). Machelle Keen and Jo Bilyeu met to discuss the current process for binding of new unbound serials and wrote a proposal to alter this procedure somewhat. Currently, all Central unbound serials come to B/M for labeling before being routed to Jo. Jo is the person who determines the binding pattern for new serials, and apparently for existing titles as well. The binding pattern she selects gets input into LARS by B/M. The new proposal is that Machelle will communicate to Chris Waldrop when a new binding pattern is submitted and Chris will note the control record with the appropriate information so that future issues will be routed with this information. New titles will continue to be routed with the flag to route to Jo for binding decision. A correction to the existing workflow is that the serials which currently get a flag that calls for mylar binding will be corrected, since this is no longer valid information for some of these titles. Sue will make some changes we discussed to Machelle and Jo’s document and then post it to the web. Roberta recognized the initiative displayed by Machelle and Jo in identifying a procedure that needed improvement and taking steps to come up with a recommendation. [Sue adds: There have been some additional conversations about this issue following RSIG. What I said at RSIG turned out not to be nearly as straightforward as I thought. While we were limiting our discussion at RSIG to Central serial titles, it turns out many of the MYLAR BIND notes also pertain to Science titles. It seems we need to deal with the binding decision (if we know of one) at the title-by-title level. To that end, I asked Machelle to work with Chris as she discovers any problems, no matter what library.]

Music cataloging. A change in the way Music materials were routed to cataloging (they all started to come addressed to Norma) created the impression in cataloging that the amount of materials was more than could be absorbed by cataloging. However, the CAT team figured out that it was a routing issue and resolved the situation within cataloging workflow so that it is no longer a problem. CAT consolidated the material waiting to be sent to Flourish and created a space for new materials which will be processed by all of those currently assigned to working on Music materials.

Heard Research Databases Classification Project. Peg raised the question whether the bibliographers were taking over what used to be an RS task by assigning the subjects to the database of e-resources records. RS had agreed at one time to the proposal by the Web Task Force that this sort of information would be stored in the Marc record in 9xx fields created for this purpose. At the time, it was thought that the database records would be able to be extracted from Acorn. However, it has since become apparent that this model would not work well for the libraries’ needs and the bibliographers will be modifying the database records instead of providing information for input into the Marc record. The e-resource database will allow users to create subject guides dynamically by searching the subject terms assigned to the e-resource. These subject terms are not LC-type subjects but correspond more nearly to general areas of study. It was suggested that perhaps the group needs a refresher on the current status of the project.

Big Marcive bibload report—what gives? Zora noticed that over 1000 records had been processed by Marcive on Tues. Jan. 2. It was about 1000 records larger than a normal load. No pattern was found and no large tapeloads had been processed. Zora also reported that she had noticed that records from 12/15-1/4 all had two 035 fields – indicating that they had been sent to Marcive twice (the 035 field is added when the record is harvested to be sent to Marcive). She wondered if this meant that we had been billed for all of these records twice and if it had something to do with the large Marcive bibload report. Roberta reported that Dale was working on it and she would check with him. [Nancy has since forwarded a message that Dale found the problem with the large bibload report. It was due to an error in the script and it has been fixed. However, another large Marcive bibload was processed on Tues. Jan. 16 containing 2010 records, but this happened before the script was fixed]

Updates from members:

Roberta reported on several topics:

• Implementation of new binding policy for Central paperbacks. The new procedures have been implemented. Dennis Sauls is fine with the change in box labeling. Stats are being kept.
• The EBSCO invoice was loaded yesterday and OS is reviewing and cleaning up the errors. Dale Poulter should be recognized as a national hero, or at least an RS one. By figuring out how to load this automatically, he has saved OS at least a month’s worth of work
• We will be getting netLibrary records through our Solinet consortium for $116.
• Roberta wrote up recommendations on how to cover Marilyn’s duties.
• The committee Roberta chairs is working on howt to eliminate BFAS. They had their first meeting on Mon. Jan. 8. The first action item is to find out from Accounting and MIS what data they need in order to interface with Acorn.
• Roberta, Monica, Rita, Mary Ellen, and Chris visited Ingram. The visit was worth their time. They were impressed with the quality of the information they heard and the people they met. Ingram may be able to help significantly with the Leisure reading collection. Staff orders using iPage do not need the 6 digit title code, only the ISBN. A user id and password are being tested by several library staff. Discounts are very good. Ingram has 60,000 university press titles and are major suppliers for Amazon.com and even Blackwell.

Sue reported:

• The Divinity microfilming project through Solinet on Southern Methodism has begun pulling books from the entire collection to be microfilmed. Apparently there are records being created for the microfilm versions and we are being billed for them although it would be our normal practice to add microfilm holdings to the existing Acorn print records. Flo is looking into the matter.
• Binding shipments from Science are heavy.
• Sue has been added to the Photo Archives Digitizing Project.

Monica/Mary Ellen reported:

• OS is catching up from the Holidays. Absences continue to be heavy. Kathy Ma is on emergency leave for at least another 4 weeks.
• Applications are arriving for Dan’s position.
• There is a backlog of Collection Manager books. Firm Orders are in better shape. Approvals are also backlogged.
• Orders are in good shape, although there are a few left from December.
• Yan-Xia is almost finished with her training process. Gina Berry is beginning to be incorporated into the rotation.

Peg reported:

• She has been heavily involved in building concerns. Nashville water main breaks caused flooding in the basement (twice). They have had emergency enhancements such as pumps, hoses, generators.
• Annex is preparing for the Biomedical Library to store some of their materials there.
• Leonore is working with Central transfers. Joe is busy with the B and D shelves and working in new transfers, which involves some shifting. Linda is working with the new Helguera transfers. Clint has been working with Jean Wright on the sudocs project.

Zora/Susan reported:

• Zora gave an update on the Helguera project. The last boxes were received from the Annex and have been initially processed. Most monographic material has been cataloged. Pete had to wait until the initial processing was complete to begin working on the Helguera serials (since they arrived piecemeal). He expects to be finished by the end of this month. There are still materials awaiting collection decisions from Paula.
• Susan reports that the Cox Grant has been largely spent out. Curriculum lab materials have been heavy and Susan has met with Education staff on related issues.

Minutes submitted by Zora Breeding.