Nancy asked that those who get the monthly cataloging statistics that she produces get togther and decide exactly what the statistics should report and how they should be formatted. A taskforce will be set up to discuss this and get back with Nancy about it.
Zora talked with John Haar recently about the procedures for notification to TS when titles are added to the electronic journals database. John said that the procedure is in place for this, but he will remind the bibliographers about it. Zora also reminded the catalogers to look for order records for these when cataloging them. Catalogers then need to send a note to Chris Waldrop when the title is cataloged. RSIG members agreed that this whole procedure needs to be looked at again and a task force will probably be set up soon to do that. The task force would ideally involve bibliographers as well as TS staff.
Roberta received a message from OCLC saying that our 100 sample records are now in the queue to be processed. There was some discussion about what this actually means. It was decided that what it probably means is that the records have gone through the analysis portion of the process and are now in the queue to be run against the OCLC database to find matching records. Peg expressed concern with Annex space being used for the inventory. The RS inventory items will have to be shifted soon while the Annex staff is busy with several other big transfer projects. Peg suggested that at some point there needs to be some discussion about how the inventory is being kept. Zora asserted that the inventory is not growing, so should not be as big a problem in the future. Peg was not sure that this is the case, so she will start keeping statistics of material coming and going out of the inventory to see what the extent of the growth, if there is any. Roberta suggested that Annex put off shifting this material until we hear back from OCLC about their being able to reduce the number of inventory items. Peg agreed to do this.
It has been discovered that there are a number of records in Acorn with NONE as the first of the call number. These were converted from NOTIS and some are not shadowed. These are confusing records in many ways in that they have no 951/952 fields and do not seem to have real copies. Roberta will request through RMS that Nancy try to run a report to find all of these and once we see how many there are, we can decide how to handle them.
A new item type of FRAGILE has been set up for items that are too damaged or fragile to circulate out of the Annex. Peg or the circ staff of the libraries will have the responsibility of identifying items that fall into this category and changing the item type on the records. This will be done at the point that the material is requested. Sue suggested that there be some training involved and perhaps a checklist written up to follow in making the decision on whether an item should be considered fragile. Peg, Jim Toplon, Sue and Flo will get together to discuss this and other issues related to the preservation of these materials and their content.
Zora -- Don is inundated with French and Italian titles. Rich is doing the Quatemalen books and maps that Paula Covington purchased on her trip. These include maps that will be on one record and have around 500 call records attached to it. Zora said that Rich had checked with Nancy about whether or not Acorn would be able to handle such a large record. Nancy was under the impression that the number of calls would only be around 50, so Zora will check with Rich again and make sure of the number of calls. If it is over 500, then Nancy will need to check with Dale to see if it will cause any problems. Zora asked that any boxes coming to the catalogers containing rush books be clearly marked RUSH on the outside of the box so that it will get opened immediately in cataloging. Mary Ellen asked if the boxes could also contain some non-rush items and Zora said that that would be ok. Mary Charles has been approved for telecommuting and will begin as soon as her computer is configured by LITS. The computer is on its way to them now.
Sue -- reported that their new employee Pat Skipper is doing very well. They are current with receiving returned bound monographs. And things are moving faster since the bindery has begun doing the stripping of the books. Charlotte Lew will be on vacation for 21/2-3 weeks, so Preservation will be short-staffed during that time. Sue has been working on the review of the Biderman collection. Some of these will be going to Special Collections. Peter Brush wants to meet with Sue to discuss the current Central Periodicals binding process.
Mary Ellen -- Orders have slowed down drastically and the bibliographers have been urged to start sending in more now instead of waiting until closer to the end of the fiscal year. Several Order Services staff will be attending the session on the Distance Learning program that will be held during TLA. A series verification training session for Order Services has been set up for the week after next. Ann Ercelawn will be doing the training.
Nancy -- the subfield w's that were showing up in the 240 fields of some converted records have been edited out. It turned out that this was a field that had been used in the past by OCLC, but is no longer a valid field. A new holdings code has been created for the Music library's juvenile collection. The code is MUS-JCOL and Nancy has updated the staff webpages to reflect the addition of this new code. Nancy worked with Peg, Clint and Anne Laws to make sure that all periodicals housed at the Annex were set to non-circ except for Divinity and Science library materials. Dale gave a demo of iLink to CAAG this past Monday. Caag has requested that the use of the E-SERIAL item type be investigated. It was found that there are still Biomed and Law records that have this item type, so we are not able to delete it until a decision is made on whether to continue to use it or not. Anne Laws has been working with the Family Resource Center who will be adding some 500 records to Acorn under the VU-CENTERS library. These records will be shadowed for now. On May 1st some of the libraries will begin to circulate laptops. Anne Laws and Nancy will be adding only one record to Acorn for all of these and then call records for each laptop that will contain the serial numbers. This record will not be shadowed. Susan -- still working on textbooks for Education but she is almost caught up. Zora and Susan are talking about using some of Jeff's time to help with the e-journal project that Ann Ercelawn is working on since the new Music cataloger will be doing the cataloging that Jeff has been doing so far.
Susan -- still working on textbooks for Education but she is almost caught up. Zora and Susan are talking about using some of Jeff's time to help with the e-journal project that Ann Ercelawn is working on since the new Music cataloger will be doing the cataloging that Jeff has been doing so far.
Peg -- new construction has begun in the downstairs of the Annex. Has been a very hectic time with many visitors and several big transfer projects. During the Central transfer project a title was discovered that had no record on Acorn, so Annex staff are being vigilant about checking material as it is being handled to catch others that have no Acorn records. Clint will be adding the records for these if they are monographs. Serials will be sent to Cataloging to be processed.
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Next meeting will be April 10th.
Minutes submitted by Nancy Boggess-Korekach.