Data Standards Meeting
Richland Community College
May 8, 2002
The meeting was called to order at 9:30 a.m. Members present included
Karla Johnson, Deb DeJarnette, Gisela Mozukus , Karen Anderson, Jennie
Alexander, Tammy Schnell, Bev Hackney, Patsy Walters Shirley Ackerman
and Cathy Marx.
The first item of business under the heading of “Old Business” was a
reminder about the Rolling Prairie Library System Technology Committee
surveys. Although the original due date was last week, the committee
determined that to be soft date and will still accept surveys through
tomorrow (May 9, 2002).
Next item included information about the De-dup program. To the best of
anyone’s knowledge the program has finished running. However, Cathy has
noticed several duplicates due to the duplicate 020 fields. This is due
to the local practice (as in RPLS ILSAP) of attaching paperback books
with hardcover ones.
Karla Johnson and Tammy suggested that maybe local cataloging practices
need to be reviewed/examined especially for the future as we (DRAgon)
become part of larger databases. Global implications need to be taken
into consideration. The standards should be consistent with other
library systems’ ILSAPs and statewide compliance.
The data standards manual on-line has been updated with the changes
through November, 2001. With everything else that has been going on,
this is understandable. Patience needs to be executed in this
situation.
The update from the governing board meeting included Cathy reading the
minutes and information was passed along including the Illinois Century
Network funding, the De-dup program, Live ‘N Learn grants, and what
happens after Diane Kovacs fulfills her training contract. The next
governing board meeting will be on June 6th.
That lead us right into New Business. The Data Standards committee
along with the Training, and Technology Committees has been asked to
develop a plan for what happens when Diane Kovacs training ends. The
potential change in software implications need to be taken into
account. Lots and lots of discussion regarding training and follow-up
training need to built into the contract with the next potential system
vendor. Possible system vendors to look at include SIRSI, Ex-Libris,
Endeavor, and Innovative.
This committee and its members have been charged with bringing a needs
and concerns list back to the next month’s meeting regarding training.
New business included trying to anticipate what the future holds.
Discussion ensued about developing criteria for potential changes in the
next software. Our ideas will be forwarded to the Technology
Committee. One of the trends Cathy Marx sees in libraries is the use of
volunteers as opposed to paid staff to do cataloging. However, one of
the benefits of the newer integrated cataloging system is the work is
done off of drop down menu type scenarios making it easier to do
cataloging.
Which then led us into a lively discussion about creating a form of
cataloging centers. The consensus of the group is that more information
needs to be made available about the cataloging center concept. One
model to the north of us includes a nominal fee for each item entered.
The library is allowed (on a local level) to enter three fields in order
to circulate the item. Then a disk is sent to the third party so that
the record can be expanded.
Tammy asked about if it is possible to make an exception to delete all
900 fields. Would it be possible to leave in the 936 fields? Basically
this field shows the catalogers that the serials record has been looked
at. This will become a mandatory field after this summer.
Cathy suggested discussion of the 900 fields be tabled until final
status of the de-dup program is determined. How serials are handled
becomes important in moving toward the future.
The final discussion was about the SmarTerm problems which have appeared
on the recent listserve. After reading some of the postings, Cathy
encouraged one and all to submit their helpful hints publicly.
Meeting ended at noon. The next meeting is scheduled June 12th, at
Richland Community College.