LAUC-R Membership Meeting

March 14, 2006 Minutes

Science Library, Room 240 2:00-4:00 p.m.

 

Members Present: Diane Bisom, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Marie Bronoel, Kuei Chiu, Ken Furuta, Margaret Hogarth, Heidi Hutchinson, Sylvia Hu, Rhonda Neugebauer, Lynne Reasoner, Debbi Renfrow, David Rios, Sharon Scott, Ying Shen, Gayatri Singh, Emily Stambaugh, Michael Yonezawa

 

Minutes:

1.       Meeting called to order 2:03 p.m.

2.       Agenda. Accepted as amended.

3.       Introduce and welcome new LAUC members: Diane Bisom and Gayatri Singh.

4.       Minutes for the LAUC-R General Membership meeting November 8, 2005 were approved as accepted.

5.       Discussion of the Bibliographic Services Task Force Report.

Discussion items:

Create a single catalog interface for all of UC

II.1a: Create a single catalog interface for both local and system wide collections. Engage in a system wide planning process to identify the appropriate mechanism for implementing such a vision

Discussion in 2 directions:

1.       Single catalog interface for all UC holdings, no matter what ILS is used by each campus.

Deduplication, clean up and reducing the catalog to 1 catalog record per item is a massive project.

Local campus functions would be maintained in-house.

2.       All UC libraries operate on the same ILS system

Includes peripheral activities.

This would be a single file of records. This concept is not endorsed at this time.

Discussion:

It's possible that an ILS could be developed for the UC system.

If we went outside, do we want to use the existing ILS, OCLC, or go to someone new?

There is very strong support for one catalog for all 10 UCs. Cooperative CD.

Common Interface

The purpose is to combine all holdings records into 1 step.

How would this interface compare to Melvyl?

It is said that this will work the way Melvyl was supposed to work.

Can't cleanup be done with what we have?

Why keep the catalog separate? Why not combine all resources?

Who will this benefit?

Who is this supposed to benefit?

We have a wide variety of users: high school -> PhDs.

There is the drive to make catalogs more Google-like.

There may be a limit by location function and default to UCR.

A single interface will reduce slogging, but will a single interface cause confusion rather than benefit users?

There is concern that we might be dumbing things down.

What is the limit of doing this? Why not simply search OCLC?

The bibliography is based on what users want. User studies are not emphasized.

Practice

70% of our collections are duplicated at each UC. The report emphasizes economies of scale.

Cost savings are cited as a major impetus, but could be disguised as beneficial at a loss of quality and local customization.

There are many peripheral issues.

Differences in cataloging practices would need to be solved.

It helps to know context. Large projects need consensus.

There is no consensus, and consensus is difficult to achieve.

Our organizational responsiveness – we are lacking methods to gather comments, gather consensus.

All campuses may not contribute to Melvyl in the same way.

How will this impact Link+?

Philosophy

Single interface is not too different from what we used to have. De-duping is a huge project.

Appendix A, C: state the reasons for the report.

Does Melvyl really meet needs?

This isn't about re-writing interfaces.

Are our systems helping us to provide the services we want to provide?

What principles and systems allow us to provide the services our patrons need?

How can we work smarter?

We need to focus architecture on service.

We need to facilitate self-service and provide tools that can expand or contract to meet users' needs.

Will this be tying systems together on one page or will it be one tool?

This report is trying to get a sense of which pieces are the most critical and what is missing.

There are many ways to do these; this is a long, involved process.

Metadata and preservation

New resources are being developed that delve into digital archives. They pull up results from multiple sources.

A unified practice for metadata is needed, including ways of developing subject categories and description.

This proposal suggests importing metadata from various sources, reducing personally-created metadata. This model could focus staff expertise in needed areas.

Harvested metadata needs organization.

Libraries organize and preserve information for users. How will we preserve these resources? This component is missing.

 

Rearchitect cataloging workflow

III.1a: View UC cataloging as a single enterprise, eliminating duplication and local variability in practice, agreeing on a single set of policies, sharing expertise, and maximizing efficiency. Engage in a system wide planning process to identify the appropriate mechanism for implementing such a vision.

There are 3 architecture options:

1.       The catalog as a shared central file with a single copy of each bibliographic record

2.       A single ILS for the UCs

3.       Use OCLC as a UC database of record for bibliographic data.

Other options:

Condense cataloging into 1 or 2 cataloging centers.

Advantages: This model would focus expertise such as language

Catalogers are rare. Retirements impact staffing. This model could offset these trends.

Disadvantages: The logistics; it is costly to transport items.

What about Collection Development or Acquisitions?

Campuses would lose flexibility to create localized information in records. People like this.

This option requires more research and thought, and will take a long time to implement.

Could we all follow the same principles? What will be the impetus to agree to do this? Bigger campuses?

Cooperative efforts aren't always successful.

2 cataloging centers make it easier to agree than 10 cataloging centers.

Would this affect staffing levels? Only concern: job loss.

Ohio or Illinois have this model. Bibliographic services, cooperative collection, and a preservation agreement (affects weeding), govern duplication within the system. Exceptions must be justified.

Outsourcing more is an option.

Philosophy:

There is a common perception that cataloging is the drain on library resources and technical services is the hole in the budget.

Architect is not a verb.

This is challenging intellectual work, with opportunities to collectively think.

It's harder to recruit and train catalogers, at the same time we're collecting materials that need cataloging expertise.

Brief cataloging records aren't sufficient; we need enriched metadata.

MARC format?

Does MARC meet the needs? It is a communication standard. There are other formats. Tie the format to services we need to provide.

Use a level of description that may not be MARC.

We can't put off doing cooperative efforts any longer.

Cataloging is being raised as an important activity to make this happen.

Unless the UCs do something about the 70% collection overlap, it will cost a fortune to pursue shared collections initiatives.

Campuses aren't willing to give up uniqueness.

UCs don't have the tools to find collection overlaps. The tools are supplied from outside our system; we don't have the necessary metadata.

80% of the materials in our collections are easy; they are in OCLC. 20% need local catalogers. These items are difficult to catalog.

Redundancies have given 6 of 10 UC libraries ARL status, or are increasing in rank.

Duplication isn't always a negative thing; some duplication is needed. Sometimes it is required by faculty.

 

III.4d: Change the processing workflow from “Acquire-Catalog-Put on Shelf” to “Acquire-Put on Shelf with existing metadata-Begin ongoing metadata enhancement process through iterative automated query of metadata sources.”

 

What this means:

Now: we order, get a book, catalog, put on shelf.

If we changed the processing workflow: order, get a book, put on shelf.

Use metadata that came with the item. At a later time, we would go back and enhance records with further data.

Discussion:

This is a backlog waiting to happen.

In recent discussions, this has little support.

In reality is this a suggestion to do minimal cataloging?

If there aren't records, Cataloging would quickly create a record and insert a call number. Elements would be missing.

Automate creation of metadata.

Quality, accuracy could be a problem.

Vendor supplied MARC or other records. Quality is an issue.

What priority do you give to fixing poor records vs. cataloging local stuff?

What is our toleration level?

The report is dramatic and captured our attention.

What the Report doesn't address:

We're looking at it in a vacuum.

It is purely from tech services point of view.

A huge shift in how we look at everything: information literacy, instruction, reference is needed.

A paradigm shift is required, a larger vision, not just a change in cataloging.

 

Cost savings or efficiency shouldn't even be in this report.

Costs can't be estimated, but cleanup will be very expensive and time-consuming.

There are many legitimate problems in the catalog. Not enough time to fix it.

How would these be solved by what's mentioned in this report?

Exporting records system to system difficult. We have millions of records.

 

LAUC-R General Meeting Rankings:

1,5  Offer better navigation of large sets of search results (5)

1,1 Provide users with direct access to item (3)

2.1 Create a single catalog interface for all of UC (3)

3.3 Manually enrich metadata in important areas (2)

1.4 Offer alternative actions for failed or suspect searches (2)

1.3 Support customization/personalization (2)

2.2 Support searching across the entire bibliographic information space (3)

4 Supporting Continuous Improvement (1)

4 a Institutionalize an ongoing process of identifying and prioritizing improvements to our bibliographic services, in such a way that we get more than incremental improvements. (1)

 

Ranking individual recommendations:

1.1 a or 1.1 b?

1.1 a

 

1,5 a or 1.5 b or 1.5 c?

1.5 a

1.5 b

 

2.2 a or 2.2 b?

 

6.       Meeting adjourned at 3:50 p.m.

Prepared by Margaret Hogarth