Sage Cataloging Committee Minutes – February 11, 2019
Attendance: John Brockman—Facilitator (Baker LD; Beth (Longwell) Ross— (Sage System); Jon Georg (Sage System); Lisa Hauner (OTLD); Anna Lim (Hood River); Tracy Hayes (Lake County); Heather Spry, (Baker LD); Marsha Richmond (KFCC); Recorder—Laurie O’Connor (Harney County Library).
Chairperson John Brockman delayed the start of the meeting five minutes to allow for late attendees, as region was inundated with bad weather. During this pause, he asked attendees and catalogers throughout Sage to please respond to his straw poll seeking to determine whether catalogers preferred first or second Mondays of even-numbered months for Cataloging Committee meetings. (The Sage Cataloging mentors had suggested we switch from the first Monday to the second Monday, as it would help prepare the CC agendas if they always followed mentor meetings, first Wednesdays of every month.)
Meeting minutes – December 3, 2018: Laurie asked if the 505 indexing has been resolved, and if the “mobile bug” preventing logins was fixed. Beth reported the 505 indexing is functional. Beth and Jon may be doing some training in order to install upcoming upgrades 3.1.7 and 3.1.8, and .9, in order to get some of these “fixes” to resolve issues such as the mobile login. John asked if the use of the staff client would be an option to the web client all of the way through the 3.2 upgrade? Beth confirmed this. Having no more questions regarding December minutes, a motion to approve was made (could not identify who); seconded by Beth Ross; all approved.
Mentors’ reports/Communication/Trainings—
The mentors have been concentrating on reviewing the monthly “New Bib Reports”, which is run by Beth at the end of every month as a way to determine where cataloging problems exist, and to help design upcoming trainings and specific outreach to struggling catalogers. All catalogers who have questions or problems should reach out to their regional mentors, all of whom are ready and willing to help them with specific problem items or general cataloging skills. Please communicate with your mentor, and if the mentors contact you with specific problems originating from your library, do not consider this an “assault”. We are all trying to improve the database, and to reduce overwhelming cleanup work. Everyone who has permissions to import and edit bibs has a responsibility to meet necessary standards, and to seek training or assistance when needed. Beth
John Brockman asked Beth if she was still doing “Drop-In Trainings” related to the new Evergreen Web Client. Beth said she was planning on scheduling these, but has been too busy. She will resume soon. John said he has found some features of the new Web Client work very well; others do not.
Series Document—Anna Lim
Mentors have been trying to outline best practices for series and preparing this new document for over a year, and Anna has worked very hard to deliver a very thorough outline for catalogers to follow in order to have consistent records on Sage. There will be trainings related to this document in a few weeks, and the document will be posted on the Sage Web this week for catalogers to use. Anna pointed out the mentors designed this document to be of help for both advanced and intermediate catalogers, and the goal was to prevent inconsistencies in bibliographic series’ entries. It will be available in PDF and HTML, and Anna recommended that using a color print option will greatly enhance the document’s clarity.
Anna pointed out basic outline of the new Cataloging Series document, starting with a table of contents, and warned catalogers that there is still a lot of work to be done to update and correct old series’ problems and inconsistencies. But catalogers should use the new guidelines as they add new records, and please contact mentors with any questions or corrections they find. She also pointed out that Beth has now made it possible to see all of the 8XX series statements at the top of the OPAC entry, whereas we could only see one before this improvement. We will be offering training related to series sometime after early March, but catalogers should try to use the new document and to send us questions and suggestions before that time.
Beth added that we would be also launching a document on the Sage Web that would clarify numerical guidelines for certain series that have conflicts in various sources. Anna also mentioned catalogers should be aware that some series will require more than one way to trace, and examples are in the document. As we all work with this document, Beth and Jon will work to improve functions in the catalog to better display and search our series for patrons. Subfields ($p for example) in 8XX will soon be able to display, so proper use of these should be used from now on.
*[We had several instances with audio problems during this session of GoToMeeting, so several comments made by several participants were never heard by the attending group.]
We discussed several series that still need “corrections” on our database, and the mentors are tracking these through a special shared list. Catalogers can send examples of confusing or incorrect series entries to the mentors for addition.
John pointed out the important list of series information sources. There is a special section for graphic and manga, which still has some intricacies needing special attention.
New Web Client report—John Brockman
There are a few problems still needing fixes on the new web client, including printing, copy alerts, and batch imports. Beth said the batch import works, but there are issues if catalogers try to use the MARC Batch Edit on imports, changes will not come through. Printing will be addressed in the upcoming updates (likely 3.2); for now, an extension (Hatch) must be used, and it has mixed performance. Copy Alert messages do not display in the Staff Client, but will display on the Web Client. Staff should continue to add their alerts, as they are still “there”, and will have new features once you convert to the new Web Client.
Other items—
Laurie asked catalogers attending whether they had any questions or concerns to discuss? No comments.
Laurie reported staff at Harney County Library is looking forward to some trainings related to using the new Web Client. If anyone has suggestions for trainings, please contact Beth at blongwel@eou.edu Beth wants to encourage catalogers to send questions out on the Sage Cataloging List! We are all here as resources for each other.
Meeting adjourned at 11:55. Recording available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjvB1yAou6s&feature=youtu.be
Next scheduled Cataloging Committee Meeting – April 1 @ 11am (PDT) via GoToMeeting