Cataloging Committee Meeting
Monday, August 3, 2015 at 11am (PDT)
via GoToMeeting software
Attending: John Brockman (Baker Co. LD), Valeria Gardner (Ontario Comm.), Molly Hamlin (Planetree), Tracy Hayes (Lake Co.), Darlyne Johnson (Ontario Comm.), Beth Longwell (Sage), Joyce McCurdy (Ontario Comm.), Dea Nowell – Recorder (Umatilla Co. SLD), Laurie O’Connor (Harney Co.), David Sale (Sage), Sarah Samuels – Chair (Hood River Co. LD), Jenny Simpson (Nyssa), Catherine Wick (Pendleton), Carmen Wickam (Baker Co.).
The meeting was started at 11:00 am by Sarah Samuels.
Discussion/Approval June 2015 Cataloging Committee Minutes: Dea noted she had received some updates in terms of attendance after sending out the drafted minutes. These have been updated though were not reflected in what went with notice of this meeting. David moved to accept the minutes, as presented, with the updated attendees. Catherine seconded the motion. The minutes were approved.
Old Business:
Website update (Beth, David): Beth reported she has made changes to the Cataloging Committee page and added the minutes. She also noted that she added the patron survey results to the Cataloging Committee page. David reported that he has been posting the (weekly) Cataloging Tip on the website. He also noted that he would like to get more use of the forum area. Beth & David will get some topics started and instructions out as to how the forums work. Sarah asked if there were any questions regarding any of this. David noted that we need to move the list of OCLC and system codes to the Resources section. Beth stated she’d add it to her notes of things to add to the website.
Training update (David): David reported that the trainings went great (recent ones in the Gorge area and in Pendleton). The southeast area has stated preference for a September training. The trainings are covering original cataloging techniques, getting people comfortable with resources (such as the Sage website, etc.), and other things not covered in the Nebraska training. Meanwhile he has put up a presentation on the YouTube channel with some of this information from these trainings. And will be following up with another one. He noted that the batch import section does not contain the new method of same day download.
David noted that maybe an item of future business could be establishing requirements to be a level 1 cataloger. He has collected some course work on original cataloging and some YouTube videos that may be helpful. The main thing is how long do we want someone to work as level 2 (copy cataloger), working there before moving up without a Masters — he noted he has no real firm opinion on this, however at least 90 days (on the job experience) would be good. Laurie noted this was a great suggestion and recommended putting on the top on the next meeting agenda to give time for adequate discussion. This is not clearly defined currently in the Cataloging policy.
New Business:
Committee chair replacement (Sarah & Christina): Sarah noted that she is hoping someone will be willing and/or interested in moving into this position next meeting or she could do the next meeting. Laurie suggested we discussion this on the email list.
“New standards sections” (David): Sarah noted she is not sure what this is. David stated that one area in the grant is that the standards manual be reworked to incorporate RDA. He has been working to summarize some of the RDA toolkit, mostly in regarding original cataloging. He has written a few thousand words to describe the theory, etc., though this is not currently on the website as Beth was concerned that these would be assumed as documentation regarding currently accepted practice. Beth noted that it is not currently on the website, but in a separate book. She could make it available or have a comparison piece side by side with current standards, which she hasn’t finished yet. She will put up as a draft and we can start working through it in coming meetings. Sarah asked that catalogers please try to look through at least the first sections prior to the next meeting. Laurie suggested small sections with multiple reminders as to access for this information, such as possibly a forum topic? David suggested we need to send the login information out again, as he found at some of the trainings that not everyone had seen the original login and password information. Laurie asked if we are tracking how many are accessing the website? Beth noted that we are not. Dea asked that we please not limit discussion or decision on any of this in the forums or via email, but bring it to the Cataloging Committee Meetings where people have set time aside, or there may be some that don’t get involved in the discussion that should be involved.
Search relevancy (Laurie): Laurie brought up the weighting of searches for relevancy based on the information presented at the most recent Evergreen International Conference. Beth noted that many of the ideas had to do with additional indexes. And also noted about relevancy looking at words in total records, and how the brief records in our system are coming back with a higher percentage because of fewer words in the record. There has been work done on brief records, which is ongoing. She asked if there were specific issues? It was noted that the number one weight should be author and title — which they currently are. Beth noted that she will look at weights again. Some discussion occurred regarding possibly lowering the weight of summaries and contents. David noted he has been trying to urge people to move away from adding anthologies in the 505 and pushing this information further down in the records into the 7xx fields, etc. It was noted that this could solve some things, however it doesn’t solve issues with relevancy in weights of records currently in the system. Laurie noted that she is still getting a lot of empty bibs and not sure why (30-40% in every search) — both in the Harney Co. scope and Sage-wide. Beth asked Laurie (and others) to please send examples of search terms for follow-up so she can determine why and how this is occurring. Beth noted it may have to do with no items attached but volumes still being there. Dea asked if everyone knew how to view volumes for all the libraries in holdings maintenance? David will send out a blog post regarding how to do this.
Survey results (Beth): Beth noted that we can find the patron survey results on the website under Cataloging Committee > Patron Survey Results. They have begun to work on some things that came up in the survey such as series and summaries. Also, Beth and Brent have added more help instructions on the website, like how to get into the patron account. Sarah asked of there were any things that factor into the grant. Beth noted that yes, we would need to do the survey again to show improvement and that we will probably need to talk about specifics of how, such as do we want to repeat the questions and compare exact data, etc. Sarah asked everyone to please look at the results on their own and if you have specifics to discuss to let her know and they can be added to a future meeting. David noted that there were also some things that can be added by catalogers that were brought out in the survey, such as genre and summaries, etc.
Meeting was adjourned at 11:51 am (PDT).
Next meeting: Monday, October 5, 2015, at 11 am (PDT) – via GoToMeeting software.