Cataloging Committee meeting – 10/08/2018 @ 11am (PDT) via GoToMeeting
Attending: Dea Nowell—Chairperson (Umatilla Co. SLD); Laurie O’Connor—Recorder (Harney Co. Library); Beth Ross, Jon Georg (Sage System); Lisa Hauner (Oregon Trail LD); Heather Spry, John Brockman (Baker LD); Darlene Johnson, Valeria Gardner (Ontario Community Library); Heather Estrada (Blue Mtn. Community College); Ann Zuehlke); Leeann Baldwin (Hermiston Public Library); Ryan McGinnis (La Grande Public Library)
Minutes from August 6, 2018
There was confusion about which “Heather” had attended the August meeting, as the login for attendance only showed “Heather”. Laurie reported she had since had that cleared up, and Heather Estrada was the cataloger in attendance for August 6. Dea will edit the minutes with that clarification. John Brockman had a question related to the section about “Subject Indexes”. What is the “special search box” that will pertain to adding a children’s index? Beth said that the search box had not been added yet, but is in process. John wondered if this was referring to using the LC subject index for children’s literature, using 6XX 2nd indicator “1”? Beth confirmed that was the intention. Laurie had concerns that with Sage having dropped the use of this index for so many years, now starting to add them and to enable specific searching for this index, patrons would not be truly finding all of the resources available as “children’s literature”. Beth felt that it was worth offering, and that by adding this index from here on, it would gradually improve specialized searching. John suggested that this could be discussed in the coming weeks as we address subject heading policies. Beth added that we have other tools to improve searching options related to juvenile materials, such as shelving locations. Lisa Hauner appreciated the discussion, having avoided importing the children’s index 6XX’s, as formerly recommended through Sage cataloging guidelines.
Motion to approve the minutes was made by Beth Ross; second by John Brockman; all approved.
Election of new Chairperson
Dea Nowell requested nominations for a new Chair to lead the Sage Cataloging Committee. Heather Spry nominated John Brockman, cataloger at Baker District Library. Laurie O’Connor seconded. Dea asked if there were any other nominations; none were presented. Dea asked John if he was willing to take this position, and he agreed to do so. All approved the nomination of John Brockman as Chair of the Cataloging Committee.
Create MARC templates–Beth Ross and Jon Georg
Beth has created some new templates for original cataloging, partly to accommodate libraries needing to add “things” or “realia”. She also created RDA specific templates for those who have trained to catalog using RDA. Catalogers will notice there is a different ordering under the templates, as they are now listed alphabetically. If anyone sees any problems with the templates, please let Beth know.
Upgrade to Evergreen 3.1—Jon Georg and Beth Ross
Jon reported he has done all of the operating system upgrades to all the servers, and needs to do the Postgres updates next. Evergreen update itself is scheduled for next month. He has most of the Sage test server is up, having dealt with numerous issues to get to this point, but he has made a lot of progress with it.
Beth reported they were hoping to use the Sage Test Server to use for training for the new version of EVG. If it is not available, there are other resources available, and she will soon send links to some training videos to help staff get familiar with the new look, and new tools available. There are still a lot of similarities between the web client and the staff client, and we will still have the capability to use them together. This is a big update, but they don’t want anyone to panic, and will offer multiple resources in order to prepare. They will also be offering some trainings using GoToMeeting sessions. The actual update is scheduled for Wednesday, November 14. Laurie asked what had happened to the plan to update on a Sunday, in order to avoid as much interruption as possible? Beth said that Equinox will be doing the actual upgrade this time, and they needed a work week schedule in order to do this efficiently. In the future, Jon and Beth can do future upgrades, which will give us better flexibility to schedule.
Laurie asked about how many wrinkles were expected following this upgrade? Beth felt, and hoped, that many of the bugs reported in the early upgrades by other libraries, will have been worked out by the time Sage upgrades, and that is part of the reason they delayed Sage’s transition for one extra month. Jon and Beth will closely monitor current bug reports to prevent as many problems as possible.
Books with CD (“Read Alongs), update training—Anna Lim
Anna was not in attendance, so Dea explained that these are the items that Sage used to treat as “kits”. Anna has worked hard to create new guidelines, and has a target date for training on the first Thursday in November (Nov 1). Laurie asked if the other catalogers in attendance knew the Sage history of incorrectly cataloging “books with audio” items as kits, and why the mentors were now working to correctly catalog? Have any catalogers looked at their holdings to determine how the new policy will work, or how it will help patrons to conveniently identify these items? Lisa is trying to change her collection, as information comes out. Dea brought up an example of a bib to demonstrate changes in bibliographic entries, The Carnival of Animals by Prelutsky. Because it has the audio component, the record must have a 007, along with the book information in the 006 and 008. It gets a new GMD $h(Book with CD). The 999, has both $eBook and $eAudiobook CD. Heather Spry asked if we weren’t supposed to enter a 690 (local note) as well? Beth explained that both icons for spoken word and text will appear when both proper 336 fields are added to RDA records. This will really help patrons and staff alike. Any catalogers with questions can contact the mentors with questions, and the training and upcoming “cheat sheets” will soon be available.
Series documentation
Dea reported the mentors hope to have this documentation finalized and available by the end of this month, and should be presented at the December Cataloging Committee meeting. After several edits and revisions, the only issues that remain would be enhancing the information of graphic/manga and then to improve the final format of the document. Training will follow.
Other discussion
Beth asked if catalogers notice any Sage series “authorities” that are out of date when checking LOC, please notify Beth, and she can download the current authority record. Heather has reported such problems.
Laurie asked if Beth has found a new contract for our authority vendor, as LTI is going out of business? Beth said she is looking, but had not yet selected a new vendor. Laurie asked if the mentors could review potential vendors and their flexibility before Beth selects. Beth agreed that would be good.
Laurie asked if catalogers had any other concerns or questions. Is anyone seeing a lot of duplicates? Dea reported that she did she quite a few, and many in new records. Is this part of the problem with our periodic “search voids”? Beth reported that she and Jon have worked extensively with Equinox trying to locate the source of these search problems. Their recommended next step was to upgrade the software, which will happen with the move to EVG 3.1. Laurie felt these “misses” were still happening from time to time, and wondered if there was any chance that this is a problem with our server? Could it be inadequate? Beth said Equinox has looked at that, and they fell the server has enough capacity. Hopefully, so many tables will be rebuilt with the next upgrade, that we may resolve the issue. Jon reported that there are enough things that will be changing, that could have been the source of the problem, that the upgrade could resolve this. We will revisit and troubleshoot following the upgrade. It is not clear what the problem is, since it is such a sporadic issue, it has been hard to pinpoint the problem. Dea reminded catalogers that they should report these search problems when they occur, and acknowledged Jon has been very good about immediately responding and restarting the server when needed.
Next meeting will be held December 3, 2018, at 11 a.m., with John Brockman leading the meeting.
Many congratulated John on his appointment, and thanked Dea for all the work she has done as Chair for the past several years.
Meeting adjourned at 11:45
Recording of meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtL1cRrmyyY