Cataloging Committee Meeting Minutes
Monday, October 1, 2012 @ 11am (PDT)
(via telephone conference call)
Attending: Katrina Gaines (EOU), Valerie Gardner (Ontario Comm.), Jayne Guidinger (The Dalles-Wasco Co.), Molly Hamlin (Planetree Health Resource Center), Darlyne Johnson (Ontario Comm.), Beth Longwell – System Administrator (EOU), Laurie O’Connor – Chair (Harney Co.), Dea Nowell – recording (Umatilla Co. SLD), Jenny Simpson (Nyssa), Barbara Telfer (The Dalles-Wasco Co.), Christina Trunnell (TVCC), Catherine Wick (Pendleton), Carmen Wickam (Baker Co. LD), Ann Zuehkle (Hood River Valley HS), Amy ________ (Hood River Valley HS).
The meeting was called to order shortly after 11 am by Laurie O’Connor.
Discussion/Approval August CC minutes [Aug. 30, 2012]: Laurie noted that typos will be handled remotely & posted in a couple of days. Katrina Gaines moved to accept the minutes as presented. Catherine Wick seconded the motion. No objections were made, so minutes were approved.
Finalizing Sage Library System Cataloging Policy, to submit to Sage Council for formal adoption: Laurie noted that Perry Stokes sent out a re-written draft this morning. Perry’s suggestion for his version is to post for 2 weeks and then take a vote electronically. Dea introduced the current draft/working document and gave some background on it. She also noted that she had quickly read through Perry’s re-write and done a quick comparison with currently posted version & didn’t find any major changes. From what she had seen she thought it was a pretty good re-write. Laurie clarified after a bit of discussion the proposal is for Perry’s version to be available for comment for 2 weeks and then have an electronic vote of the Cataloging Committee (pretty much anyone who participates in cataloging discussions). Jenny Simpson moved to accept the proposal. Christina Trunnell seconded the motion. There were no objections to this procedure.
Discuss future training opportunities/priorities, including potential grants to further this goal: Laurie noted that there were a couple of possible grant opportunities before us. 1) Lyn Craig (LEO) has offered to help write grant(s) but that has kind of stalled at the moment with nothing firm at present time. 2) Marie Baldo, in speaking with Ann Reed, said that Ann had suggested a LSTA grant proposal. Laurie noted that the LSTA grant would be a lot of work to get together in time for submission & we’d need to get approval from directors.
Christina noted that she has an idea that she’s been sort of talking to herself about & spoken a bit with the cataloging professor at University of Washington. She noted we’ve had some good introductory trainings but we’re missing some things, etc. — not everyone has time to take off for trainings or funds for travel. Her thought is to have cataloging training that would take a person through the levels, that would be ours and we would develop and own it. The UW prof. said she could help. In the long run wouldn’t we want something that was ours and would have consistency and we would know what to expect? Several people stated it was a great idea. Christina noted that she was in the last semester of her MLIS and needs a project & wanted to do something to benefit our libraries. Laurie asked what the timeline for completing the project was. Christina responded: June Laurie noted this was a great project for future application, but that it would not meet our needs for the coming year.
Laurie asked about the immediate future. She noted that she feels a centralized cataloging specialist or something within our system is needed. Maybe this is something to go after for the next 2 year period with a LSTA grant. She also noted we have a very loose structure on database entry. We need to look for a way to get the database up to par and something in place to continue with that.
Laurie asked about bringing in Book Blitz training. Dea Nowell noted concern about bringing in training like Book Blitz under AACR2 with RDA on the horizon. And at what point is RDA going to become Sage’s cataloging rules? There was discussion about RDA training that is coming up and/or available. Laurie will post to the Sage-Cat list an opportunity that was announced this morning on Libs-OR. RDA discussion will be put on the action list for next meeting (Dec.). Laurie will look for other RDA introductions & post to the Sage-Cat list. She suggested we try to come up with a timeline during the Dec. meeting for RDA implementation. Katrina noted that she will be doing a 90-minute ALA workshop on RDA on the 17th(?) and will report back on it. Laurie asked anyone else that can roll around this idea to please do so. She also suggested that Christina also include RDA in her project proposal. There was also discussion about MARC of Quality having some RDA introductions available for free on their website.
Laurie suggested that those doing advanced cataloging take some time to complete some version on online RDA training as their fall training. She also noted that this would be good for everyone.
Laurie noted that we need to formalize our cataloging assistance to small libraries. She noted that our goal is not to threaten, but to assist. One way we can do this is through utilizing our mentor list. Laurie asked for verification/commitment from mentors to be able to once a week/month to help libraries in your area. Dea said, yes she can. Katrina noted that she can field questions, but doesn’t have time to do training, though she has loaded some records for folks (though she can’t do obsessive numbers as there is a cost to be absorbed). Christina noted that during certain times of school term she is hard to reach. Jayne Guidinger noted that she needs to resign as a mentor & she is hoping that someone will step up (maybe an MLS from Hood River – she will do some checking around). [Laurie has posted the list of mentors on the SageLibraries Wiki.]
Katrina noted that some vendor records are better than others & some discussion followed. Laurie suggested that we probably need to add a list or guidelines of approved vendor records, also probably need to be able to recognize low quality records. Laurie noted that this is something that we are missing in the Cataloging Policy & procedures. She asked that anyone seeing good guidelines please pass along. Katrina stated that she could do a poll of what people are using – she will send out an email and do a simple spreadsheet of responses.
Report from System Administrator, Beth Longwell: Beth noted that she has been working on removing empty bibs from the catalog (over 60,000). She is continuing to display more tags, such as 5XX fields in the detailed display. Laurie asked Beth if she was still going to do weekly/monthly tips as was suggested. Beth stated that they were still high on her list, but she didn’t get to it last week. She has several topics for it. Laurie asked about authority control. Beth noted that she has submitted a ticket with Equinox to help bring in new authority records and make sure our batch process is set up to handle them. (Laurie noted she would ask again in about 2 weeks to see how it is going then.)
Committee Housekeeping – October elections/appointments/committee volunteers:
Chair: Laurie noted that she needs to step down for personal & family health reasons from the chairmanship and that it is also time for a change. She asked for a volunteer to be chair for 1 year. Ann Zuehlke noted it should be someone who is on the committee (been on the committee). Laurie noted that she’s been asking about need for formalization of the committee. There is not a list of those on the committee as there is no formal membership. (She asked Buzzy Nielsen and Perry Stokes about this and they stated it is kind of a mixed bag of those committees that have a more formalized structure of members and those that do not.) Christina noted that the Cataloging Committee was designed with an open policy and is not formal. Laurie noted that anyone can make a difference, they just need to understand cataloging and that being the chair requires about 10-20 hours per month. Ann noted that she was willing to be on the ballot then (been cataloging for about 5 years). Dea noted that though she can’t take chairmanship on right now, she is willing to help however she can. Laurie noted that she was willing to be co-chair, but it could be sketchy for the next 6 months. Dea moved to appoint Ann Zuehlke as Cataloging Committee chair and Laurie O’Connor as Cataloging Committee co-chair. Jayne seconded the motion. No objections were heard.
Recorder: Laurie noted that we need someone who can be recorder – take attendance, fill in agenda/discussion items, have the drafted minutes out in about 10 days, and then post final minutes after they are approved at meetings. Dea volunteered. Christina moved to appoint Dea Nowell as recorder. Katrina seconded the motion. No objections were heard.
Subcommittees: Laurie noted that we need more involvement, with maybe some committees or subcommittees such as: RDA implementation, training, recognition, certification of catalogers, rewrite of manual, grant write opportunities. Darlyne Johnson noted that she thought it was a great idea to have different committees. Laurie noted that perhaps by December’s meeting we could have some committees beginning.
Meeting was adjourned at 12:18pm (PDT).