Cataloging Committee meeting – 10/2/17 @ 11am (PDT) via GoToMeeting
Attending: Dea Nowell—Chairperson (Umatilla Co. SLD); Laurie O’Connor—Recorder (Harney Co. Library); Beth Longwell, Jon Georg (Sage System); Catherine Wick (Pendleton Library); Heather Estrada (BMCC Library); Jenny Simpson (Nyssa PL); Lisa Hauner (Oregon Trail LD); Tracy Hayes (Lake Co. LD); Barbara Telfer (The Dalles-Wasco Co. LD); Anna Lim (Hood River); Joyce McCurdy, Darlyne Johnson, Valeria Gardner (Ontario Community Library); Caller 01 (???).
Dea Nowell called the meeting to order, pointed out she had added a couple of items to the agenda with last minute requests. She thanked Laurie O’Connor for volunteering to be the recorder for the coming year, and then introduced Jon Georg, the new Sage Systems assistant administrator.
Agenda items:
April 3, 2017 meeting minutes: None available. Beth will email them out today.
August 7, 2017 meeting minutes: Catherine Wick made a motion to accept; Barbara Telfer seconded; none opposed.
Election of new chairperson
October is the traditional time to switch out the chair of this committee. If nobody is willing to take this position, Dea has agreed to take this one more year. Laurie said a co-chair would be a nice offer, with the intent of taking the chair responsibility in October 2018. Beth suggested people could contact Dea with details. This is an important responsibility for all of Sage, so please consider stepping up.
New Cataloging Mentor
Sarah Samuels is no longer main cataloger at Hood River. She personally trained Anna Lim in the past year, and the other Sage Cataloging Mentors asked her to become a mentor. With the blessing of her director, she has accepted. Welcome, Anna!
Manga series
Dea revisited Sage preferences for graphic and manga items. The question has recently come up whether catalogers needed to add 490/8XX information on these types, which already should include series and numeration details in the 245 field. The consensus of the mentors, based on prior discussions and decisions, was that the 490/8XX fields are not required. A library may add the 490/8XX fields, if they wish, but if they do so, they are obligated to unify all of the other bibs from that series by adding the proper series statements in all from those collections.
Anna asked what should catalogers do if they find discrepancies in these type of items? Dea said to follow “Sage Series hierarchy”, which we are discussing later in this meeting. Laurie asked that catalogers strive for consistency throughout any cataloging, especially series work. Joyce asked if CAT2 can clean up files? Dea said yes, they can, and they should. Beth added that CAT2 can also add series information, if needed.
Duplicates on Sage
The mentors are still seeing duplicate records are being adding pretty regularly onto Sage. What is causing this? Dea said that one apparent cause is that catalogers may be “scoped” to just their library when they assume they are searching all of Sage when checking for a record to attach to. Make sure you are searching “All of Sage”. If you are using the z39.50 portal, make sure you do NOT have “Local Catalog” checked. Laurie suspects that another problem with duplicates is that catalogers may only use ISBN searching when looking for a potential match on Sage. This should only be the first search, and catalogers should always try 2 or 3 variations of keyword searching before resorting to importation of a new record. Remember that with the relaxed Sage match & attach standards https://sagestaff.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/MatchingStandards2015.docx, many paperbacks and later printings of books may be attached to the original hardcover releases, for instance. Dea also suggested to double check what you have put in for search terms—check for spelling or punctuation variations.
Quality of records in Z39.50 & OCLC/Cat Express
“Not all records are created equal.” Please pay attention to the records you are considering for import, and look around thoroughly before importing, in order to grab the best record available.
Checklist of fields to see in each record (Carmen Wickam)
Carmen was not in attendance, so we will ask her to share this through the Sage Cat Listserve. Catalogers are waiting for more guidelines and resources, so this will be a nice tool to have.
Sage series source hierarchy
It has been about a year since we have thoroughly discussed and prioritized this “hierarchy”, and then later posted it as an informal policy through the Sage Cat Listserve. Our goal is to keep things as consistent and clean as possible. Not all authors or publishers clearly name or number series, but patrons really like this information. Early in 2017, Beth Longwell updated our series authorities, and Sage catalogers are striving to work together with shared priorities when authorities are not needed.
- Look for authorized series information, from updated authorities on Sage or through LOC.
- Check Sage system for series’ name and numeration given for other titles in a series group, and use the established SS and numeration.
- Consider FantasticFiction as the default source for series information, when authorized or established Sage protocol is missing.
- If you go beyond FF, check several other sources before assigning a new series statement.
- Do not remove any existing SS or change numbers, because there are some libraries which use this information to shelve these books.
- The 490/8XX fields are repeatable, so when absolutely necessary you can add additional series statements BELOW the older statement(s).
- Add 500 notes indicating the source for series title or numeration.
- Wording matters. Minor variations can create problems tracing or finding series. Check Sage for precedent on exact wording.
Catherine asked whether multiple series statements all display. Beth Longwell said that in the initial browse display, only the top SS will display; but when you go into the detailed display, all series will be shown.
Anna asked if we should use the same hierarchy to determine order of series statements entered in the bib. Dea and Laurie felt this is preferred.
Catalogers do not have to retain publisher specific series information, such as large print items with “Thorndike Large Print”. You can leave in the 490 0\ and not trace that information if you wish. But this information is not relevant to patrons or to libraries, and can make a bib cluttered.
Reminder to catalogers: should not be removing subject fields—such as BISACH, SEARS, fast, etc.—others in Sage may be utilizing
Do not strip any information if other libraries may be using it. If you do not know whether a field is important, do not strip it.
General discussion
Laurie suggested the mentors and administrators find new “cataloging tips” to add to the Sage web, and pointed out some of the old tips are now incorrect or have conflicting information. Others agreed. Beth suggested we could review the list serve archive for possible topics that should be available in that section. Who has responsibility to add posts to the web? Beth will send the archived emails from the Sage Cat List to the mentors for review and consideration for archived cataloging tips on the web.
Jon has a scanned archive of the AACR2 rules, and was wondering if that was a resource we should make available to our catalogers. Dea thought that might be an infringement of copyright, and OCLC does offer most of that information as open source for catalogers reference. Dea also speculated that an upcoming purchase would be the RDA Toolkit, once we settle on a timeline for conversion to RDA.
Are there any functions on Evergreen that catalogers would like further instruction on? No requests at this time.
Meeting adjourned at 11:50 PDT.
The next Cataloging Committee meeting will be December 4, 2017 @ 11 a.m. PST, via GoToMeeting.
Video recording of meeting: https://youtu.be/RgwnrtIPkRc