Sage Cataloging Committee Meeting Minutes – October 4, 2021
Recording Link –>https://youtu.be/INOj3VHOrI0
Attendees (20)
Celine Vandervlugt (La Grande, chair), Beth Ross (Sage), John Brockman (Baker), Abbey Phelps (Sherman Public/School), BoDean Warnock (Baker), Carrie Bushman (La Grande), Dea Nowell (UCSLD), Heather Spry (Baker), Jenny Simpson (Nyssa), Jon Georg (Sage), Laurie O’Connor (Harney), Leslie Carlock (Lake), Lisa Hauner (OTLD), Mary Reser (Gilliam), Michele Timmons (Elgin), Sarah Samuels (Hood River), Steve Lomax (TVCC), Steven Nikodem (The Dalles), Tracy Hayes (Lake), Valeria Gardner (Ontario)
August Minutes
Motion to approve (Dea Nowell), Second (Tracy Hayes). Minutes were approved with no changes.
General Forum/Member Comments
New Business
Audience fixed-field
In the MARC Edit screen, specific ages have been added to the Audn fixed field choices. You can access these by right-clicking on the Audn box in the fixed field table. As has been mentioned previously, the intent is to convey more specific audience information if it is contained on the item, or obtained from a trusted source. Blank should be used rather than “g”, “e” for items with adult only/explicit content, and “f” should only be used in very rare situations. In place of the Audience box on the OPAC search page, there is a more accurate way to search that utilizes Shelving Locations instead. At the top of the menu in the Search Library box, there are several Sage-wide choices for different audiences. A question was raised as to the current functionality of the Audn fixed field, and it was determined that it still serves a purpose in determining what appears in the children’s OPAC.
655 Form/Genre terms
It is essential that 655 terms in Sage records come from authorized sources. Most likely, they will come from the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms (LCGFT) thesaurus. Instead of sourcing these terms with a second indicator “0” (as is most often the case with other types of 65X headings), 655 fields should have second indicator “7”, and end with $2lcgft, as is the case in the correct example below:
655 \7$aCozy mysteries.$2lcgft
*Notice the correct position of the period before the numbered subfield, rather than at the end of the field
*For a long time “Christian fiction” was not an authorized LCGFT term, but now it is.
The following examples would be incorrect uses of the same genre term.
655 \0$aCozy mysteries.
655 \4$aCozy mysteries.
655 \7$aCozy mysteries.$2local
Sage policy dictates that there are currently 2 correct exceptions to this rule, which are:
655\0$aYoung adult fiction.
655\0$aLarge type books.
The “Validate” button (just to the left of the blue Sage button) is a useful tool for showing headings that are authorized/not authorized. Clicking this button will place black checkmarks next to headings that are properly authorized. Headings that turn red should be checked against a proper source as they are either 1) incorrect or 2) have not been used in Sage yet but are correct, authorized headings.
Web page highlights
The Cataloging portion of the Sage Library system webpage is located at (https://sagelib.org/cataloging). It is in need of updates, and an effort will be underway soon to reorganize/reformat the website to be more intuitive. However, there are many useful resources available, and it was recommended to print out documents for easy reference. Some of the more recently updated documents are:
Locating Series Authorities in Sage and Library of Congress
The Sage Series Guidelines (listed above) is a comprehensive tutorial on correct format and syntax of series fields, tracing, and how to handle “problem” series. There are Youtube training videos available on the website that provide further clarifications with this document. If you would like to report a particular series that needs considerable cleanup, there is a link on the website entitled “Series Problem Form”. To function correctly, series entries in 8XX need to be entered exactly according to the authorized source. Some series may contain generic terms such as: novels, mysteries, etc., while others do not.
Contact information for the Cataloging Mentors is listed on the right side of the main cataloging page. The link to the minutes for Cataloging Committee minutes is located in the bottom center. There is a search box in the upper right that is helpful for finding website content related to certain tags or keywords.
Committee members are encouraged to provide feedback to mentors regarding any topics they would like to see discussed in committee meetings. Members are also encouraged to share the content from these meetings with other catalogers unable to attend or view the recordings. Hopefully, we will continue to see higher numbers in attendance!
Meeting was adjourned at 11:41 AM PDT. The next committee meeting will be Monday, December 6, at 11 AM PDT.