Governance / Technical Services Committee Meeting: December 11, 2013

Technical Services Committee Meeting: December 11, 2013

Conference call

Members attending:  Elizabeth Cribbs (NIU), James Edstrom (WRH, co-chair), Deborah Morris (ROU), Mary Tatro (AUG), Tonya Webb (UIU), John Whisler (EIU), Dallas Long (ISU), Kavita Mundle (UIC),

Members absent: Lynnette Fields (SIE, co-chair), Eric Nygren (NBY)

Guests:  Heather Parisi (DOM) & Rong Li (ISU),  (I-Share Systems Committee members)

Staff attending: Nicole Swanson, Jennifer Masciadrelli, Ted Schwitzner

Decisions

  • Nov 13 minutes approved.

Announcements

  • CARLI Board has approved the beginning of a search for our next Library Management System (LMS).  Expected to be a project of several years duration, it will follow the usual RFP process, and may consider open-source as well as commercial software. A task force will be formed soon, with a call for applications from people interested in serving.  Members will be selected based on their strengths.
  • FAST (Faceted Access to Subject Terminology) headings—These machine-generated headings often appear to be duplicates of traditional headings. 
    • 600  0 0 ‡a Boethius, ‡d -524.
    • 600  0 7 ‡a Boethius, ‡d -524. ‡2 fast ‡0 (OCoLC)fst01808666

Paige Weston has found a way to suppress FAST headings from VuFind displays.  The pipe character is used by VuFind to separate headings, and Paige has figured a way to prevent double pipes from displaying when a heading has been omitted.  Possibly for future committee consideration, as well as OPAC team consideration, is the question of other heading types we might prefer not to display

  • Voyager Cataloging Client training for staff who are new to cataloging in I-Share libraries is scheduled for February 4-5 (6-7 snow dates) at the CARLI Office , Jan 24th is the registration deadline.  John Whisler will be teaching.
  • PDA-DDA forum—A planning conference call took place last week.  A “big picture” presentation by Lynn Wiley (UIUC) with 3-4 talks on local implementations is planned.  Topics are to include a CARLI project update, purchase triggers, and discussion groups.  Planners are looking at ISU or Champaign for location, probably the first week of June.
  • Cathy Salika is looking at identifying RDA data in local catalogs.  Cathy (or other CARLI staff) will share and discuss findings later.  Cathy is also recording several webinars on Access query writing to capture some of her expertise before retirement.
  • Eric Nygren (NBY) has announced his need to resign from the committee. CARLI staff will investigate options for seeking a replacement committee member.

Discussion

  • Spring forum
    • Heather and Rong expressed interest in topics such as features of a new ILS, RDA, and the future of MARC.  Any speakers must be without cost, probably meaning from within I-Share libraries.  Format of forum will probably be a combination of whole-group and break-out sessions.  We will need to determine which presentations are best for each format.
    • Potential speakers: Nicole has contacted MJ Han and Tim Cole (both from UIUC) for a possible Beyond MARC topic.  Recent correspondence with Gary Strawn indicates two potential presentation topics, one for an OCLC enhance program, and another for what can be done to bib records to incorporate RDA changes.  The committee is interested in the RDA topic, and would like to learn more about the OCLC enhance program. We believe we would want Gary for a general session rather than break-out.  Nicole will invite Gary to present on the RDA topic and ask to learn more about the OCLC enhance program.
    • Theme: “Changing Landscapes: CARLI and the World Around Us”
    • Break Out session leaders:  Jim will send out proposed break-out topics, we will respond with additional suggestions or volunteer to be leaders of specific sessions.  Elizabeth has already expressed interest in leading “Communicating RDA to Non-catalogers.”
    • Final steps:  Logistics appear to be under control.  We hope for wrap-up of most planning issues by our February 12th meeting.
  • Best Practices Document:  Plan to discuss at January meeting.  Chair Jim requested that a preliminary draft be distributed by e-mail before the January meeting (if possible) to facilitate discussion.
  • IACRL Pre-Conference:  Elizabeth, Jim, Deb, Lynn possible moderators.  Our plan is to focus on assessment in technical service as it relates to the points of its purpose, its audience its timeframe (e.g. years, months, semesters, etc.) and the effort to balance the quality of technical services (such as cataloging) with the usability of its products (such as an OPAC).  The Pre-Conference date is March 20th.  Speaker info and the title (Assessment in Technical Services) must be submitted by December 20th to Elizabeth Clarage.
  • White Paper:  Due in June.  Discussion was deferred until the January meeting.
  • MarcEdit/OCLC:  OCLC has recently announced that Connexion 2.50, recently released, can interact with MarcEdit.  We recognized a need learn more about what opportunities this may offer and also if there are any concerns this may raise in our environment.  It may be a topic of interest for a future forum or webinar.

Tasks assigned

  • Heather and Rong firming up their committee’s contributions to forum
  • Jim will send out proposed break-out topics for forum, committee will respond with additional suggestions or volunteer to be leaders as noted above. 
  • Best practices, to be discussed next month, draft distributed ahead of meeting if possible
  • CARLI staff to seek speakers as indicated above
  • IACRL Pre-Conference:  List of participants, Jim sending in proposal to E Clarage
  • White Paper on agenda again next month

Respectfully Submitted,

John Whisler