Promptcat macro

Collection Development and Ebooks

Just a few thoughts after a discussion with a couple members of the Electronic Resources Team.

• Do ebooks ever need de-selection?
• There are no physical space concerns so is there a reason to get rid of ebooks and if so, when?
• What would be the trigger to start the weeding process? For physical books, it usually happens when we run out of space in a given call number area and the process is started. How do you know when you should weed an ebook area?
• What is the library's catalog for? Access to everything we own? What about stuff we don't own but have access to?
• Who is the catalog for? Undergrads? Researchers?
  
• Do we make things easier to find for undergrads?
• Do we degrade the find-ability of the most useful resources by adding in primary ematerials such as EEBO and ECCO?
• Do we really want in our catalog the latest newsletter from obscure medical practice newsletter via CINAHL and SFX?
• When we purchase "big deals" that come with too good to pass up pricing are we doing our patrons a disservice by not subjecting these materials to the same collection development criteria that print materials are subjected to?

OCLC and the new record policy continued

More links to more posts about the continuing saga of OCLC's change in policy on record use:

• Petition created to Stop the OCLC powergrab!
• Wiki created by Code4Lib on the issue
• Podcast discussion on the issue with Karen Calhoun (OCLC), Roy Tennant (OCLC) and Talis on the Panlibus blog
• I don't want to destroy OCLC post by Bibliographic Wilderness
• Raw Thought: Stealing your library: OCLC powergrab by Aaron Swartz of Open Library
• Discussion of his blog entry on MetaFilter
• More OCLC policy ...
  

This issue hasn't died; although it is no longer really being discussed on AUTOCAT and OCLC-Cat, two of the major cataloging discussion lists.

What's OCLC up to?

Links to a number of posts on OCLC's new and improved Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat records:

• Summary of the policy and the policy itself
• Panlibus - What are OCLC playing at?
• Terry's Worklog
• Inkdroid - Bibliovirus
• blog.ecorrado.us
• Tim Spaulding of LibraryThing runs the old and new policies through wiki software and compares the language between the two.

Tears for Fears - the literal translation

Having a bad day? Watch this!

OCLC - Who are you? Do we really want to know?

We have been discussing today the mysterious policy changes to OCLC's use of WorldCat records. Our team wondered when did OCLC became the bad guy? Our library programmer and I just had a conversation last week about how old and confusing we found the policy currently in place. When did we begin to automatically assume that any changes they make to their policies would make matters worse, instead of better. In part, we decided it is because they hold all our data and don't do some simple things to add value to it. We've also had some bad experiences in the past with their help desk and the new service model does not allay our fears. By removing our regional representative from the chain, they are taking out the local contact who put a face on the bloated body of OCLC. Perhaps they have gotten too big, and we find it hard to trust big corporations, whether they are "non-profit" or not. We are not quite sure whose best interests they have in mind.

There are three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the OCLC way! Which is the wrong way but slower. - D.W. (2008) a tribute to the Simpsons.

Some new research reports on Cataloging

If we purchase these, will I have time to read them?

Emerging Issues in Academic Library Cataloging & Technical Services

ISBN: 1-57440-086-X Publication Date: April 2007
This report presents nine highly detailed case studies of leading university cataloging and technical service departments. It provide insights into how they are handling ten major changes facing them, including: the encouragement of cataloging productivity; impact of new technologies and enhancement of online catalogs;
transition to metadata standards; cataloging of websites and digital and other special collections; library catalog and metadata training; database maintenance, holdings, and physical processing; relationship with Acquisitions; staff education; and other important issues. Survey participants represent academic libraries of varying sizes and classifications, with many different viewpoints. Universities surveyed are: Brigham Young; Curry College; Haverford College; Illinois, Louisiana and Pennsylvania State Universities; University of North Dakota; University of Washington; and Yale.

Price: $72.95
Price: $88.00 (PDF)

Academic Library Cataloging Practices Benchmarks - Read Excerpt 
ISBN 1-57440-106-8
This 254 page report presents data from a survey of the cataloging
practices of approximately 80 North American academic libraries. In
more than 630 tables of data and related commentary from participating
librarians and our analysts, the report gives a broad overview of
academic library cataloging practices related to outsourcing, selection
and deployment of personnel, salaries, the state of continuing education
in cataloging, and much more.
Data is broken out by size and type of college and for public and private
colleges.  Survey participants also discuss how they define the catalogers
range of responsibilities, how they train their catalogers, how they assess
cataloging quality, whether they use cataloging quotas or other measures
to spur productivity, what software and other cataloging technology they
use and why, how they make outsourcing decisions and more.
Price: $89.50 (Print)   Price: $98.00 (PDF)