LACUNY Cataloging Roundtable Minutes
May 22, 2002

Present: M. Borries, Central Office; M. Butt, GC; J. Chao, BE; B. Chiang, QC; J. Cho, LG; M. Clark, Central Office; D. Feldman, QB; L. Franklin, CC; R. Gomez, QC; D. Grande, JJ; N. Iskenderian, BC; N. Jacobowitz, GC; J. Martin, ME; R. Pike, KB; J. Ponte, QC; T. Samuels, GC; W. Tan, HC; E. Wallace, LE; J. Wild, BC; M. Wood, HO

1. Two handouts from ALA Midwinter were distributed. "Exploring a New Mode of Cataloging’ details procedures which are used for "EL7 1ccopycat" cataloging at the Library of Congress. This level is intended to temporarily increase cataloging productivity by minimal level input, with the aim of reducing backlogs by the end of 2004. Encoding value 7 signals that some of the fixed fields may not have been checked or supplied and headings may not have authority records. This value "prevents an LC-issued record from overlaying an existing record, particularly in OCLC." Directions for handling fixed fields 008, and variable fields 040 and 042 are given as well as directions for handling authority work, LC call are given as well as directions for handling authority work, LC call numbers and LC subject headings in these records. More information on Encoding Level 7 may be found at the Cataloging Policy and Support Office website. The second handout deals with "The Revised Chapter 9--What Copy Catalogers Need to Know." AACR2 rules are presented and "What’s Different" is listed. There has been a trend towards simplification of terms such as "electronic resource" taking the place of "computer file" and "cd rom" replacing "computer optical disk." The rules for obtaining information from chief sources, etc. have been somewhat relaxed. If terms in records are changed manually, Netlibrary records will not be changed. Changes also take place in Chapter 12.

2. Central Office has come across approximately 2000 duplicate authority records which have been corrected and the Office would like to be informed of any that anyone notices so they can dedupe them. These duplicates created problems when records were overlaid. BH authority records need to be claimed by local libraries before they can be overlaid. Old forms of subject headings such as "Afro Americans" versus "African Americans" and "Handicapped" versus with disabilities" still appear and should be "Handicapped" versus "with disabilities" still appear and should be removed. With the use of the clean up password local libraries are able to revise all CUNY libraries’ records. Local holdings cannot be touched. Authority work in ALEPH 500 appears to be uncomplicated but library units have to be changed. Old headings are accepted by the system.

3. The OCLC CORC database for cataloging electronic resources has not been heavily used at CUNY but those who have used it have found it to be uncomplicated. Electronic records which are loaded into WorldCat are fully tagged, making the need to use CORC unnecessary. URL’s frequently change in records. Central Office would like to know of such changes. OCLC Passport will be obsolete in December 2003. Beyond that point, OCLC will not provide any technical assistance and support functions. CORC has been used to catalog electronic resources. CORC and Passport are both used for cataloging and bibliographic searching purposes. In addition to the features both possess, CORC is we-based and includes many other nice features such as bookmark function for collection management and online assistance. CAT NE will be used to replace Passport once the software becomes obsolete. CAT ME can be used for batch and real time processing. It is a WINDOWS application which many libraries are using. CUNY would like to get ALEPH500 working before using CAT ME.

4. We can start cataloging Coutts and other materials in ALEPH on August 1st or 2nd. Unlinked item records created in July will not go into the ALEPH system. It is better to do these manually. Ordering may be done from Coutts’ website but these records will not be in the database. Practice orders may be put into the training database. Many records are linked so that changes in call numbers in holdings records automatically change on item records. Pat Young is still interested in receiving email about problems or mistakes in ALEPH records. These may be table or conversion problems. The ALEPH system is supposed to be more flexible than NOTIS and shouldn’t need to be shut down as much as NOTIS was for such things as global changes. Most point and click commands have equivalent keyboard commands. Remote access to ALEPH from home is still being worked on. The union catalog matches LC numbers and when they are the same will display one record. Different record fields are given different weights when they are being matched in the union catalog. As a result certain fields will be eliminated. Merged records will eliminate and/or add different access points. Libraries can set their own groups of catalogs, one or more, etc. This union catalog is not a virtual catalog but rather a separately created database of our records. It will appear when ALEPH comes up. It is felt that the average student will appreciate this condensation of cataloging even if some access points have been eliminated during the merging process.

5. Records derived from colleges where local collections have been created and tagged in 400 or 700 fields should be aware of these and delete them from their own catalogs. An example of this is the Robert J. Hess Collection.

Respectfully submitted,

Roberta Pike and Janey Chao