USMAI Consortium of Libraries
University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions

USMAI Cataloging Policy Committee

November 20, 2006 Minutes

Present: Bass, Glennan (guest), Hanson, Ruth, Sipe, Vikor (recording), Williams

Decisions/Actions taken since last meeting

Former Local system numbers

The Committee discussed whether the tag 035 first indicator 9 still has utility in ALEPH. This tag contains the system number assigned to the record when it appeared in a previous ILS. It has been indexed with Utility numbers in ALEPH and is a protected tag. For USM sites, the former system number was usually the same as the ocm number, but for the non-USM sites it was always a system-supplied number, as we now have in ALEPH. The Committee believes that the 035 9 may have outlived its purpose and may now be abandoned-no longer indexed or protected. Sipe will query the COIs regarding this matter and, with institutional agreement, will submit an ALEPH Rx requesting requesting removal from loader protection and de-indexing of the tag with the next database re-index.

Reports on Task Groups and Committees

Vikor had sent CPC the draft minutes from the ERIC2 meeting of November 6th. CPC and the Electronic Collections Task Group will be working more closely in future with plans for loads of cataloging records to ALEPH for e-book collections.

Single Record Implementation Forum

The Committee revised and approved the forum agenda, including member assignments for segments of the forum. Also, revised and/or approved documentation: Single Record Approach to Journals in Multiple Formats, and Is this journal title SFX-activated?: a quick guide for catalogers, as well as the handout from the CONSER Cataloging manual module 31. Ruth will edit the documentation per the discussion, Vikor will edit the agenda, Bass will prepare a flowchart, Ruth will consolidate all into a single document and have ITD add it to the CPC site. Williams will send notice to COIs with link to document and link to directions for forum location.

Lost Item Retention

CPC approved Vikor's draft response to CLD request for CPC input on ALEPH record retention. Response is as follows:

"The Cataloging Policy Committee recognizes that ILS record retention decisions are initially influenced by standards serving audit requirements and concerns for patron privacy issues. However, once these requirements are addressed, we support timely purges of obsolete ILS records, such as those for long lost materials, which confound our users by misrepresenting institutional holdings in ALEPH and WorldCat.

Many titles are LOST to patrons and incur fines and replacement costs, other titles are reported missing and should trigger trace procedures, even though there are no associated circulation fines. The desired outcome, in either case, would be the restoration of the materials to the collections, or, the deaccessioning of the materials at the earliest possible date. Any acquisition record retention requirements related to lost materials should be identified and observed, as well. The CPC is interested in working with USMAI Circulation and Acquisitions staff to identify the maximum length of time that records for lost or missing materials must remain in the ILS, before we may adjust collection statistics, clear the items and bibliographic records from ALEPH, remove institutional holdings from WorldCat, and assist collection managers with replacement efforts."

Sipe will send to CLD and copy RSTG.

Authorities Follow-up

The Committee discussed the variety of headings problems that have been identified thus far and expressed the desire to understand more details of the LTI processing of our records. CPC will devote most of the next meeting (01/12/07) to authorities, with the aim of surfacing questions and concerns about the automated processing of catalog headings, discussing utilization of LTI reports and loader reports, and planning next steps. After the January meeting, the committee wants to arrange a meeting with Carlen Ruschoff to review ideas. Members also expressed interest in discussing processing details with Marsha Hunt, USMAI's vendor representative at LTI. Glennan reported that UMCP's Authorities Coordinating Team may be interested in sponsoring a USMAI NACO funnel.

Bib Standards Revisions

The Committee discussed responses to the draft revisions to the Bibliographic standards. Ruth will edit the draft standards per Committee discussions and respond to those who submitted comments on the document and will link the resulting document to the CPC site.

Next meeting scheduled for January 12, 2007 beginning at 10am in HSHSL. Topics include:

USMAI | ITD | Metalib/sfx | Aleph