Present: Margaret Nichols, Jim Spear, Lois Purcell, Debra Warfield, Jim Alberts (chair).
1. Discussion of deliverables/outcomes
We discussed documenting our current work (analyzing the current state and sources of LTS procedures). Coming out of this phase of the project, we will work on recommendations for streamlining the procedures as much as possible (having "procedures that are acceptable 95% of the time," in Jim S’s words); Lois mentioned that streamlining should be tempered by a continued focus on service to our client libraries.
Early steps will include removal of CTS- or Olin-focused language from the rules and the development of a style guide that will aid in the writing of new procedures and ensure, as much as possible, consistent tone and clear grammar. This will be important because, potentially, many people could be involved in the revision of the current rules and we will need clear guiding standards both for revision and the creation of new procedures. Since only CTS and RMC have extensive online (or even written) procedures, there will need to be a good deal of digging for "implicit" knowledge among Mann and to some extent Music staff and decision-making about whether long-standing exceptions and "special case" rules are still needed.
We also discussed flagging procedures that will require upper-level policy review, and some procedures (mainly administrative) that probably cannot be applied to all processing centers.
As a third step, we’ll formulate guidelines for internal consistency within the procedures. We discussed adapting the "simple outline" format used in many of the more recent procedures and applying it to longer, more complex procedures. We will use this to develop an outline structure that is (optimally) both simple enough for anyone in LTS to apply and complex enough to bring greater organization and internal coherence to the procedures.
2. Round robin on findings from last week’s assignments (finding and assessing "procedures" embedded in the old CTS site).
a. There are no "procedures" in the Metadata section; these pages are mainly advertisements of commercial metadata services to potential users. We will contact Marty and Eileen regarding Metadata procedures.
b. Mark Simon’s page. This page contains a list of composer Cutters. Since we know that this site is used regularly by Mark and Music Library staff, it was recommended that a procedure be written on how to formulate music call numbers and maintain the Cutter table, and the table should be located with the rest of the procedures. The other section of Mark’s page, a list of genre and instrument MARC codes, duplicates information now widely available elsewhere online.
c. The Recon page. Deb said there are no procedures on this page (although there are numerous Recon procedures elsewhere). However, since the page is continually updated, it might be wise to have explicit procedures for maintaining and updating the Recon information.
d. Working documents and archival resources. By and large, these do not contain procedures, but descriptions of various older projects that were undertaken by CTS. The "working documents" and "archival resources" could be combined in a single folder, since they contain very similar material. While these should be kept, they should be clearly marked as archival or historical material. This raised the question of material that should be "suppressed," such as the old "searching" folder (which refers to NOTIS procedures). Lois also noted that the "Future search" subsite on the old CTS site should be part of the archive.
e. Voyager manual. The Voyager manual contains about 32 procedures as opposed to "informational" or reference pages and 5 procedures related to the conversion from NOTIS. Lois noted that there is no review process for Voyager "procedures" and that many of them have no author or authors who are no longer at Cornell. We also discussed archiving the conversion procedures, which are still sometimes accessed by outside users.
f. Netadmin subsite. This page links to some netadmin-related procedures, such as installing Catalogers Desktop and printing to network printers. It also includes schedules and assignments for the current CTS netadmins. It was recommended that the procedures (while still living on the next generation of the Netadmin page) also be folded into the LTS procedures. We also discussed creating an LTS-wide netadmin contact list.
g. MARC Record sets. This page contains five downloadable record sets. We will need to ascertain from Jim L. what this page is used for and whether any procedures need to be written governing compilation and use of these record sets; otherwise, they include no procedural data.
h. MacroExpress. This subsite contains several detailed procedures that should be folded into the LTS procedures.
Action items: Jim A. will summarize the procedures findings on the P-Group test page.
