LTS What's New Archive July - December 2005 December 8, 2005: LTS Carols and Holiday Fun Library Technical Services (LTS) colleagues and friends gathered on December 8 in Warren Hall to celebrate their many accomplishments in 2005 and spread some holiday cheer. A trio of carolers - Pedro Arroyo, Keith Jenkins, and Jim Spear - delighted the group with four new musical parodies, "Unicode," "LTS Rocks," "12 Days of LTS," and "O Common Spot." Check out the lyrics here! August 29, 2005: Summer Success Story - Conversion of Area Collection Retrospective conversion of Cornell's Area collection is now complete. This effort, funded chiefly by the grant extension we received from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2004, represents the conversion of over 103,000 catalog card titles to online records. These records are now available in the Cornell OPAC, as well as in the OCLC and RLIN databases. In addition, LTS and RMC recon staff have finished over 70% of the Harris collection conversion (the "fastcatting" phase of the project), yielding nearly 30,000 more new records in the OPAC, OCLC, and RLIN. As time permits, other LTS staff have been inching their way through the remaining unconverted microfilm and pamphlet titles. In sum, we have now reduced the number of unconverted titles in the CUL collection to approximately 63,000, or just 1.2% of the collection as a whole. For more information, see the Recon Project Web site. August 4, 2005: Introducing the New LTS (Library Technical Services) In May 2004, Cornell University 's Workforce Planning Team endorsed the University Librarian's recommendation that the Library integrate its technical services operations in order to achieve clear direction, efficiencies, and savings. Previously, the Library had several separate processing units across campus, including Central Technical Services, ILR, Kroch Asia, Law, Mann, Music, RMC, and Vet. As of August 4, 2005, now that the merging of these processing units into one operation is mostly complete (with RMC and Music to be integrated in the fall and winter), the technical services operation will be known simply as Library Technical Services (LTS). The Law Library will remain a separate processing unit. The remaining steps involved in this integration include combining and revising the documentation and revising the library's technical services web site. As a temporary measure to reflect the integration process, the Technical Services Web Site Maintenance Team has added a list of contacts, a staff list, and organizational charts to the CUL TS web site. This fall a new, redesigned Library Technical Services web site will be introduced, superseding both the current Central Technical Services and CUL Technical Services web sites. August 4, 2005: Technical Services Staff Moves at Mann and Olin As a result of the reorganization of technical services at Mann and Olin libraries, six individuals from 110 Olin Library will be moving to Mann Library to join their colleagues in a new unit called E-Resources and Serials Management (ERSM). The new unit reports to Bill Kara and includes Nancy Banfield, Emilie Karr, Brian Lowe, Liisa Mobley, Elizabeth Perenyi, Linda Petro, Nathan Rupp, Rosemarie Saikkonen, Carol Snedeker, Jim Spear, Cindy Sweet, and Ed Zieba. The group will be moving into their new digs at Mann around the first of September, provided newly ordered furniture arrives and is installed on the expected schedule. The move of some staff members to Mann Library, plus the reorganization of other units in Library Technical Services (LTS), means that movers will also be coming to 107 and 110 Olin Library. The Olin LTS move will probably occur in stages through September and October. August 4, 2005: LTS Librarians Publish Article on "Rehabilitating Killer Serials" The July 2005 issue of the highly-regarded journal Library Resources and Technical Services (LRTS) contains an important review of CUL's largely automated method for providing catalog access to electronic journals. David Banush, Marty Kurth, and Jean Pajerek wrote the article, which places CUL's work in the context of the extensive literature about e-journal access and analyzes the drawbacks and benefits of CUL's efforts to facilitate user access to these important materials. As a small added bonus, this issue of LRTS contains Karen Calhoun's review of Brad Eden's newly-published collection Innovative Redesign and Reorganization of Library Technical Services, a topic on which CUL librarians have first-hand experience. January - June 2005 June 8, 2005: The New Library Technical Services (LTS) On May 25, Karen Calhoun, Bill Kara, and Liisa Mobley made a presentation on behalf of the CUL Technical Services Integration Team at a meeting of all CUL technical services staff. The purpose was to introduce and explain a new library-wide organizational model for technical services and to report on the results of an all-TS staff survey. Photographs on the TSWeb home page are of the event, which included a pizza party for all staff. To view all the photos, click the "refresh" button on your browser. Click here for a look at the presentation. June 2, 2005: Introducing the 2005/06 TSWeb Team The CUL Technical Services Web Site Maintenance Team carries out maintenance duties on the CUL TSWeb. The Team maintains existing site content, adds new content to the site, archives older and obsolete pages, maintains the What's New component of the site, trains newer members of the Team in the administrative and technological upkeep of the site, and works on projects. In 2005/06, the Team will focus on integrating the Web sites of formerly separate technical services units such as CTS and Mann into TSWeb, analyzing the potential of CommonSpot, and recommending a coherent set of Library Technical Services (LTS) online procedures and best practices. For more information, please see the 2005/06 Team's charge, which is available at the TSWeb Maintenance website. May 6, 2005: OCLC Connexion Coming The OCLC Connexion Implementation Task Group, chaired by Anna Korhonen, has presented its final report to the Technical Services Executive Group, which has approved it. The Task Group presented a draft of its report at the March meeting of the Working Group on Cataloging, and then Jim Spear and Jim Alberts demonstrated bibliographic and authority searching. Connexion offers all of the functionality of CatME, plus more powerful and flexible bibliographic and authority searching capabilities. Connexion fully supports all of the functions we have been performing in CatME. The Connexion Task Group recommends that the Library make the transition to Connexion in early June, with training to be held around June 7. OCLC will shut down NACO functionality in CatME on June 5, so edits to online authority records will have to go through Joe McNamara between then and June 7. OCLC will discontinue CatME on July 1. The Task Group's Final Report is available here. May 3, 2005: Elaine Westbrooks Awarded SUNY Chancellor's Award Elaine Westbrooks, Metadata Librarian, author, editor, and hole-in-one golfer, has been awarded the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship. Candidates for this award are evaluated on "their skill in librarianship, their service to the college and to the profession and their scholarship and continuing professional growth." In all these areas Elaine has certainly excelled. Elaine has firmly established herself as a leader in metadata applications and the development of digital collections and services. Within the library system, she has been a leader of the Metadata Working Group; within her profession, she is a recognized expert in the field of geospatial metadata. Not every librarian edits two books in one year, but in 2004, the American Library Association published Metadata in Practice: Building the Diverse Digital Library (co-edited by Elaine and Diane Hillmann) and Scholarly Resources, Inc. will soon publish Elaine's book, Black Studies and Culture on the WWW: A Guide to the Very Best Websites. In addition, Elaine and Keith Jenkins are now editing a Festschrift honoring Tom Turner. These alone would have been significant accomplishments in one year, yet she continues to play a major role in several important initiatives--from geospatial repositories to grant sponsored work on language acquisition research data. The Cornell community and the library profession have clearly benefited from her knowledge, energy and dedication. Apr. 6, 2005: More titles uncovered! Several months ago CTS, with help from the Library Systems Office, implemented a monthly routine to identify and fix mistagged and misused articles in selected MARC title fields for the following languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish--see the What's New entry for June 1, 2004 for more information. We have just added another dimension to this routine: the identification and editing of MARC tagging that indicates the presence of an initial article in a title field of a catalog record, but in which no article is in fact present. For instance, if the English language title Leaves of Grass were tagged as if the title were The Leaves of Grass, Whitman's work would be indexed as es of Grass and would not be retrievable under a search on "leaves..." CTS is now running this new program monthly, at the same time as the initial article cleanup job. We have so far discovered more than 3,000 database errors of one kind or another through the use of this enhanced program. Mar. 23, 2005: CUL Technical Services Staff Create Catalog for Hillel Collection About a year ago, Cornell Hillel requested advice on how to make an online catalog for its small reading room collection of over 2,000 printed books and journals. When CTS staff members investigated, it was readily apparent that the group needed a solution for searching, shelving and maintaining their collection that did not rely on creating and loading catalog records into Voyager. CTS and Mann technical services staff, in collaboration with members of Cornell Hillel, have now introduced a free-standing Web-based catalog for the Hillel collection. The system permits both end-user OPAC searching and the administrative functions necessary for volunteers to add new records, change existing ones, and withdraw titles no longer held. Please check out the Hillel Catalog to view the collection. As a result of this collaboration, for the first time students can easily become aware of Hillel's collection, and the group's reading room stacks are manageable (in the prior arrangement of the shelves, it was difficult to know where to reshelve a title!). The president of Cornell Hillel notes that its members "are really excited about the library"--nice to hear from undergraduates, in our electronic world. Mar. 22, 2005: Cornell Participates in E-CIP Program CUL has been approached by the Library of Congress to participate in its Electronic Cataloging In Production program. Under the program, CUL will be responsible for creating the CIP records for titles published by the Cornell University Press. The benefits of our participation should include a closer working relationship with CU Press and the use of more processing tools created by LC. Cornell's commitment will be to catalog the 80-100 monographs published each year by CU Press. The CIP records will be submitted electronically, and then distributed through LC's cataloging Distribution Service, using LC cataloging tools. David Buckrum of LC will be visiting Cornell in late spring to demonstrate the cataloging tools needed for particiption in the program. More information on the program is available through LC's Cataloging in Production website. March 22, 2005: Changes in LTS Leadership Xin Li has taken on a position in IRIS Administration, moving her office to Olin 215. David Banush has generously taken up the torch as Acting Head of CTS Acquisitions, in addition to continuing as CTS's Head of Bibliographic Control. David continues to occupy his customary office in Olin 110. Mar. 10, 2005: Technical Services Spring Update
May - November 2004 Nov. 5, 2004: Eighteenth Century Collection Online records loaded Jim LeBlanc reports that the first 20,000 records for Gale's "Eighteenth Century Collection Online" (ECCO) have been loaded into Voyager and the next 130,000 or so should be loaded over the next three weeks. The ECCO will provide "access to the digital images of every page of 150,000 books published during the 18th century. With full-text searching of approximately 33 million pages, the product allows researchers new methods of access to critical information in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science, and more" (Thomson Gale). See, for instance, the networked resource records for Thomas Denman's Essay on Preternatural Labours (1786) and The Better Sequel Better'd (1729). Thanks to David Banush, Peter Hoyt, and Zoe Stewart-Marshall for their input and help with this job. Nov. 1, 2004: Task Force to Review CUL Barcoding Practice The Working Group on Cataloging has charged a small, cross-functional group to assess current CUL barcoding practice, develop a consensus on best practices, and recommend a system-wide approach for the application and use of barcodes. In addition, the task force has been asked to research the potential for radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to replace or supplement the use of barcodes in CUL. Members of the Barcode/RFID Task Force are: Michele Brown (IFIS, Dept. of Preservation & Collection Maintenance), Jesse Koennecke (Mann Library, Access Services), Jim LeBlanc (CTS, Post-Cataloging Services -- Chair) and Lois Purcell (CTS, Bibliographic Control Services). The group expects to complete its work by Feb. 18, 2005. Oct. 14, 2004: Access to Hart Collection Now Available Online Online access to the previously unconverted Hart Collection is now available through the catalog. This collection consists of some 400 literature, language, and history titles published between the mid-19th century through the 1950s -- all currently shelved in Olin Library, Room 305. This small pocket of "miscellaneous" LC-classed material was somehow overlooked in our Mellon project planning, but the hiatus between Mellon "Phase 1" (LC) and Mellon "Phase 2" (Area and Harris) allowed CTS's Post-Cataloging Services to perform the Hart conversion with regular recon and barcoding staff. Thanks to Sonia Hizi, Sally Lockwood, and Barb Tarbox for their work on this project -- with help from OKU reference librarian, Fred Muratori. For more on CTS's recon work, see the recon website. For more on what remains to be converted, click on the "4%" blue slice of the Cornell Library database pie. Oct. 5, 2004: TSI Integrates Vet Technical Services & Establishes FAQ In September, the CUL Technical Services Integration team held an open house for library staff affected by integration and added a FAQ to its web site to broaden communication about CUL Integration efforts. In addition, the Team finished its first project by integrating Vet technical services into CTS. It also began work on a number of fronts, including the integration of ILR technical services and the processing of the Huntington Free Library materials and the ILR backlog. For a full update of Technical Services Integration activities, please check the TSI website. Sept. 17, 2004: Technical Services Integration Plan Created The Technical Services Integration (TSI) team has provided an update of its recent activities, including the creation of a Technical Services Integration project plan, identification of CUL staff who will be affected by integration, commencement of the transition of ILR and Vet technical services operations to CTS, and shifting of monograph acquisitioins to CTS. The full update, including these and other activities, can be found on the new Technical Services Integration website. Aug. 30, 2004: New Chair for Working Group on Cataloging (WGC) Zoe Stewart-Marshall is the new chair of the CUL Working Group on Cataloging (WGC), effective September 1. Zoe, who is Head, Database Enrichment, CTS Post-Cataloging Services, replaces Margaret Nichols, Head of Cataloging, Metadata and Collection Management in RMC. Margaret has ably served as WGC chair since the summer of 1999, when she replaced Jim Cassaro, formerly of the Music Library. Jim left CUL in May 1999 for the University of Pittsburgh Music Library. Check out the WGC Website, which will soon be updated to reflect the latest information about the purpose, leadership, and past activities of the WGC. Aug. 24, 2004: Access to Even More Older Titles! Through opportunistic use of available staff CTS has completed the retrospective conversion of another small, but discrete pocket of titles: the skeletal K "collection." These 4000 titles were assigned LC classification letters and book numbers, without the intervening numerical classification component (hence the term "skeletal"), before 1973 and before the LC schedules for law materials were completed. Patrons now enjoy bibliographic access to these formerly card-catalog-only titles through the Voyager OPAC. Post-Cataloging Services and RMC staff are now engaged in preliminary work on the Mellon-funded conversion of the Library's Area Collection, as well as on the remaining unconverted titles in the Hart Collection. In September work will begin on the Harris Collection -- also partially funded by the Mellon Foundation. For more information, see the online summaries for completed and remaining recon. Aug. 24, 2004: CUL-TS Website Maintenance Team Appointed Thanks to the hard work of the Cornell University Library Technical Services Web Site Implementation Team, CUL Technical Services now has its first system-wide web site. To continue their efforts, on July 6th, 2004, a CUL Technical Services Web Site Maintenance Team was formed. This team is composed of Nate Rupp (chair), Mann; Margaret Nichols, RMC; Michal Jacyna, CTS; and Jim Alberts, Music. It will maintain existing site content; add new content to the site; archive older and obsolete pages; maintain the What's New component of the site; consider and respond to comments, questions, and suggestions about the site; train newer members of the Team in the administrative and technological upkeep of the site; and work on ongoing projects, such as experimenting with and implementing a search engine for the site. Since forming in July the Maintenance Team has been busy with not only updates but also the creation of two new technical services project Web sites: CUL Technical Services Integration Website & Cornell ERM Implementation Website. For further information, please visit the CUL Technical Services Maintenance Team webpage. July 19, 2004: CUL to Integrate Technical Services Operations In May 2004 the university Workforce Planning Team led by Vice President Ainslie endorsed the recommendation that the Library integrate its technical services operations into a unified function. Learn more by visiting the CUL Technical Services Integration homepage. July 15, 2004: Mellon-Funded Milestone: 270,000 Older CUL Titles Now Online! In 2002 the Cornell University Library received a generous grant of $830,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help complete the retrospective conversion of the remaining 270,000 catalog cards for those titles cataloged with Library of Congress classification. This work is now complete. As a result of the effort, Cornell scholars and students, as well as scholars worldwide, now enjoy online access to 100% of the titles in of our LC-classified collections. Over the next few months, CUL staff will address some cleanup work associated with the project and will complete the barcoding of these items. More good news: we completed this project substantially under budget -- by about $310,000! The Mellon Foundation has tentatively approved the use of these remaining funds, plus accumulated interest, to help convert Cornell's Area Collection and roughly 50% of the Harris collection, a job we hope to carry out by June 2006. Completion of this additional work will permit online access to an additional 129,000 CUL titles. Please visit the Retrospective Conversion Web site for further reading. July 12, 2004: Metadata WG Gives and Seeks Feedback The Library's highly successful Metadata Working Group (MWG) has issued a report providing feedback on its Steering Committee's activities since 2001. The MWG has held 30 forums over the past 3 years for all Cornell staff to exchange information, make policy recommendations, and provide opportunity for input on metadata issues. Nearly 50 speakers, from as far away as Australia and as near as Dryden, New York, have addressed the forums. Most speakers, though, represent numerous departments at Cornell--evidence that we are a strong community of experts who can speak authoritatively on subjects related to metadata and digital library development. As for forum participants, nearly 650 people from 12 CUL departments and 100 from 5 departments outside CUL have attended. In May 2004 the MWG redesigned its Web site to more efficiently manage its large amount of content (MWG website). Taken together, the MWG forums, Web site, and other activities have exemplified how a working group can significantly contribute to the Library. The MWG's Steering Committee's report concludes with a request for feedback on how future forums can be improved and on the evolving role of the Steering Committee. Steering Committee members encourage and welcome your comments, which may be addressed to Kari Smith (ks344@cornell.edu), 2004/05 chair. June 15, 2004: Cornell Selects E-Resource Management System Following a long investigation, the Library has signed a license agreement to implement III' e-resource management (ERM) software package at Cornell. The Library already provides significant support to e-resource discovery, access and management, but the current data sets and workflows that accomplish this work behind the scenes, while adequate, are a labor-intensive patchwork that cannot fully meet the needs of library staff and users. CUL staff members who participated in a series of interviews this past February articulated what an ERM system should do for the Library. III, a force in the Digital Library Federation's E-Resource Management Initiative, is the only vendor currently offering an ERM product. The ERM implementation project is expected to get underway early in fiscal year 2004-05. The implementation team is being assembled now. For more information, contact Scott Wicks (sbw2@cornell.edu) or Karen Calhoun (ksc10@cornell.edu). June 15, 2004: CLAMSS baking at CTS: New media shelflisting program Central Technical Services (CTS) has introduced a new online tool for creating new sequential shelflist numbers for audiovisual materials. The new system, the Cornell Library Automated Media Shelflisting Service, or CLAMSS, allows staff to select the next sequential number by format for 7 locations served by CTS: Africana, Fine Arts, Kroch Asia, Olin, and the Mathematics, Engineering and Physical Sciences libraries. The Web-based interface also allows a staff member to check out the history of numbers assigned by location or by net id. It replaces the old manual card file with a smoother, more efficient process that allows catalogers to assign numbers without leaving their workstations. CLAMSS was conceived by Jena Bakula of CTS Bibliographic Control. Jena worked with her supervisor, Lois Purcell, and Peter Hoyt of Library Systems to turn her idea into reality. Jena's initiative will save time and effort for all in CTS who catalog A/V materials and has the potential to be expanded to other non-book formats. CLAMSS can be viewed online at: www.library.cornell.edu/shelflist June 9, 2004: Cornelliana collection now available through Voyager Through opportunistic use of available staff, Central Technical Services has completed retrospective conversion of the 3500 titles in CUL's Cornelliana collection. Housed at the Library Annex, this collection consists of published writings by Cornell students, alumni, faculty, staff and officers, as well as books published by the Cornell University Press, from the late 19th century through the 1980s. Previously accessible only through the card catalog, these works can now be found in Voyager. In addition to the usual author, title, subject, and keyword access, Cornelliana titles can also be browsed via the characteristic "Cornelliana" designation in their call number. June 1, 2004: LOST titles now FOUND! New CTS program One of the more deceptively simple reasons for title search failures in the Library Catalog involves title statements that begin with an article. We instruct users to omit the initial article when searching, but such articles are occasionally mistagged or misused in the catalog record, making title access to the target material virtually impossible. With the help of Peter Hoyt in the Library Systems Office, CTS has implemented a routine to identify and fix mistagged or misused articles in selected MARC title fields for the following languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. For unambiguous cases (i.e. when the term in question is always used as an article), the program automatically fixes the tagging or deletes the leading article, as appropriate. For ambiguous cases (i.e. when the term in question is usually, but not always used as an article), the program generates a report. Staff in CTS's Post-Cataloging Services (PCS) review the reports, remove those instances in which the leading term is not used as an article, and pass the remaining cases to students for routine correction. Work on the backfile has begun and PCS plans to run the job monthly in the future. This process will, over time, restore access to hundreds of titles in the catalog previously unavailable to users because of human or typographical error. May 10, 2004: Backstory: News and Notes from CUL Technical Services CUL Technical Services is pleased to announce Backstory, a new Web-based newsletter highlighting the work being performed at technical services centers here at Cornell. With this new publication, we'll be highlighting innovative services, providing the stories behind some of the processes you may have read about, and focusing on technical services staff and their accomplishments. David Banush, head of Bibliographic Control Services in CTS, is the prime mover behind Backstory and will serve as the publication's editor. Nancy Solla of CTS Metadata Services is responsible for the site's design. A number of staff throughout the system have contributed to the articles in the first issue. We expect to publish at least twice a year, in the spring and late fall. We welcome your comments about this publication, and we hope you find it both enjoyable and informative. May 3, 2004: New Technical Services Web Site Unveiled The CUL Technical Services Web Site Implementation Team is pleased to announce the new Cornell University Library Technical Services Web site. This initial release is a work in progress, with a target completion date of June 30, 2004. Members of the Implementation Team are: Michal Jacyna, Jim LeBlanc (chair), Lois Purcell, Nathan Rupp, Nancy Solla, and Jim Spear. This Web site is the product of a long-term effort by two groups appointed by TSEG: the Technical Services Web Site Planning Task Force (co-chaired by Margaret Nichols and Jean Pajerek) and the Implementation Team. Responsibility for the upkeep of the site will eventually be handed off to a maintenance team. | |