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Cataloging Department Annual Report 1997-1998

Introduction

1997-1998 has marked a transition year within Cataloging, starting with changes in departmental management and culminating with a staff reorganization at year end. While a great number of these changes can be attributed to a shift in perspective and skill set at the Department Head level, many originated among the staff themselves. Of particular note is the growing influence of SPA collaborative decision-making within the Workflow Planning Group (WPG), a group comprised of largely SPA staff from Acquisitions, Cataloging and Special Collections. This group, with help from Bao-Chu Chang, planned the successful migration of Library of Congress copy cataloging operations from Cataloging into Acquisitions in January and the relocation of Special Collections cataloging activity into the ground floor cage area two months later. The success of these ventures supplied at least part of the impetus for repositioning certain SPA staff into Assistant Section Head roles in the reorganization scheduled to begin in July 1998.

In spite of these changes, Cataloging (along with Acquisitions, after 30 student hours were transferred to that department in January) was able to maintain productivity at very close to the historic levels achieved in the previous year. In the category of print monographs, we actually broke last year's record sum of 43,450 titles by 135! As we continue to catalog out of the 3^rd floor cage "targeted collection" materials, and to expand our efforts to analyze monographic series, it is expected that the monograph numbers will continue to rise.

With the removal of the bulk of DLC monograph cataloging operations to the Acquisitions Department in January, attention within Cataloging was shifted to those materials with contributed or no copy available online. Gift materials identified by Collection Management and Special Collections for addition to the catalog, such as the 3^rd floor cage materials, the cryptography and Metcalf collections, the Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) and state Agricultural Experiment Station publications all were handled during the year ending June 30^th. New initiatives this year included the assignment of topical subject headings to North Carolina State University dissertations and theses and the reinvigoration of efforts to analyze all monographic series whose volumes have distinctive titles. Some retrospective holdings identified to individual Collection Managers by faculty as inaccessible to patrons were analyzed during the past year, enabling cited titles to be accessed directly through the catalog rather than indirectly through various reference databases.

Over the coming year we hope to continue evolving in those directions already defined in this report. The reorganization slated for July attempts to anticipate the direction in which the information universe is evolving. To this end a new unit has been created to look at electronic information and the ways in which libraries have attempted to accommodate it through Web pages, browser-enabled MARC fields, and other devices. A second unit is looking at non-MARC relational databases as a means of organizing both bibliographical and multimedia information. An additional staff member is being added to serials cataloging operations to provide continual coverage to an important area whose main staff member works part-time outside of the department. Responsibilities within Database Management are being expanded to include some retrospective conversion work with unanalyzed monographic series along with their more traditional role in holdings creation, cleanup of reported errors, and keeping the catalog current with vocabulary changes to LCSH and name headings. Finally, the Regular Processing Section has been reconfigured into a Monographs Section to deal with both Special Collections and monographs cataloging issues.

While previous models of the library catalog spoke of it as a "finding aid" describing those items physically held within the confines of a particular building, we now see the lines between data (information itself) and metadata (information describing other information) blurring. Information objects themselves are showing up increasingly within databases describing those objects at the same time that structured metadata is becoming an invisible, but electronically accessible, part of modern electronic files. The transition of the catalog into its new role as a structured gateway to information will likely only hasten as electronic forms of information, such as electronic journals, Web content, and locally networked electronic files assume more prominence as primary or secondary information containers on campus. Just as the Libraries are seen as the logical providers of access to electronic as well as print resources on this campus, Cataloging should be seen as the organizers of those resources. To this end we push forward into a new year.

Major accomplishments for 1997-1998

Transferred DLC copy 1 operations from Cataloging into Acquisitions

On recommendation of the Workflow Planning Group, Cataloging transferred all current DLC copy 1 processing to the Receipts area of Acquisitions. This necessitated the transfer of 30 student hours per week, along with a desk and workstation to the new home and extensive training by Cataloging staff of supervisors and support personnel in Acquisitions. In the last five months of the fiscal year, 4966 titles representing 5322 volumes were processed directly upon receipt and passed on to marking, thus shortening the time from arrival of a title to its availability in the stacks.

Completed processing of several of the targeted collections

While several new series were added to the targeted collections list, several others dropped off or were documented as complete. These include the Metcalf Collection of entomological materials within Special Collections, Media Center CD-ROMs and videodiscs, the Water Resources Research Institute publications, Agricultural Experiment Station publications, Slavery microfilm, and various other microform sets. Numerous other collections moved into the regular processing stream where they are being handled alongside other contributed copy cataloging. These include the 3^rd floor cage materials, cryptography materials, LRL media, Hill Media Center videos, and CD sound recordings.

Initiated the subject analysis of NC State dissertations and theses

While the NCSU Libraries has provided author, title and department access to local theses and dissertations for a number of years, access to the topical content of these materials was by title keywords only. Beginning with the spring 1998 convocation, Library of Congress subject headings have been assigned, enabling patrons to identify local research as part of a subject search in the catalog. This should result in better access to our collection of theses and dissertations, both for patrons who know they are looking for this genre of material and those who find it as part of their normal monograph research strategies.

Continued development of the Department's Web content

The relocation of the Department's Web site from library.lib.ncsu.edu to the dhhill server enabled delivery of our Web content beyond the library intranet for the first time. This has been useful in delivering content to the cataloging community at large and in sharing information with our more immediate neighbors at UNC and Duke. The past year has seen the addition of much useful content to the Cataloging Web Site, including monthly and yearly processing statistics, timely links to reports from various national and international conferences and projects, links to other library OPACs, and status reports and demos on local projects involving Cataloging.

Restructured processing statistics-gathering to provide consistent content

The Department's ability to quickly generate processing and collection size statistics for whatever purpose has been aided by the use of 3D spreadsheets covering the full year and analyzable by library, format, staff level, and other attributes. It is now possible to generate ARL statistics, for example, at any point in time as these are now linked to monthly reporting within the Department.

Assumed responsibility for Faculty Publications database project

This project was originally begun by Orion Pozo in Collection Management and carried out by Loretta Mershon under contract over the last two years. Cataloging has ported the original flat-file data into MS Access 97 and used that application's relational capabilities to speed up authentication of author, journal, and department information, to identify the university status of authors (faculty member, grad student, researcher, librarian), and to connect citations with Triangle library holdings. Reports have been created to output HTML for static Web pages. A demo and further exposition of this project is available online.

Research into non-MARC relational database needs

The success of the Faculty Publications project has brought requests for the application of Cataloging's organizational capabilities in other areas as well. The Design Slides project which had been languishing for a few years, is now back on track under the aegis of the Department. As projects such as this are taken from the design phase into production, Cataloging is poising itself as the home of database expertise in non-MARC, non-textual data as well as the more traditional type. Several staff members have received training in MS Access 97 and are applying this with the faculty publications database in anticipation of further development in this area.

Began regular handling of electronic journals through DRA

Electronic journals are now accessible through the MARION database as live links, thanks to the efforts of Bao-Chu Chang and others. For the most part these follow the MulVer (multiple version) approach, which sees electronic and other format versions which mirror the intellectual content of the journal included on a single record within the catalog. By year's end there were about 250 of these titles in MARION and also on the Libraries' Web site.

NC and Federal Documents

The end of the year saw the beginnings of the integration of NC documents processing into the mainstream of cataloging procedures. Titles whose depository status is secure for the foreseeable future have begun to be assigned Library of Congress classification numbers and redirected to the stacks rather than a separate state documents area. Over the next few years Cataloging will be moving previously held state documents into the stacks, except for those which Collection Management has identified as candidates for weeding when their statutory five years runs out. In the meantime, discussions on the handling of federal documents continue with the outlook quite positive on their mainstream processing as well.

Goals for 1998-1999

1. Renew the Department's commitment to the public service ethic expressed in our Vision Statement.
   
2. Re-examine the NC State library community's use of the Catalog and how we attempt to communicate bibliographic information from information provider to information consumer. Establish the OPAC as the gateway to non-traditional, as well as traditional, forms of information including full-text documents, images, multimedia presentations, and remote resources.
   
3. Communicate our progress on substantive issues to the rest of the Libraries' staff through the Department's Web site, articles in Library newsletters, and the "Public" mailbox.
   
4. Improve the dialogue between the Cataloging Department and other Library departments, in particular RISD and Systems.
   
5. Strengthen catalog support for serial and electronic materials by moving additional staff to those units responsible for cataloging and, especially in the area of electronic resources, mounting a research and development effort which, in cooperation with DDLI and the WIT, looks at organizational models for the structure of non-bibliographic files such as the Library's Web site.
   
6. Integrate the Database Management unit more fully into the Cataloging Department, including conducting the training necessary to bring their level of descriptive cataloging knowledge and subject expertise to that expected of full-time catalogers. This level of expertise will strengthen the unit's ability to maintain the overall quality of the catalog.
   
7. Begin a gradual move back towards SPA supervisory roles in the functional units (Database Management, Serials, Electronic Resources, and Monographs) of the Department. Broaden the role of professional catalogers as mentors, researchers, and policy-makers in the Libraries.
   
8. Maintain currency in processing turnaround (less than a month in the Department) for any newly-received items (excluding recon and other special projects).
   
9. Complete the reclassification of all state document serials being permanently retained after 1 July 1998 from NC Document number to LC class. Begin work on reclassification of permanently retained state document monographs.
   
10. Provide AACR2 "level 2" description and full LCSH access to all analyzable materials selected for addition to the Library's collections. This includes all NC State theses/dissertations and all monographic series, including technical reports.
    
11. Begin more widespread training in the use of non-MARC and non-bibliographic databases using available tools such as MS Access 97, FileMaker Pro, and SQL, in preparation for the future direction of cataloging activities. As a demonstration project, bring up the Faculty Publications database as a Web-searchable database running in real-time.
    
12. Increase general departmental expertise in DRA, specifically UDMS, global search and replace, USMARC record loading and overlaying, search techniques, indexing and display within the OPAC and its relation to DRA policy tables.

Personnel changes in the Cataloging Department 1997-1998

List of Cataloging Department employees as of 1 July 1998

Appendix A: Summary of Cataloging processing activity by library and/or collection 1997-98

Appendix B: Year-end processing totals by library/collection