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Metadata and Cataloging Department
Annual Report 2006-2007

Departmental activities

We have enjoyed a very productive year, participating in a number of successful initiatives and bringing many on-going projects to fruition. Highlights include:

• Rapid Cataloging Workflow: We continue to streamline processes and expedite processing, with 48-hour turnaround time as the established standard for these materials. 10,803 new volumes passed through the Rapid Cataloging workflow this year.


• Digital Project Involvement: the department was well-represented on a number of strategically important Library-wide projects and contributed expertise to make the following services and initiatives successful:


• Endeca Implementation
• E-Matrix
• SFX
• Journal List
• Quick Search
• Collection Metrics Task Force
• Scholarly Publications Repository Implementation


• Bulk Transfers: In collaboration with Acquisitions, Preservation, RIS, ADS and our computing consultant, we participated in two bulk transfers of reference volumes this year. We have been able to address a greater volume of need with a higher level of efficiency through use of API and outsourcing of label production, to transfer and remark approximately 18,000 volumes from the Reference Collection into the General collection. This transfer was done in preparation for the opening of the Learning Commons.

Non-MARC Metadata Initiatives

2006-2007 saw substantial growth in departmental non-MARC production, thanks to some new projects and the start of full-text submissions for the NCSU Scholarly Publications Repository. By year end, almost 100 full-text documents had been uploaded to D-Space, where they could be displayed through links from the public SPR search interface. This created a new workflow for those working on this project, as staff in Metadata and Cataloging have had to check the format of full-text submissions and create minimal citation metadata in the new D-Space environment. It is hoped that some of this operation can be automated in the future, especially where the citation is already represented in the public Repository interface.

With faculty interest in the new Institutional Repository piqued through presentations by the Libraries' Digital Publishing office, the number of submissions to the SPR (formerly the NCSU Authors' Database) through the Web form rose this year as well, especially as we have now begun accepting submissions for publications pre-dating our earlier 1997 cut-off. Authors in previously under-represented disciplines, such as Design and Textiles, are now being added to the database in greater numbers as these programs learn of the Repository. For the first time this year, we removed a number of citations that were identified as duplicated in the database.

A Technical Reports Repository was started in this fiscal year, with 1176 titles added to this repository from publications already existing on program Web sites in Computer Science, Statistics, the Center for Scientific Computing, and the Center for Advanced Computing and Communication. Several new series will be added in the coming year, representing scanned publications not previously available online.

Two new projects were begun with Special Collections in this year, including the Course Catalogs and University Archives Photograph Collections. The former consisted of creating page-level descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata for annual University publications describing course offerings at both the undergraduate and graduate levels dating back to the 1920s. Initially, metadata was created using the physical volumes themselves, as these had not yet been scanned, but by year end it was being created from page images scanned by an outside agency. As staff could only guess at what the scanners would consider a page based on the print original, it was definitely preferable to use the scanned images to create metadata. This also enabled us to identify errors in scanning that otherwise might have been missed.

The University Archives Photograph Collection (UAPC) is an ongoing digitization and metadata creation project to capture both images and metadata for a large historical collection of photographs covering sports, student life, and campus growth. Staff from the Monographs Section, working under Ella Rogers-Jones, started descriptive metadata work with this collection in the first half of the year, though this had largely stopped just prior to the move back from Brickhaven in March.

The Year Ahead

Metadata and Cataloging will continue to support the Libraries' strategic goals and priorities by strengthening our organizational flexibility and increasing responsiveness to new demands through the effective use of staffing and other resources. Effective communication with colleagues across the Libraries' is necessary to preserve the services that are fundamentally important to the Libraries' mission, and enhances our ability to proactively restructure our workflows to meet these demands.

Goals for 2007-2008

1. Increase the investment of departmental resources in enhancing discovery of and access to digital collections, leveraging our expertise to add value where it will best serve the strategic priorities of the Libraries and meet the needs of our users.


2. Increase efficiencies for growth by maximizing productivity in workflows via the following avenues:


1. Solidify categories of acceptable copy for total acceptance on receipt. Decrease exception categories for the Rapid Cat workflow so that the only materials that need Cataloging attention are


1. Special Collections materials
2. Items with a significantly less than full Encoding level (2, 3, 5, E, or J.)
3. Items with a provisional record
4. Items with no subject headings or class number (including DDC only)
5. Analyzed serials
6. Conference proceedings
7. Videos, maps & sound recordings


2. Analyze current cataloging practices for non-print materials with a view to the feasibility of expanding the Rapid Cat workflow to include additional monographic formats.


3. Continue working closely with Acquisitions further to streamline workflow for serials and electronic resources.


4. Reduce manual processing and maintenance related to state and federal documents.


1. Investigate and report on current costs and savings to be created through reduced investment of staff time.


3. Continue to assist with implementation of E-Matrix, SFX, Endeca, and other resource discovery tools. In particular,


1. Collaborate with Acquisitions staff to provide authority control for organization names within E-Matrix.
2. Continue to provide timely response to data enhancement requests for E-Matrix, Endeca, and other digital projects.
3. Assist with FAST implementation if needed.


4. Expand departmental involvement in metadata projects throughout the Libraries. In particular, upcoming digital projects, including


1. Course catalogs digitization project in SCRC: Assist with metadata creation.
2. University Archives Photo Collection: Assist with metadata creation.
3. Digital preservation projects.
4. Provide collection-level records for digital collections via the Catalog.
5. Continue to provide consultation services for database structure, thesauri-building and cross-walking activities.

Appendix to Metadata and Cataloging Annual Report 2006-2007

Cataloging Statistics

At a glance:

Year-end processing totals by library/collection and material type

Summary of Cataloging processing activity by library and/or collection 2006-2007

Personnel

The year was marked by the departure of a number of long-term staff. Kay Dudley (61, Monographs Section), retired after more than thirty years of service to the Libraries. Nancy Mottley (61, Continuing Resources and Database Management) retired after 15 years of service to the department. Ella Rogers-Jones (63, Monographs Section) and Bao-Chu Chang (EPA, Acting Assistant Department Head, Principal Cataloger and Head, Continuing Resources and Database Management) both retired after 30 years of service to the State and to the Libraries. This year also saw the complete turnover of our 59 staff, after a long period of relative stability. In January, our Computing Consultant, Dawn Pearce, moved to the Information Technology Department to assume responsibility for the integrated library system.

List of Cataloging Department employees as of 1 July 2007