cataloging problems and resolutions

Prices Displayed to Public in ISBN Field

2006-11-21T12:40:00.001-05:00

Katie Bower brought to my attention the title "Changes in the land : Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England" (Voyager bib no. 280115, RLIN ID CTYG83-B26986), containing two 020 fields each with price of book recorded in subfield $c. I deleted the prices and exported the record, but I wanted to make a note of it here in case it comes up again.

DO NOT EDIT; DO NOT EXPORT

2006-09-18T12:45:00.001-04:00

There have been occasional requests to update headings on e-resource records with the 946 field DO NOT EDIT; DO NOT EXPORT.

For background on the 946 field, see Youn Noh's memo:
http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/Orbis2Manual/mem946edit.htm

Basically, even if this type of 946 field is in the record, it's safe to fix any typos as long as the record isn't from ebrary or Serials Solutions. You can fix an ebrary or Serial Solutions record, but these are considered to be "dynamic vendor records" and are subject to periodic computer updates that will wipe out any local changes.

For records other than ebrary or Serials Solutions, the update will probably be stable. Under current processing guidelines, stable vendor records with 946 will have the note DO NOT EXPORT TO OCLC/RLIN. (The business about no editing will not be in the note.) But older records have the one size fits all note that includes the No editing part, even though it does not really apply to these types of records.

For either type of record, don't export to the utilities after updating.

--Steven Arakawa

Adding complex 866 data

2006-09-12T09:07:00.000-04:00

On Sept. 11, 2006, Victoria wrote: "MFHD 5821173 has no 866 line. We want to withdraw vol. 95:2, but can't do it completely because there is no 866." I told her I would try to take care of this, but I wonder if this is the sort of thing that should be handled better through catalog management.

Suppressed cover record vs. "phantom"

2006-07-06T17:51:00.000-04:00

Could someone take a look at the following exchange and just confirm that I gave Victoria the correct information? Should the item record note be deleted (or at least modified?) Thanks. / Daniel

(Incidentally, the Bib record number she provided is incorrect. But the barcode number works though.)

Vicky Gardner wrote:
> One of my staff members from the past worked on this record (Bib
> 4003010, b/c39002031944185). He discharged it, though it was charged
> to Binding/SML. He called it a phantom record in the item note,
> though I am not sure it really is. The Bib record says it is
> Suppressed. There is no call number. Can you fix this to today's
> standards and let me know what you've done in case I find one in the
> future?

I responded:
"This looks like a suppressed cover record for a series that's been fully analyzed and classed separately. I believe it is correct for it to be suppressed (because the public can retrieve all volumes through 4xx/8xx fields) and not classified (given the fact that its constituent volumes are classed separately).So I'm not sure anything really needs to be done. I'll check with my colleagues, though, and let you know if I'm missing something."

Cat Probs Rotation

2006-07-05T15:57:00.004-04:00

July 3 DL
July 10 SRA
July 17 MB
July 24 RS
July 31 PT
August 7 DL
August 14 SRA
August 21 MB
August 28 RS
Sept. 4 PT
Sept. 11 DL
Sept. 18 SRA
Sept. 25 MB
Oct. 2 RS
Oct. 9 PT
Oct. 16 DL
Oct. 23 SRA
Oct. 30 MB
Nov. 6 RS
Nov. 13 PT
Nov. 20 DL
Nov. 27 SRA
Dec. 4 MB
Dec. 11 RS
Dec. 18 PT
Jan. 1 DL
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Still no word on the shift to CMT. If we reach the end of the year without change, perhaps we should push for a decision.

Record promises full text but delivers only abstracts

2006-06-09T15:38:00.000-04:00

Question from RSC today ca. 3:30pm:

"Orbis says that the journal Economic and Industrial Democracy is available in full text from 11/2001 to one year ago. However, I couldn't find any FT at all."

I responded that I would look into it, and then I tried to replicate the problem as follows:

I retrieved the record, and noted that hyperlinked note in the public record says: "Available Online: Full text from 11/01/2001 to 1 year ago (ABI/INFORM Global)". When I click on the link I get a ProQuest-supplied index of journal issues. When I click on the latest issue, "May 1, 2006", I get a table of contents for that issue, with article titles hyperlinked. If I click on a specific title, say "From Welfare to Profit", I get an abstract. That's the end of the road. No full text.

There's a Yale Links button available at the article level, so I tried it and received the message: "Yale Links could not find full text. Try the options below to do a comprehensive search for this item." I tried searching the list of electronic journals, but no luck there either.

So ... it looks like record should be revised to indicate that the Yale Library provides online abstracts, but not full text. Alternatively, maybe we really do have the full text, but I it isn't easy to find (by SFX or by me).

I can't update the record myself, since the 946 field says "DO NOT EDIT; DO NOT EXPORT"

I've sent a note to Matthew and Youn to see if there's anything they can do.

Orbis search box added

2006-04-07T12:06:00.000-04:00

I've added an Orbis search box to the right-hand panel. I figure this might be convenient for checking WebVoyage as we're thinking through catalog problems.

On Order in author field

2006-03-31T16:19:00.000-05:00

Some vendors include On Order in field 910 of their electronic bibliographic records, which are used in Orbis as in-process records. In the OPAC, the On Order text appears as a hotlink in the author field.
Background: orphan circulation records originating in NOTIS still have 9xx tags, so the current OPAC profile treats all 910s as equivalent to MARC 100 fields (thus the hotlink). Since Catalog Management has identified and fixed most of the orphan circ. records by now, ILTS will propose to PIC that the OPAC profile be changed.
For now, if records with On Order as the "author" are referred to CatProbs, refer the problem to Rebecca Hamilton & Marsha Garman.

--Steven Arakawa

Linguistics Seminar Rm

2006-03-29T10:39:00.000-05:00

Request was for a correction to the present location for the Linguistics Seminar Room (from HGS 302) to Temple 370. SML Cataloging no longer catalogs for Linguistics Seminar. The collection is not available to general YUL users and therefore should not be represented in Orbis. Catalog Management (Dajin Sun) has requested that ILTS deal with suppression of these records from the database.

Cat Probs Rotation

2006-02-27T10:23:00.000-05:00

The CatProbs assignments for the next few months are:

March 6 RS
March 13 PT
March 20 DL
March 27 SRA
April 3 MB
April 10 RS
April 17 PT
April 24 DL
May 1 SRA
May 8 MB
May 15 RS
May 22 PT
May 29 DL
June 5 SRA
June 12 MB
June 19 RS
June 25 PT

Dajin thinks end of June will be a good time to discuss moving the function to the Catalog Management Team. rek

Duplicate order records

2006-01-27T17:09:00.000-05:00

I suspect with electronic vendor records we will start to see more duplicate record reports via catprobs. Both Marsha Garman (marsha.garman@yale.edu) and Rebecca Hamilton (rebecca.hamilton@yale.edu) are authorized to delete these; Marsha has suggested that you forward to both her and Rebecca should you get delete requests because of vendor dups and they'll take care of them. (The operator id for this particular problem was EODBWUS, which suggested electronic vendor to me.)

--Steven Arakawa

Record enhancement requests

2006-01-17T12:08:00.000-05:00

Rec'd Jan. 4: "Feedback: Can bib nos. 3071690, 720580, 5442956 and 757788 have "IMF" added to the bib records somehow so they can be retrieved with an IMF keyword search? A patron was frustrated at not being able to find them; he didn't realize he had to spell out International Monetary Fund."
Consulted with Joan & Manon. Bad precedent. We should not do this. To paraphrase one comment: Research Services should be explaining to the patron that kw searches are not always going to find everything and introduce to him the concept of searching using controlled vocabularies and the concept of cross references. We can't add keywords to every bib record just to replicate cross references. It would be endless.

--Steven Arakawa

REVISED ROTATION

2005-11-10T13:06:00.000-05:00

With Earl gone we'll have to rotate a bit faster.

Nov. 14 and 21 RS
Nov.21 PT
Nov. 28 DL
Dec. 5 SRA
Dec. 12 MB
Dec. 19 RS
Dec. 26 Free Week

2006
Jan. 3 PT
Jan. 9 DL
Jan. 16 SRA
Jan. 23 MB
Jan. 30 RS
Feb. 6 PT
Feb. 13 DL
Feb. 20 SRA
Feb. 27 MB
At this point perhaps we should reassess - maybe expand the participants, maybe make the terms two weeks (to double the time before one name recurs), maybe evaluate whether this is still a useful service, etc.

L&B items with Old Yale class numbers

2005-09-14T13:12:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen an announcement, but it is my understanding that all L&B books in the Old Yale classification had been transferred to LSF, and that any L&B titles with Old Yale numbers still represented in Orbis had not been found at the time of transfer. The particular title that initiated this posting lacked notation in the item record or the MFHD indicating that it was missing; I suspect this might be the case with other L&B Old Yale items that have yet to be located. Judy Parker: "L&B books come out of the woodwork every now and then. We send them along to Cat Manage. for them to send along to lsf."

Catalog Problems rotation

2005-09-13T10:11:00.000-04:00

The CatProb assignments for the next couple of months are:

Week of Sept. 12 SRA
Sept. 19 MB
Sept. 26 ER
Oct. 3 RS
Oct. 10 PT
Oct. 17 DL
Oct. 24 SRA
Oct. 31 MB
Nov. 7 ER
Nov. 14 and 21 RS
Nov.21 PT
Nov. 28 DL
Dec. 5 SRA
Dec. 12 MB
Dec. 19 ER

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Bibliographic Headings & Authority Record Problems

2005-08-19T16:37:00.000-04:00

"Those who monitor the catprobs list can send me ANY problems related to bib headings and authority records. Please do."--Manon
Passing this on at Manon's request--SRA

Withdrawn, Lost, Missing

2005-08-04T09:51:00.000-04:00

Reminder that the current library policy is to display the bibliographic record for items formerly held by the library (i.e. cataloged) even when the last copy is designated as "withdrawn." (When the last copy is either deaccessioned or declared formally to be lost, the location is changed to $b withdrawn, generating the OPAC message: Status Unknown. The bibliographic record should NOT be suppressed.)
Examples that can be viewed in the OPAC: Feminism & science; The Hollywood screenwriters.
Note that current policy for deaccessioned remote electronic resources is to DELETE the record; Matthew is currently experimenting by applying the physical item policy to ebrary titles, so you may encounter some of these titles in the OPAC with the standard withdrawn message: Status Unknown.

--Steven Arakawa

Miniature Books

2005-08-03T13:58:00.000-04:00

The policy up till now on miniature books (under 10 cm) is to offer to Beinecke. Since the object is presumably to avoid having really small books in the stacks, where they can easily be lost, the question came up whether we continue to offer this type of book if it is flagged for LSF.

We have since learned from Beinecke (via Tim Young) that Beinecke only wants miniature book offers of fine press productions or artists' books. Since the item in hand was flagged for LSF but did not fall into the fine press/artists' books category, it will go to LSF, where it should be secure. Question: does Beinecke get priority over AOB if the item is in that category? Not necessarily; could also be offered to AOB, but that collection may have space problems.

In the future, if the miniature book is not an example of a fine press/artists' book, and is not flagged for LSF, just flag it for LSF. If it isn't received in the acquistions dept. board/bag container, get one from acquistions. (But I'm going to touch base with Bobbie Pilette on this one.) Follow-up: Joan has consulted with Bobbie & preservation & cataloging & maybe acquistions will get together to see if we can obtain containers that would allow us to shelve items not within scope for Beinecke on the SML shelves. Even if the item goes to LSF, a container is probably safer for very small items. For the time being, hold on to any minature books not OK'd for Beinecke until this gets resolved.

A fine press/artist's book flagged for a special collection (AOB or Arts) should of course be cataloged for the designated collection. Question: What about a special collection that is not secure, e.g. Judaica?

--Steven Arakawa

Tracing Fund Codes & Donor Names on SML Bib Records

2005-07-26T11:20:00.000-04:00

Acquisitions inquired about a field to enter fund codes or donor names associated with bookplates on bibliographic records, whether this should be 852 $x, 590, or 6xx x4. Avoid doing this if at all possible & touch base with the Chief Catalog Librarian before committing. That the information could be useful "someday" is not a sufficient rationale. With batch overlays, a significant percentage of the fund/donor tracings are going to be lost, and this will make even individual overlays of in-process records that much more complicated. Extracting the information from 852 $x is programmer intensive.

--SRA

Policy on separate record for reproductions

2005-06-20T14:30:00.000-04:00

This query was on where the policy for whether to create a separate record for reproductions for multipart situations is documented. There is a section "Special Cases" in Processing and Cataloging of Preservation Replacements. Part one. http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/Orbis2Manual/presprocedures1.htm#original

If photocopies replace some volumes, they should be added to the same MFHD.

If some volumes are replaced by microfilm, a separate record should be created.

As indicated in an earlier section, a replacement photocopy for a single part requires a separate record:
http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/Orbis2Manual/presprocedures1.htm#photocopy

See also: Added Copy or New Record: Books

http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/Orbis2Manual/addedcopyscope.htm

Section: Items requiring a new record, no. 1.

Note that the query was from a new hire from UConn, where the practice is to add reproductions to the same bibliographic record.

--SRA

Serial Checkin

2005-06-20T14:22:00.000-04:00

This isn't a problem, more of an FYI. The current workflow using the serial checkin software at SML is as follows, per query sent to Serial Support 6/14.
a. When all issues are received, the receipt lines are suppressed (but not compressed) in the Acquisitions Module.
b. The volume is then added to the text summary statement in 866.

PS: the templates for publication patterns used in Orbis Acquisitions were copied from Cornell's files (don't know the original source for Cornell). The templates do not always follow current ANSI/NISO standards so there will be a cosmetic discrepancy between the form used for the receipt statements vs. the form used for the volume holdings in the OPAC display. There are no plans to edit the Cornell templates. (8/17)

--SRA

American Oriental Society Holdings Maintenance

2005-06-20T14:09:00.000-04:00

In case this comes up again: there was a request to update Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in the American Oriental Society collection. The AOS collection is not under YUL & the Catalog Dept does not update AOS holdings. Probably best to refer requests for AOS maintenance to JS (not Serial Support & not Cat Mgt).
--SRA

Catalog Problems rotation

2005-06-14T11:15:00.000-04:00

The CatProb assignments for the next couple of months are:
Week of June 20 -- SRA
June 27 -- MB
July 4 -- ER
July 11 -- RS
July 18 -- PT
July 25 -- DL (new member!)
Aug. 1 -- SRA
Aug. 8 -- MB
Aug. 15 -- ER
Aug. 22 -- RS
Aug. 29 -- PT
Sept. 5 -- DL

image testing

2005-06-14T10:51:00.000-04:00

verification of sources before changes

2005-06-14T08:40:00.000-04:00

I have a request from a Yale grad student.

He claims that the authors (same name; diff. birth and death dates) have been used as headings in the wrong bib. records. The actual items are all located in Mudd. He includes sources for verification of the correct names (also located in Mudd, plus a Beinecke book).

I rarely feel comfortable accepting a person's word for verification. I also do not have the time to run over to Mudd and Beinecke to verify the sources myself.

I confirmed (via Yale departmental web site) that this student is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in History of Art, with a specialization in 19th c. European and American Art. He knows the subject better than I, and he has already done the verification.

I am inclined to accept his word and make the changes. What do others think? I'll copy this message to Joan as well.

Serial Oversize/Regular Size

2005-06-08T16:24:00.000-04:00

This came through on catprobs to me from Circ for Orbis 469081 Midstream; a monthly Jewish review. A similar query to Rick for Orbis 467278, Book review index. (PS: similar query on this re:East Asian series from EAC)
There seems to be some institutional memory that when a serial changes from regular to oversize, the entire set is reclassed to oversize to keep all volumes together in the same area.
This does not appear to have been recent practice in technical services; instead, a separate MFHD has been created for the oversize volumes. (I checked with Curtis & Rick had checked some time ago on another title with Jim Shetler). I have found no documentation indicating an established procedure one way or the other (main source for documentation was the 1978 Cat. Dept. Manual) Given staff limitations, even if this had been a documented practice I can see no rationale for continuing to do so. Discussed w/Joan & she agreed.
At Rick's suggestion I have documented current practice (create a separate MFHD) by updating the previously posted Oversize document. While I was at it, I added a section on Old Yale oversize from the 1978 manual, pretty much quoted verbatim & a contents header with jump links.
Link to the document at: http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/Orbis2Manual/Oversize.htm#serialchange
[PS 7/25/05. I updated the revision based on feedback from Acquisitions. While it is the case that when a serial goes from regular to oversize, a 2nd MFHD is created, the same does not apply when the serial goes from oversize to regular size. In that case, the original MFHD continues to be used and the regular size volumes are simply added to the MFHD associated with the oversize number. The rationale is that oversize volumes do not fit on regular size shelves, so if the serial changes to oversize, a new location is necessary for shelving purposes. Note that the original regular size MFHD is retained; the regular size volumes are not reclassed to oversize for reasons of economy. If the serial goes from oversize to regular size, on the other hand, the regular size volumes have no trouble fitting on the shelves, and it is more user-friendly to keep all issues together.--SRA]
If you notice anything objectionable on the revisions, let me know. I used the Midstream MFHDs as the example, but removed the volume numbers for the regular size 852, which I don't think is standard practice and was causing some confusion in Circ. , although the Orbis MFHD itself I left as is. I was going to use the Book Review Index as the example, but I did find it bothersome that 2 MFHDs were created (regular/oversize) for what seems to me something like a "latest issue" situation. The earlier volumes are in SML, the more recent ones are in SMLREF. Why not just use one MFHD for the reference set even though the very latest volume is ovesize, and create a 2nd MFHD for SML when the volume gets transferred? (The oversize volume could be annotated with $x in the meantime) Just a thought.
I could enter links to the 2 titles in the webpac, but they seem to be too long.

--Steven Arakawa

Posting comments

2005-06-08T12:55:00.002-04:00

I've added a comment to my first posting, where I mention the fact that I've added some links to the sidebar. To read the comment, just click "comments" at bottom of entry.

Creating new posts

2005-06-08T11:10:00.000-04:00

It just occurs to me that you may need to be a member of blogger.com before you can post messages to this blog. I'd be happy to show people how to do this. One you're signed up, there's a wonderful plug-in available in Firefox where you can visit a Web page, decide you want it saved to the blog, right click the mouse, select "blog it now", and have the URL immediately embedded in a new posting.

Incidentally, if you select the "Compose" tab for the posting editor, you don't have to look at the raw HTML. If you *don't* mind looking at raw HTML, hoever, select the "Edit HTML" tab and you'll notice that there's a tag already there called "span class full" which allows you to post a brief message in the normal blog view, with the option at the click a button to give viewers a longer post. Eseentially it's like the brief versus full view in Orbis. You can test how this works in the current posting. Just click the "read more!" link below and you'll see an additional paragraph added to the bottom . The only drawback to this feature (which I can disable if people like) is that it prompts the viewer, at the bottom of every posting, to click "read more!", even if there's actually nothing more to read.

And here you can see that I've provided additional text. This can be a handy way of getting large blocks of text out of the initial blog view, only to be retrieved if you really need to dig deeply into the history of the problem.

New blog: Cataloging Problems ("Cataloging Opportunities"?)

2005-06-08T09:42:00.000-04:00

This is a new weblog that we can use to keep track of cataloging problems and the extent to which they've been resolved or require follow-up attention. I can sign up any number of persons who want to be able to post messages to the blog. Postings will be arranged and archived in chronological order, with most recent messages appearing at the top. Name and email address of author will appear at bottom of each posting.