VIVA Task Force on Cataloging and Intellectual Access

Meeting Minutes (November 5, 1999)

J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Central Administration Building, Richmond, Virginia


IIndex of Topics:

Present: Althea Aschmann (VPI), Elaine Day (JMU), Nadine P. Ellero (UVa), Billie Hackney (ODU), Charles Lewis (JSRCC), Elizabeth G. McClenney (VSU), Allison M. Sleeman (UVa)

Guest: Barbara Anderson (VCU) and Kate Cooke (JSRCC)

Members Absent: Karen Cary (VCU) and Trish Kearns (W&M)

October Minutes were unanimously approved (http://catherine.med.virginia.edu/vivacat/oct99min.htm).


Minutes

Allison Sleeman offered to be recorder for this meeting. The draft minutes should be sent via e-mail to task force members prior to posting on the web. Nadine Ellero will post the approved minutes on the web. The minutes of the October meeting, prepared by Nadine Ellero, were approved as currently posted. Back to Topics

VIVA Forum on Access to Electronic Journals from Aggregator Sources

Elaine Day provided some background information about the cataloging of journals from aggregator sources. Some libraries are cataloging journals with full content and full coverage. Most places are not cataloging journals lacking full content such as those from IAC. Some places such as ODU have an external database merging cataloged titles with others; the external database canot be searched simultaneously with the OPAC. The idea for sharing solutions within VIVA for access to electronic journals apparently started at ODU. Eileen Hitchingham (Va. Tech and member of the VIVA Steering Committee) proposed a workshop, and the Task Force on Cataloging and Intellectual Access was asked to participate. A discussion about this event was held, covering the following topics:

  1. Alternate place (and possibly date) for the forum if it could not be held at VCU
  2. Purpose of the event
  3. Possible speakers
  4. Who would do what

Within a week or so following the task force meeting many of the arrangements had been completed:

The session, which will be a forum instead of a workshop, will be held January 7, 2000 from 9:30-12:30 at VCU. For additonal information about the forum, including the speakers, see the registration form at http://library.jmu.edu/libstaff/ts/er/vivacat/Forum2000.html.

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  Updating Guidelines (http://viva.lib.virginia.edu/vivacat/guidelines.html)

Althea Aschmann distributed some questions/concerns she had from her analysis of the current document [see attachment]. She thinks that it is a good working document. Among the many issues raised were:

  1. Name of task force
  2. Purpose of the guidelines (MARC based or changed to include other methods of access)
  3. Single versus separate records and which record to use when using a single record
  4. Use of examples (caned or live; links must work)
  5. Expansion of sections on collection development and URL maintenance.

This was a substantial revision. Allison Sleeman was added to the subcommittee of Althea Aschmann, Karen Carey, and Elaine Day to work on the revisions. Most of this will probably be done via e-mail. It would be good to have a working copy online for task force members to see and comment on.

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 Archiving Task Force Documents

John Duke has all the Task Force documents including the spring workshop materials for mounting on the VIVA server. These should be linked to the Task Force home page. The Task Force will archive all of its documents; when revisions to documents are put on the server, older versions of the documents will no longer be accessible to the public. The Task Force must approve any material which is put on the server under our auspices. 

  Back to topics

 Project Updates

Chadwyck-Healey: Elaine Day read a statement from Diane Kyrus concerning record distribution. Ms. Kyrus stated:

"We are happy to let you provide the MARC records to anyone who owns or has a Web subscription to any of the databases in question, with the proviso that you may not provide them to any commercial entity. Also, we ask that you make it clear to the organization that they cannot in turn provide the MARC records to any commercial entity and that the records may not be used to create a competitive product." 

Charles Lewis suggested allowing Chadwyck-Healey to distribute the bibliographic records outside of Virginia, with credit to VIVA for the enhancements. Any negotiation on a financial credit should be referred to Kathy Perry. VIVACat will make the downloaded authority records available to VIVA libraries, who are responsible for reviewing their OCLC user agreements governing use of records. The group did not object to allowing the University of Michigan to access the files, given Jackie Shieh's role in the project while she was employed at UVA. The message from Chadwyck-Healey and our preference for distributing the bibliographic records at no cost raise questions about whether they should be uploaded to OCLC for WorldCat Collections.

OCLC CORC:. There was no update; Luciana Wlassics from UVA attended the meeting at OCLC the week of November 1st, but had not returned to work in time for us to receive a report.  Back to Topics

 Announcements:

Allison Sleeman: The University of Virginia is working on the authority clean-up project. When UVA gets its work done, Ed Summers will need to do the updating to the files. Elaine Day suggested that UVA report the error rate, etc., it finds when doing this clean-up. We are interested in evaluating the success of a project of this type, in which libraries of institutions of various sizes/kinds participated. The VIVACat Listserv is not restricted to residents of Virginia.

Charles Lewis: A peer group meeting of the community colleges, including directors, librarians, and distance education personnel will be held November 11, 1999. Charles will give a report about VIVACat.

 Back to Topics

 Action Items:

Cataloging guidelines and continuing work on Chadwyck-Healey authorities.  Back to Topics

 Next Meeting: To be held online, via email.

 The meeting adjourned before lunch.  Back to Topics

  Post-meeting Discussion/Decisions:

Several people (Althea Aschmann, Elaine Day, Nadine P. Ellero, Charles Lewis, and Allison Sleeman) had lunch together after the meeting and briefly discussed the idea of having an e-mail meeting for our December meeting. The Task Force further discussed this on e-mail the week of November 8, 1999 and decided to:

  1. Hold the meeting the week of December 6-10, 1999
  2. Invite anyone onthe listserv to participate in the meeting, but use an alias for the meeting instead of sending it to the whole listserv
  3. Have only Task Force members make decisions
  4. Send a summary of the meeting to the listserv

Elaine Day, as Task Force Chair, will issue the agenda, the call to participate, and create the alias for participation.

 Back to Topics

Submitted by Allison Mook Sleeman; marked up version by Nadine P. Ellero

January 28, 2000