Minutes of SACOTAS June 10, 1999 Meeting Minutes

Present:

J. Boyle, H. Hemmasi, M. Kesselman (recorder), A. King, R. Marker, M. Kesselman (recorder), M. Papai, B. Sewell, J. Sloan, B. Tipton,

Guest:

Tracey Meyer

1. Authority Control Update and Demo:
   • R. Marker, T. Meyer, and H. DeCeunynck will oversee the Cataloging Department's implementation of authority control. LTI is the vendor who will provide authority control services. LTI has processed our test file of close to 20,000 records. Local decisions such as serials treatment and classification decisions will be retained. Training and documentation are needed for the Cataloging Dept's implementation. Training will also be necessary for unit technical services staff and public services librarians and staff.
   • T. Meyers demonstrated the staff and public view of authority control and provided handouts of Authority Control Key Concepts and Terminology. Demos/handouts included use of Browse Authority by Index Fields, Edit Authority Record Screens, View Cross References (see, see-also). See and see also references from authority control are easily viewed in IRIS via an additional click, providing users with alternative headings to search. Methods for adding authority records into Unicorn were reviewed such as "Smartporting" individual records from LC or elsewhere, creating new records or loading records from LTI for ongoing authority control support. Examples presented to the group were from Emory's Euclid, a SIRSI webcat (www.library.emory.edu). They included a corporate name search on FBI, a subject heading search of EmployeesRating of, and a series search on Colleccion austral.
   • Authority Control is planned to be available by the beginning of Spring semester 2000.
2. Reports:
   • H. Hemmasi: Budget strategy meetings have been concluded. Funding for recon was presented as a major priority in the budget plan. Hemmasi reminded all that libraries need to report to her their plans on updating serials records which have no 930s and to request help from TAS if needed. Y2K Contingency Plan document was prepared by the AULs and was reviewed briefly at the meeting. The AUL for TAS position will be posted for a national search and Hemmasi will remain in the acting position until candidate is selected.
   • J. Sloan (Acquisitions): Quicker methods of processing theses is being explored. Re-profiling of approval plan is underway.
   • R. Marker (Cataloging): Units are sending many gift titles to Copy Cataloging. It would be helpful if boxes containing priority gifts could be marked as "PRIORITY" listed on the outside of the boxes. New Librarian V started last week. A delegation from Penn State flew in on their university's airplane to review our Unicorn operation. Penn State is considering moving to a new LIS and SIRSI is one of the products they are reviewing.
   • A. Montanaro (Systems): Mark Witteman is way too happy at his new job with SIRSI! Bob Warwick and Kalaivani Ananthan will attend SIRSI Advanced Programming Interface Training in June. Systems is very close to completing the upload of our records to RLIN. Unicorn 99.2 upgrade is expected later this month.
3. SIRSI Users Group Meeting:
   • RUL was well represented at the SIRSI User's Group Meeting in Huntsville, AL. Gracemary Smulewitz gave a presentation on MARC Holdings and Mary Beth Weber a talk on local practices relating to processing electronic journals. A group from RUL also formed a panel discussion at the Meeting on the future of automation.
   • SIRSI is working on the development of a mechanism to automatically create order records to accompany bib records; several new wizards for cataloging are also being developed.
4. Review of Goals from 5 Year Plan/Goals for Next Year.
   • H. Hemmasi handed out a Draft Overview of SACOTAS Activities/Important
   • Announcements from 7/98-5/99.
   • Suggestion was made to bring together planning goals with activities into one document and place more specific objectives under planning goals. More discussion next meeting.
5. Other:
   • Hemmasi asked if the Technical Services Council should include chair of the PCWG, someone from SCC, or others representing information technology? This will be discussed at the Council's first meeting.
   • M. Papai reported for Mary Page that NB is getting ready for $300K worth of cancellations.
   • M Papai: Music is 50% done with recon.
   • Thank you's were expressed to M. Kesselman and B. Tipton for their contributions to the group discussions during this year. Both Marty and Bobbie's term as RUL Faculty elected rep to SACOTAS has expired.
   • Au will be representing DANA beginning in July.
6. The first Technical Services Council meeting is planned for July 1, 1999 at 9:30 in the TSB Conference Room.