The purpose of this newsletter is to provide summary information about activities in the three divisions of Technical Service that may be of interest to the library staff. The newsletter will be issued irregularly via NjP-L, the Library list serve, and archived accessible from a link on the Technical Services web page:
http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/tech/hptsd.html
In this issue:
· Cataloging production
· Hold reduction
· Marcadia redux
· Circulation policies
· Shelf reading in Firestone
· Annex notifications automated
· Ask Acq session
· Binding policy task force report
· News from the Metadata Librarian
Catalog Division:
Record setting production in FY04: A new record for new titles cataloged was set in fiscal year 2004. In fact, the old record of 77,423 titles, set in 1998, was completely shattered by the 2004 new titles cataloged total of 93,194.
Hold reduction: Excellent progress at reducing the cataloging backlog was made in FY2004. The roman language hold was reduced from a high of 42,883 titles on July 1, 2003 to 32,014 titles on July 1, 2004. The date of the oldest title in the roman hold was also reduced from 27 months to 15 months over this period.
Marcadia redux: As a result of input to RLG from Princeton regarding the inability of Marcadia automated copy retrieval service to identify enough cataloging copy for our backlogged titles to justify the cost of the service, RLG made modifications that significantly enhanced its flexibility. Further investigation of Marcadia returned 38% hits (Library of Congress or equivalent copy); nearly a 50% improvement over the old Marcadia. While this is an encouraging improvement, it is still not enough to demonstrate cost effectiveness in comparison with using students to do hold searching/cataloging. Catalog Division is in the process of analyzing the respective costs of each approach in order to make a recommendation on whether or not to employ Marcadia for hold reduction.
Circulation
Division:
Circulation policies: The circulation policies of the Library have now been codified and are available to all users and staff online via the library web site. To view the policies, click on the "Circulation and Your Library Account" link from the main library web page, or go there directly at http://library.princeton.edu/services/circulation.php
Shelf reading: The Shelving Unit will begin integrating shelf reading into its normal routines starting this fall. Though it may take a while to be at the optimal level, library patrons and staff may begin to see improvements, especially in heavily used areas.
Annex notification automated: Patrons will begin receiving notification for items requested from the Annex. Annex staff have been trained to create item records, and holds will be placed in Voyager on items requested, therefore generating automatic notices when the items are discharged in the location to which the item is sent. Staff with questions may contact the Firestone Circulation staff.
Order
Division:
Ask Acq: Order Division and the Acquisitions Advisory Group hosted two drop-in sessions on claiming. A total of 23 staff attended the two sessions for discussion and hands-on instruction in finding and understanding claim information in the Voyager Acquisitions Client.
Binding Policy Task Force: The report of the Binding Policy Task Force has been delivered to the Library Management Group. The report summarizes the current binding policy, most recently reaffirmed in 1989, by Library Council. It reviews our current expenses, projects future expenses, and suggests areas to consider for reducing costs. This will be a topic of discussion at a future selectors’ meeting before referral to Department Heads.
Metadata
initiatives:
Page-turning developments: Clay Redding is developing a web-based page-turning application that will read in METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) descriptive, administrative, technical metadata, and a list of image files to create an e-book-like environment. “Page-turning” functionality creates a more user-friendly information viewing environment for large documents. Page-turning allows the user to more easily navigate the information presented as one would in a physical book volume, rather than scrolling through a web page that is displayed as a single book-length screen.
EAD development: Work with Rare Books and Special
Collections staff on implementing Encoded Archival Description, and building
tools to automate and deliver EAD to staff and users is underway. EAD is an encoding standard analogous to
MARC that provides a standardized approach to encoding archival Finding
Aids. Similar to what MARC does for catalog records, EAD ensures
“interoperability” for Finding Aids, i.e., the critical ability for any
standards compliant automated system to accurately retrieve and display records
for Finding Aids described in EAD.
Vernacular script display: Clay is also experimenting with a tool that will read in transliterated text (mostly in Cyrillic, some in Arabic) in a bib record and automatically map the data to the vernacular using UTF-8 Unicode. Users could then theoretically search records using the transliterated text or the vernacular using an on-screen keyboard displaying the language locale of their choice.