Standing Committee on Automation

Notes of SCA Meeting at ALA Annual, Chicago IL

Jul. 9, 2000, 4:30-6:30 p.m., OCLC Red Suite

Present: Jeanne Baker, Kyle Banerjee, Matthew Beacom, Dan Chudnov (visitor), Ruth Bogan, Karen Calhoun (chair), Ed Glazier, John Levy, Steve Oberg, John Riemer (chair of SCA TG on Aggregators), Gary Strawn, David Whitehair, David Williamson

Update on SCA Task Group on Journals in Aggregator Databases (John Riemer, Matthew Beacom, Jeanne Baker)

John Riemer reported that the final report of the first task group had been released January 2000. The EBSCO set of MARC records for Academic Search Elite, a product of collaboration between the task group and EBSCO's Oliver Pesch, has been available since July 1999 (see the EBSCO press release [No longer available on EBSCO web site]). At PoCo's recommendation, the task group was reconstituted for two more years, with a new charge. The scope of the work has been expanded to include e-books. In addition, the task group is continuing to pursue the creation of record sets for major aggregations like ProQuest Direct. Task group members are meeting with representatives of ProQuest on Monday, July 10 to discuss and review the set of records ProQuest staff are deriving from CONSER records.

Matthew Beacom reported the results of a survey of libraries that have loaded the EBSCO record set into their catalogs. Seven libraries responded to the TG's survey; three have loaded the set (Yale, Cal State Northridge, U. Wisconsin Eau Claire). The loads generally went well. The University of Maryland has plans to load the set soon. One library (Yale) has loaded the first set of updates to the initial load; EBSCO did this by removing the first set completely and replacing it with the updated records from EBSCO. Cal State Northridge reported that, five months following the load of the EBSCO record set into their catalog, the number of hits on Academic Search Elite titles went from 5,000 to 11,000 per month.

SCA members reported that half of the ALCTS Electronic Resources DG meeting was devoted to discussion of aggregators. Jeanne Baker noted that many technical services librarians are still relatively uninformed about the options for managing full-text aggregations, and, among those who are aware of the availability of machine-derived or machine-created records for some sets, a good deal of hesitation about using them. After some discussion, SCA members agreed that it would be a good idea to organize and offer a program or focused discussion at a future ALA meeting to report on progress with managing aggregations and the work of the SCA TG. Some names and ideas for speakers were mentioned (Scott Dennis, Michigan; someone from a library that has loaded the EBSCO records; etc.).

John Riemer reported on the work of another, related TG that he chairs. This new task force, created as a result of discussions at the CONSER/BIBCO Operations Committee meetings in May, is to focus on how to catalog multiple electronic manifestations of full-text titles. The Task Force on Multiple Manifestations is to report to the Standing Committee on Standards with interim report due by Midwinter and final report due April 15, 2001.

Follow-up: Prepare rough program/discussion proposal and refine/fill it in on PCCAUTO. Then offer the proposal to one or more of the appropriate ALCTS committees or DGs for consideration. (Target for having proposal done: November 2000)

SCA Task Group on Automated Classification (Gary Strawn)

Gary Strawn reported that the task group is on track for issuing an interim report by August 15.

Follow-up: When interim report is available, Karen will post for comment to PCCAUTO, then post to SCA Web site, inviting further comment from PoCo members.

JAKE (Dan Chudnov)

Karen Calhoun and Matthew Beacom had invited Dan Chudnov, principal developer of jake, to the SCA meeting. Jake is a reference source developed at the library of the Yale Medical School. Dan explained it takes lists of database content from information providers (like ProQuest or Wiley), then manipulates and cross references the data to create a searchable source of information about titles that are indexed or available as full text from various sources. The result is a tool that makes finding, managing, and linking online journals and journal articles easier. Jake is available to libraries at no charge, and the software may be modified, copied, or redistributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, which is explained at the jake site. Currently several libraries have created local search interfaces for jake.

Recently Mark Jordan of Simon Frasier University, British Columbia, created a new utility that works with jake. The utility, called jake2marc, creates simple MARC records for the full-text journals in any of the databases listed in jake. You can use the utility on the jake2marc site, or install it on your own Web server. SCA members discussed when it might be helpful to use the jake2marc utility. Some ideas were: for record sets that aren't free; so you could compare one record set with another; for obtaining subsets of records for specific titles in a large aggregation such as Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. There was a good deal of interest in experimenting with the utility, and in monitoring jake-list, an open discussion list for those using jake. There was also interest in hooking up the jake2marc developers with the SCA aggregator TG's specs for machine-generated records.

Follow-up: Karen will send information about subscribing to jake-list to SCA members and John Riemer. She will also invite SCA members to experiment with using the jake2marc utility and report back on PCCAUTO.

Streamlining Bibliographic File Maintenance, or Bfm (Pcc Tactical Plan 1.2.4) (David Whitehair and David Williamson)

David Whitehair, SCA's OCLC liaison, reported that the OCLC quality control group is working with WLN staff to obtain a weekly list of authorized heading changes from the Name Authority File. They use this weekly list to locate and correct headings in WorldCat. Therefore, NACO libraries that have been reporting BFM to OCLC from changed authority headings need no longer do so. However, NACO libraries that report BFM to OCLC from the establishment of new authority headings (i.e., when existing OCLC headings conflict) should continue to do so.

If LC had the ability to globally update its database based on the appearance of new or changed authority headings in the authority files, it would greatly reduce (or eliminate) the need for PCC libraries to report BFM to LC from their authority record contributions. David Williamson, LC liaison, reported that the ability to do global updates in LC's new ILS is in a nascent state. He is collaborating with Gary Strawn to provide greater functionality outside of the global update facility of the ILS, but there is nothing new yet. Nevertheless, there is a glimmer of hope for streamlining PCC libraries' reporting of BFM to LC.

Ruth Bogan noted a possible misinterpretation of the position the SCA has taken on BFM reporting by PCC libraries. Lynn El-Hoshy, in her report to SAC on LC activity, noted "... and the Standing Committee on Automation has posed the concern that all PCC records, not just LC's, should be updated when a heading is changed by a PCC library and stated that the development of a mechanism to facilitate bibliographic file maintenance should lead to higher quality PCC records." Karen agreed to investigate.

Real Time Upload of Authority Records to Oclc (Pcc Tactical Plan 1.2.1.3)

As he agreed at the last SCA meeting, David Whitehair informed the group of new developments. OCLC is investigating adding NACO functionality to its CatME product, so that authority records created in a local library system could be automatically uploaded to OCLC, without the need for rekeying. It is possible the new functionality could be implemented during the first half of calendar year 2001.

New Business

Being so far from the location of the PCC Participants meeting, which began at 7:00, we had to adjourn early. This left no time for open discussion. The meeting concluded shortly after 6:00 and we rushed to catch the METRO (almost getting caught in the elevator down to the train!).

Notes prepared by K. Calhoun, 7/23/00