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Librarians Association of the |
November 18, 2002
TO: LAUC Executive Board
FR: Jain Fletcher, LAUC Representative to HOTS
RE: Report on the Fall 2002 meeting of the UC Heads of Technical Services
HOTS met in Oakland on Friday, Nov. 4, 2002, with all campuses represented. This was the first HOTS meeting for two of the attendees: the new AUL for TS at UCSB (Gail McClenney) and the LAUC representative. The committee managed to cover its full agenda (7 topics in 6 agenda items) fairly close to the scheduled timeframe. The minutes from that meeting should appear very soon on the SOPAG site: http://www.slp.ucop.edu/sopag/.
Of the topics covered, those listed below may have particular interest to LAUC members.
Melvyl-related topics
This decision provides at least two points of interest to LAUC, in fact, to all UC Library staff: 1) that all records in Melvyl (as of 1/1/03) will contain a sufficient minimum of detail and 2) the need for accommodating this standard should ensure that well-trained and experienced professionals and paraprofessionals will be contributing such records.
b. Issues related to single vs. separate records
The issue raised at this meeting related to situations where both electronic and print versions of monographs exist. The specific question was whether or not the Shared Cataloging Program (SCP) should provide a single record (containing both versions) or separate records (one for each version) for the monographic material it catalogs. Upon receiving campus input about this issue, the responses divided fairly generally into two sides, with reference/public services staff falling on the single record side and cataloger/technical services staff on the separate record side. There was much discussion at the HOTS meeting on this topic, which took into account both the catalogers' need to make separate records in order to retain the bibliographic integrity of each version, as well as reference staff/users' desire for straightforward access to material. After much discussion and an assessment of the possibility, HOTS arrived at the conclusion that, if the correct elements were entered into the records, both interests could be accommodated through the "virtual merging" of these records to make a single display.
HOTS finished by making plans to communicate this information to SOPAG and relevant campus groups.
The Access Integration Model (AIM)
AIM is a recommendation for developing a single information portal for all campuses. It was introduced to SOPAG, which then called for campus discussions to be held. By the time HOTS met, it was assumed that most, if not all, campuses had held their discussions. The minutes indicate that HOTS members had numerous questions about the recommendation as written, but were assured by Bruce Miller (one of the creators of the report) that the paper only represented a model in its very early stages and would certainly be going through much revision over time. Still, it is interesting to note that one HOTS member brought up an element completely missing from this model: a place for authority data. This element, so important for standard access and organization of retrieval, was never even recognized as missing by the creators of the model (confirmed by Bruce Miller).
This omission alone demonstrates that experienced catalogers, along with the rest of their professional colleagues, need to be thoroughly involved at all stages of the discussion and planning for this portal as it develops over time.
CDC's shared print journal collection
As can be seen by the minutes, the campuses seem to have had varying degrees of understanding as to the stage of implementation of this issue. There were concerns raised at the meeting that perhaps not all the procedures had been fully worked out, even as some campuses already seem prepared to move forward. HOTS decided to delay things just a bit, in order to bring information back to the campuses for more feedback.