2019 TSTM notes
- MSU TechServices
TS Council 12-04-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Autumn, Ed, Dao, Kay, Ranti, Tim, Lucas, Emily, Nicole, Lisa S., Lisa R.
Regrets:
Agenda
Approve TS Manager minutes 11-20-19
Update on mapping TS G & O's to Strategic Plan
Autumn and Ranti identified areas of the SP that seem most relevant to TS work
Existing GOs already align well with SP; just two small suggested changes to make existing work more explicit
Included some possible focus areas for 20/21 GOs
Pre-migration considerations from the most recent TS Article discussion. Suggestions made:
Benchmarking
What kinds of experiences have other institutions had? What data did they lose? What known experts or consultants in data cleanup, migration, etc., should we be aware of? Are there other articles, webinars, etc., that we’d find helpful?
Exploring project management tools
We’ll need a home base for managing tons of migration checklists, spreadsheets, documentation, etc. Is Confluence a sufficient tool? Would we want to think about something like Trello? OneNote?
Mapping out known issues & priorities
We know we have some wonky data, legacy practices, etc. Some more hairy than others. Let’s make a list of things we shouldn’t change yet, but that a migration team should tackle right away.
Some early clean-up
There’s a few things we could start on now, like the dummy item record problem, old codes we know we don’t use, etc. Even if we don’t end up migrating, these are things that would still improve our current system.
Action items
Members of TS Council will review and make comments on GOs revision by Wednesday 12/11
Decisions
Pre-migration group members
Emily & Autumn: exploring project management tools
Lisa R: compiling a list of known issues & priorities
circling back on:
benchmarking
early clean-up
11-20-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Autumn, Ed, Dao, Kay, Ranti, Lisa S. (notes), Lisa R.
Agenda
Approved TS Council notes - 11-06-19
Inventory work that can be done when Sierra is slow
We discussed projects that did not require Sierra which TS staff could work on when Sierra is very slow, frozen, or is down. Don Depoorter has a few different options. 1)Looking for missing titles that need to be transferred to Remote Storage when found, 2)Y4 microfilm, 3)Bibliographic record without items attached, and 4)Pulling books with 'D' item records. Ranti had a Serial Solutions spreadsheet project.
We discussed the Sierra slowness in general. Dao reported that both hardware and software were being looked at to try and pinpoint the cause. Running large reports may be a contributing factor. Web crawling IPs are blocked as they are discovered. It's possible that the Automated Authority Control Program may be a contributing factor to the slowness. A planned upgrade to happen in December after finals (TBA) may help. It seems Sierra slowness is affecting our create list results, in that some records are not included that should be. Also, Sierra slowness may be affecting our authority record loads, causing duplicate fields.
Automated Authority Control Program (AACP) from III. Any opinions on it after we have had it for a while?
Manual cleanup work is still required when AACP is used. We discussed checking into the possibility of turning AACP off. Would it be problematic? Dao will contact III for more information. Lisa Robinson will make the decision based on her experiences and what Dao gets from III.
Preview of G & O correlations to Strategic Plan
Autumn and Ranti presented their rough draft. They will have a refined draft to present at the upcoming TS Council meeting.
Round robin
Ranti is waiting to hear back from Serials Solutions on if remapping the public note from 590 to 506 is possible, and if so, how it will work.
Ranti asked about cataloging OER items. Joshua confirmed it could be done by Janet Baldwin.
Joshua shared the CMS meeting yesterday covered new procedures for ordering, receiving, and cataloging SPC items. Acquisitions staff who regularly order and/or receive SPC items were invited. There will be a customized stamp and streamer for SPC orders. The new procedures will also be applied to gift materials. Large gifts or purchases will have a new intake form to collect the needed information from selectors.
Joshua reported that Lucas attended a PCC conference, and learned about changes involving the omission of punctuation, which could affect copy records beginning in January. We want to keep punctuation in our records, for display purposes. Joshua and Lisa Smith will consult with Gobi, regarding our shelf ready materials.
Lisa S shared that due to a Law Library acquisitions person leaving at the end of November, Beth Nugent and Ed Gildner will be helping out with Law Library acquisitions work. Ed will place orders from his office in the Main Library and Beth will receive orders at the Law Library twice a week.
Action Items
Dao and Kay will send a message to Library staff regarding Sierra slowness and potential of create list or loading problems.
Dao will check with Innovative regarding potentially turning AACP off (or back on).
Lisa S and Joshua will reach out to Gobi regarding upcoming PCC changes, and our shelf ready records.
TS Council 11-06-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Autumn, Ed, Dao, Kay, Ranti, Tim, Emily, Nicole, Lisa S., Lisa R. (notes), Brooke
Regrets: Lucas, Emily
Agenda
Approved TS Council minutes from 10-9-19
Implications of adding a 590 note describing all access restrictions for all purchased (not leased) e-books rather than only those with limited access
590 fields are protected from overlay, so this field will be duplicated when a record is reloaded (which overlays the record). So we'll need a workflow to remove the dupe 590s.
The 590 field is a local-only field which we use for a variety of local notes. In the past, it was used a lot for gift notes. (We now use the 541 field (Source of Acquisition) for our MSU gift notes.)
We could use the 506 field (Access Restrictions Note), which can be coded as a local field ($5 MiEM) and is displayed in the catalog.
If we used the 506 note, we would have to globally update existing 590s to change them to a 506s.
We've made a special arrangement with Serials Solutions to map their Public Note field (in the SerSol database) to our 590 field, so we’d have to make a new arrangement that mapped the SerSol Public Note field to a 506 field if we wanted to use the 506 field.
Currently, updating SerSol entries (in their database) must be done one at a time, so it would be a lot of work to change the wording of any notes, and it will be a lot of work to add a note saying a resource has unlimited access. We are also still adding restricted access notes to the SerSol database.
We also have an arrangement with Serial Solutions to map their Location Note (in the SerSol database) to our 856 $z note.
Using the 506 field is good in the long run as it would keep our bibliographic data consistent with national standards. But it could be a lot of work in the short run to switch from using the 590 field to the 506 field.
Should we put access restrictions notes in other electronic resources, such as Alexander St Press?. We could do so with global update, but it still might be difficult as we have a mix of leased and purchased resources.
We will investigate using a 506 note in our bibliographic records and a note field in the SerSol database for all purchased e-books from Serials Solutions
TS G & O's to convert to language supporting the Strategic Plan
We would like to revise our TS G&Os to reference the MSUL Strategic Plan
How do we map the TS T&Os to the Strategic Plan elements? Joshua suggests either a committee or have each unit revise their unit G&Os
ALCTS/LITA/LLAMA Exchange – should we make it an event?
ALCTS/LITA/LLAMA are collaborating to hold a 3 day virtual forum called The Exchange: Building the Future Together on May 4,5,6, 2020. See https://exchange2020.learningtimesevents.org/call-for-proposals
Kay suggested the we could organize the means for everyone in the library to view the presentations, and perhaps eat lunch together. We could view presentations and have time to discuss what we've seen, just as if we were all at a conference in person.
Joshua has had some feedback that people would appreciate opportunities to talk about what they’ve heard in webinars.
Start with a group registration and await program details.
Scheduled the December treat day and decided when we will eat lunch together.
TS Council will eat lunch together on Tues Dec. 10.
Action items
Ranti to contact Serials Solutions and investigate the possibility of changing the Public Note mapping from 590 to 506 field
Autumn & Ranti volunteered to look at the TS G&Os
Sign up on Google doc for delicious mysterious purposes
We will arrange for a group registration & reserve the Green Room for the Core Exchange in May.
Decisions
Add usage note in our bibliographic records and in the SerSol database for all purchased e-books from Serials Solutions (1, 3, and unlimited usage) that are already in the catalog
We will develop a workflow, as needed, to remove duplicate 590 fields that will be created by the previous action (pending results from Serials Solutions)
TS Council 10-9-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Kay, Ranti, Lucas, Emily, Nicole, Lisa S, Lisa R., Ed
Regrets: Autumn, Tim, Dao, Brooke, Don T
Agenda
Approved minutes from 9-18-19
Looked at the MCLS RFP for a system, section E and discussed generally.
Action items:
Junus will share the Google Docs version she created
TS Council 9-18-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Autumn, Dao, Kay, Ranti, Lisa S., Ed, Lisa R., Brooke
Regrets: Don T.
Agenda
Approve TS Council minutes from 7-10-19
Discuss what a system should do (dealbreakers in bold)
web-based, not Java-based
post-MARC capabilities
quality training and documentation
data management and manipulation capabilities
powerful queries
record list storage & editing
global changes
reports & statistics
easier MARC record extraction/loading
ability to extract entire database in the case of system change
catalog management
local fields and local coding
both in bib records and attached records
more fields for back-end codes
customize indexing
version history for records
public facing interface
highly customizable display
faceting on numerous record data points
API for bento box search
mobile capabilities
acquisitions functions
audit trail
multi fund codes
receive electronic invoices
electronic resources management
generate local fields, notes fields, etc.
place to store accessibility info
indicating LOCKSS/preservation status
interface with campus systems
student info system?
EBS
system administration functions
more granularity in permissions and access levels
secured/restricted access fields to include sensitive information
licensing, financial info, etc.
authority functions
local authority records
workflow management
methods of routing, tracking, etc., which would help us cut down on paper
bibliographer view of budget/fund info
patron tracking of statuses, requests, etc.
related to Get It function
staff notifications related to records, resources, workflows
robust ergonomic & usability functions
keystrokes for frequent commands
ease of selection, editing, deleting, copy/pasting, etc.
change font size
ability to share records with or provide access to external sites
Internet Archive, etc.
07-10-19 TS Council
Present: Joshua, Tim, Dao, Don, Autumn, Nicole, Lisa S., Ed, Ranti, Lisa R
Regrets: Kay, Emily, Lucas
Round robin
Joshua
Report for Lisa R.: remaining changes to headings referencing "Illegal aliens" or "aliens" have been made (582 records); any such terms that come in in copy records will be programmatically changed
ALA report:
Talk from Univ of Wyoming about inserting jpegs into Sierra records for display of thumbnails in public catalog; could we use Millennium Media Manager feature to do the same? Could be useful for certain types of cataloging, like the kits and objects Janet is currently handling.
TJ Kao of GW Univ presentation about workarounds in Alma for item-level description of rare materials
Cataloging ethics discussion group; vendor participant brought info about market pressure to include metadata that privileges discovery of certain resources in discovery layer products
Intern Michael Sipek doing great work on Japanese comics
Tim
ALA
Open house at LC Geography and Maps
Concluded two year term on group with very long name; starting chair term of other group with very long name
Attended 7.5 hours of CC:DA meetings – will share details with CMS group at next meeting
Toolkit planned to be finalized in early part of 2020, but Tim feels this is too optimistic
Kate James from LC presented on non-human personages; new RDA does not accommodate these, so LC is proposing a workaround; more details will be shared at CMS meeting
Dao
Ongoing work with test server
Many issues surrounding campus security and pushing this project through IT
Innovative restored the test server but problems still arose with updating/adding records
Can at least view records up to July 2018; later records may or may not be corrupted
Dao will send instructions for accessing the newly restored test server
Ranti
ALA: Attended several talks about organizational culture, with topics like inclusion, using privilege to make library environments more equitable, etc.
Record loads for Serials Solutions, catching up with troubleshooting, record cleaning
Don
Lots of labeling trucks waiting! Working on keeping up with those
Nicole
ALA
Note about Sinopia: you really need to know RDA really well to use it!
A lot of linked data activity seems to be really focused now on Wikidata; OCLC and LC are starting to cross pollinate databases
MarcEdit talks: reminder that the tool is internationally focused
Submitting terms to LCDGT still on hold
Cataloger's Desktop password requirements will be made less onerous
ClassWeb update coming Summer/Fall 2019; macros will be built in, and submitting proposals for new subject headings will have a streamlined interface
Beginning BIBCO review! Focused on graphic materials; will be one of the few experts in this area.
Lisa S.
Just finished fiscal year invoices; closing went ok, second closing coming up soon (for any final corrections)
Back to business as usual
Submitted detailed financial reports to Comptroller's Office as required
Ed
His first meeting!
Still learning; assisted with report submission
Taking Fundamentals of Acquisitions ALCTS online course
Lisa R.
Unit is up to date on blind headings report! Working towards this for some while
Mark Andrews has joined the team and is working very quickly
ALA
Learned that Rice Univ is going to Alma on August 1; Brown Univ just transitioned
Cornell working on a tool that queries multiple authority sources to accomplish authority control in a BIBFRAME environment (including Discogs!)
LC Policy and Standards Division has merged with COIN to become the Policy, Training, and Cooperative Programs Division (PTCP)
Other announcements
Reference Kay's emails for details about her ALA report and the upcoming RFP process
Tornado drills coming up next week; 1:30pm for 1st floor on July 16 (also occurring during CMS meeting on 3rd floor, which we can ignore)
05-22-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Autumn, Dao, Kay, Lisa S. (notes)
Regrets: Ranti, Ed, Lisa R.
Agenda
Approve April 24, 2019 minutes
Minutes approved
Shall we start writing annual reports? What should be included?
We want to keep large projects on the TS timeline, to keep a history of events. We agreed the annual report was a good idea; we will create a short (2-page) annual report based on much of the content used for the document given to the University Librarian candidates last spring. We will do this in electronic format, and keep it in Drupal, along with the Who Does What page. We will revisit this after fiscal close, this summer.
Round Robin -
Kay has repurposed the geo code field in Sierra order records to "Code 2." This code will be used to track tangible/not-tangible materials, that appreciate/depreciate, required by the Controller's Office. Acquisitions staff will receive instructions on how to use the code 2 field, once the details are worked out.
Joshua reminded us that an intern, Michael Sipek, will begin working in the Library tomorrow.
Autumn reported that T Loc NR materials are ready to go to Backstage. Spanish language materials are still being readied.
Dao reported on IUG.
Action items
Action 1 - Kay/Autumn will ask Emily to move TS timeline to Confluence
04-24-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Autumn, Dao, Kay, Ranti, Lisa S., Lisa R.
Regrets:
Agenda
Approval of 4-3-19 TS Council minutes
Minutes corrected and approved.
Interns, staff, and space
Personnel changes
Ed Gildner hired as Assistant Head of Acq; will begin this Monday, April 29.
Cataloging intern Michael Sipek from Kent State starting May 23.
Last open position in Acquisitions filled; Sue Dyer started last week.
Mark Andrews joining Metadata Management in June 19.
Space
Where to put new folks? We have one empty cubicle and two new people to place.
CatMan student worker cubicle will become available in early May; intern can be placed there.
Confluence is set up with lib.msu.edu logins. Anything we should do in advance of the switch?
Shouldn't be an issue but will double check with Systems.
583 field ok to use for MI-SPI?
Needs to be a public display note.
Currently, the 583 does not display.
We use it for conservation and preservation information; other institutions use it for similar purposes, like digitization information, etc.
Questions about private vs. public information contained in this field.
More consideration needed; Kay will consult further with EC.
Round robin
Lisa S.
Audit of financial records currently taking place; Mary Schueller is the point person, but Acquisitions may need to supply information.
Covers February 2018 through February 2019
Audits customarily done after changes in leadership.
Autumn
New Backstage project beginning
Most of non-Roman-language arrearage being sent for cataloging
Action items
Remember to submit staff award nominations.
TS Council notes 04-03-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Kay, Ranti (notes), Tim, Lucas, Nicole, Lisa S., Lisa R., Mike Erickson (guest)
Regrets: Autumn, Dao, Emily
Agenda
Approval of 3/6/19 minutes.
The minutes were approved and published.
Review and discussion of the Review & Planning Task Group on the LCSH Terms “Aliens” & “Illegal aliens” report.
Reviewed the draft report on the changes and the recommendations. Once the report is finalized, we'll add it as part of TS Documentation.
Core changes:
Created two local authority records "Noncitizens" and "Unauthorized immigration"
Deleted 36 LCSH authority records that contain the term "Aliens" and "Illegal aliens". List of those terms are provided on the report.
Subject-based searches of the deleted terms will show the new terms as cross-references.
Recommendations:
There will be no change to past and current cataloging practices for MSUL, LOM, MSU Law Library, and MSU Archives catalogers.
Metadata Management unit will routinely convert “Aliens” & “Illegal aliens” to local terms.
Keeping abreast of changes by meeting regularly before sending records to Backstage, and create monthly report for Kay Granskog.
Address LCSH headings currently in use and contain the term "aliens", but were not addressed by LC's cancelled proposal. List of those terms are provided on the report.
Questions and discussions on the changes that might affect the context or interpretation. A question arose when subject search for "illegal alien" brought up "noncitizens" as cross-reference in addition to "unauthorized immigration" because "noncitizens" also encompasses those who present legally. Since we're following the proposed changes by the Library of Congress, we'll keep these for the time being.
Discussed some technical consideration for linked data and implications on the reuse of catalog data by the digital repository team.
Kay will share the report with EC.
001 fields. Two issues here. First, risk vs. time/work expended if they are not protected and there is no test server. Second, there is an issue with Marcive that may involve 001’s
There are risks the 001 field would be accidentally overlaid since it's not a protected field; we removed 001 protection when the test server was brought back online, but it's now offline again.
There's a suggestion that loaders can be tweaked to include moving the 001 to 9xx field. However, the loader function can only be tweaked for incoming records. It does not have a function to work on records that are already on the catalog.
Since we also add the 001 data to 035 field as well, the suggestion is to keep 001 field unprotected and protect the 035 field instead.
There's no issue for 001 field re. Marcive records.
TS parties and rinsing plastics for recycling.
Some recyclable plastics ended up being tossed to the garbage bin instead of the recycle bin after T.S parties, especially the ones with food articles stuck on them. We'll need to find out if the recycling center can accept plastics with food articles.
Suggested that the recycle bin will be placed next to the garbage bin for future TS parties so staff can dispose the plastics accordingly.
Round-robin:
Two Acquisition staff positions are filled. Their first day would be April 15th, 2019
Kay and Lisa will conduct interviews for the Assistant for Head of Acquisition position.
We will have an intern from Kent State University for Japanese comics translations.
Action items
Check with Dao about keeping 001 field unprotected and protect the 035 field
Decisions
Put recycle bin next to the garbage bin for TS parties
03-06-19
Present: Joshua, Don D (notes), Dao, Kay, Ranti, Lucas, Nicole, Lisa S., Lisa R.
Regrets: Tim, Emily, Autumn, Brooke, Don T.
Agenda
Approval of 2-27-19 minutes
Using the MARC 344 field
Tim Watters of Library of Michigan noticed that the MARC 344 field (which is a sound characteristic field) has been used in over 3,000 print-only records. This field should not be used in print-only records.
Lisa R. will do some investigating to see why this is happening including checking with BackStage Library Works to see if they are adding the field.
Using the MARC 541 field rather than the 590 field for gift notes
Discussed the advantages of putting our gift notes in the 541 field instead of the 590 field.
The 541 field has more structure to it which makes it better suited for storing and retrieving varied units of information.
Joshua plans on getting feedback from Development and Collection staff to aid in our decision whether or not to implement this.
Creating a "Non-Technical Services" section in Confluence
Should we have a spot in Confluence to put info that may be helpful to our colleagues out of Tech Services?
What would we name this site/page and what info might we include in it?
Need further discussion before a decision can be made.
There is a small amount of bib records in Sierra that do not have any other records attached to them
Discussed the valid reasons for having these type of records in our catalog.
It is important for these records to be suppressed so as not to show in the public catalog.
Knowing which records can be allowed to have no attached records aids in the clean-up of the Sierra database.
02-27-19
Present: Joshua, Autumn (notes), Dao, Ranti, Lisa S., Lisa R., Brooke
Regrets: Kay, Don D., Don T.
Agenda
Approval of 2-20-19 minutes
Cataloging datasets
Some sets shortly to be ordered – prompting some general considerations
There is no straightforward way to isolate all datasets in the catalog
There is a need for keyword searching within all available datasets
Perhaps explore other genre/form vocabs to accomplish this
Scoping? Also possible, but would rely on some consistent encoding in the record
Currently only a handful of datasets cataloged
But we could explore some more comprehensive approaches to cataloging datasets we already have
Genre term possibilities
LCGFT has a number of applicable terms for specific types of data
LCSH has term Data sets which could be used in a 655 as a genre/form term
Other possibilities
Combos of 33X and 34X content/carrier/file characteristic terms
007 encoding
Catalogers will explore and bring back ideas
Once we identify a reliable combination of fields/encoding to act as a hook
Set up scoping in catalog (once critical mass of records reached)
Write procedures for cataloging to ensure consistency going forward
Use of the 752 field for standardizing location data for a comics project.
Group using catalog data to explore publication info from comics
752 would permit storage of refined/controlled place names that will be result of this work
752 is in the keyword index
Possible to do this programatically; will consult further
Contingent on an XSL approach
Where are we with the "Who Does What" list?
Google doc created for revision (drawn from old Drupal page)
Needs final review/updating
Ranti will send link again with reminder
Final info will be posted either in Confluence or the public facing TS website
Any interest in streaming the ER&L conference?
Group rate is $700
Ranti will gauge interest in various units
OCLC costs if Archives is part of the Libraries
What will change? Need to touch base with Archives
Holdings implications, etc.
Eventually consult with OCLC
Announcements
Reminder: self evaluations are due on March 11th
Strategic planning update
Announcements
In Emily Sanford's absence, serials issues can be referred to Joshua and Loretta
Microgrant proposal deadline is March 15
Assistant head of Acquisitions position will be posted this week
LA II position recently vacated by Devon D. will be posted in the near future
02-20-19
Present: Joshua (notes), Don, Kay, Ranti, Lisa S., Lisa R.
Regrets: Autumn, Dao, Brooke, Don T.
Agenda
Approve minutes from the 2-6-19 Council meeting.
Where could we use help in maintaining electronic resources?
Former Distance Library Services (post IT centralization) to become a new team; tentative name: Discovery Services. The new team proposed a re-purposed function including to assist with end-user troubleshooting re: e-resources. To work with other e-resources staff, Tech Services, etc. to provide support for discovery systems. 24/7 informational reference.
Possible area to propose they assist with: URL checking
EZProxy workflow with ITS is recently well-established under Ranti with assistance from Anne S. and Diane W.; we have some uncertainty about what kind of involvements the new DLS team have in mind
Discussion re: the new unit name; "discovery services" also being used for cataloging & metadata units elsewhere
Round robin items:
Ranti: question re: place of publication data in comics records; why so much inconsistency? A: place of publication is a transcribed data element in RDA; we enter the place name as it appears on the piece.
Lisa R: two place name changes: Swaziland is now Eswatini, Macedonia (Republic) is now North Macedonia. The country & geographic area codes codes for these places have not been changed by LC. The new authority records for each place name have been downloaded to our catalog and all the relevant headings have been changed in our catalog. Authority records for related headings will be added to our catalog as they are distributed by LC to the national authority file.
Lisa S: Devon Davidoski filling the LAIII position, covering Hogarth, gifts, and bib support, among other tasks.
TS Council notes 02-06-19
Present: Joshua, Don, Autumn, Dao, Kay, Ranti, Tim, Lucas, Nicole, Lisa S. (notes), Lisa R., Brooke
Regrets: Emily
Agenda
Approval of 12-19-18 minutes.
Strategic Plan input -- more details (email from Autumn dated 2/4/19) Any questions/feedback for Autumn and Kay?
It's early in the process for the Strategic Plan Steering Committee, but they would like to gather information now, as much as possible. TS Council suggestions include data on space in the Law Library and Business Library, along with study rooms in the Main Library. Data on catalog searches. Data on electronic access problems, not only from the form, but also from calls or email messages. A question came up wondering about issues where data collection may not be possible, and the thought was to go ahead and bring them forward to the Committee. Focus groups will be needed to delve into the items that are collected; consider volunteering.
ALA Mid-Winter Reports
Tim, Nicole, Autumn, Lucas and Lisa R. reported on ALA. See individual reports sent to LibStaff for details.
Re-indexing corrections completed per III. Any checking need to be done?
If problems are found, report to Joshua & Dao.
Action items
Provide input to the Strategic Plan Steering Committee. Items for which data collection is possible, or not, can be included.