July 2001-June 2002
by
Magda El-Sherbini
Head, Cataloging Department
I. Summary:
A. Cataloging productivity:
In the FY01-02, the Cataloging Department successfully completed the cataloging of 55,375 titles with an increase of about 10,000 titles from last FY (46,481 titles in the year 2000-2001). This includes new receipts and retrocon projects (converting cards and cataloging analytics).
| Book | 52616 |
| Music Score | 14 |
| Music Manuscr | 1 |
| Printed Map | 123 |
| Audiovisuals | 1425 |
| Non Music Rec | 126 |
| Music Record | 15 |
| Art, Graphics | 1 |
| Computer File | 147 |
| Kit | 1 |
| Serials/Journal | 90 |
| Manuscr/Archv | 1 |
| OSU Thesis | 815 |
| Total | 55,375 |
The reasons for this increase in cataloging are:
- All vacant positions have been filled and new staff has been trained. Because some of the new staff had previous cataloging experience, they were brought up to speed very quickly.
- Some of the GAA positions were replaced by staff positions, increasing productivity.
- Student supervising is now being very effectively managed and utilized by Adrienne Dickson, who supervises many students.
- The overtime has had a positive impact on the analytics project.
- Shifting of some tasks has provided a variety in individual work. For example, Sherry Dabe is now working on a cataloging project in addition to her Maintenance responsibilities.
B. Cataloging Reorganization:
The Cataloging Department was reorganized to accommodate the Western Languages Coordinator vacant position. The Western Languages Section is now merged with the Western Language Non-Book Formats Section to form the Western Languages Cataloging Section. The Section includes five staff and one GAA. Jim Murphy is the coordinator of this section. See the Cataloging Department reorganization.
As part of the reorganization of the Cataloging Dept., Stephanie Nicol joined the Catalog Quality Control and Enrichment Section as Catalog Management Specialist. Among other assignments, she is now working with Andrea Moore on authority processes, and has begun training in that area.
C. Overtime:
The Cataloging Department used overtime to catalog analytics retrocon and microforms needing to be moved to STX. At the end of the project, 15,622 titles were cataloged and 1,828.7 hours were used. The overtime project started in April and ended in September. The project assisted the department in increasing productivity and making materials available to patrons. In addition, it was rewarding to Cataloging as it has proven to reduce the cost of cataloging to about $5 per title.
II. Details of the Cataloging Department's Accomplishments from June 2001-July 2002 (See statistics generated from OSCAR):
1) Cataloging newly received materials:
Jose Diaz, the Western Language Coordinator has moved to his new position. M. El-Sherbini oversaw the section for about two months until the Cataloging Department was reorganized. Although the Cataloging Department tried to keep cataloging current for the new receipt titles, there was a small backlog when Jose left. The following statistics represent the current backlog:
| English | 908 |
| German | 328 |
| French | 128 |
| Italian | 111 |
| Spanish/Portuguese | 191 |
| Dutch | 41 |
| Greek | 214 |
| Flory | 117 |
| Other languages | 281 |
| TOTAL | 2,319 titles need to be cataloged |
When the Cataloging Department reorganized, the first priority was to eliminate the Western language backlog. The success in eliminating this backlog is due to the cooperation between the Cataloging Dept.’s members and their enthusiasm to keep cataloging workflow smooth. Now, Cataloging is current in cataloging the newly received materials, as this is Cataloging's first priority for all formats and all languages (except for serials, which are the responsibility of another department). This includes complex copy cataloging and original cataloging for Western language materials and original and all copy cataloging for non-Roman language materials. In addition to the new receipts, the Cataloging Department continued to catalog the overflow materials forwarded from the Monographs Department.
2) Retrospective conversion projects:
In addition to keeping current with the cataloging of the newly received materials, the Cataloging Department members were involved in cataloging many other retrocon projects. 14,894 titles were cataloged this year:
Card retrocon 4,403
Analytic retrocon 10,491
In November 2000, we discovered another 2 boxes of cards (about 17,000) and found out that they were part of the TALX project. The Cataloging Department started this project immediately. This year we converted 4,403. A total of 11,755 cards have been converted since the project began in November 2000.
This year 10,491 analytic records were converted to full bibliographic records. This includes work done on the staff regular time and as overtime. Approximate 32,491 records were converted since the project started and 19,609 remained to be converted.
The Cataloging Department used the student hours effectively, involving students in the actual cataloging and production. In addition, some Cataloging staff was given overtime to work on some of these projects.
3) Theses and dissertation retrocon:
Cataloging had discovered by accident that University Libraries owns about 40,000 theses and dissertations that were cataloged prior to 1972, before OCLC was used to create catalog records. The theses and dissertations are Ohio State's publications and represent the first 100 years of OSU graduate school history. By adding cataloging records to the OCLC database, Worldcat, we make them available so that scholars know what OSU has, and so that graduate students are aware of earlier work.
In the past, the theses and dissertations received full catalog records in card format, including subject headings, which we don't add in our current theses cataloging. We can use the old typed cards to create records in OCLC and then use those records to replace the brief records that exist in OSCAR.
The Cataloging Department was planning to pull these cards from the card catalog, but the timing of the moving of the card catalog to the depository made it urgent. In two days we intensified efforts to pull the cards. In addition to Cataloging staff and students, many staff from other departments such the Monographs Dept., Serials/Electronic Resources, the Hilandar Library and Administration pulled about 35,000 cards, an amazing accomplishment in just two days. Everyone worked in an organized, efficient way, from alphabetic printouts. They came early, stayed late, and helped one another in order to finish on time.
To celebrate the willingness of people, throughout the Libraries, to pitch in and help complete the card-pulling project, the Cataloging Coordinators and the Head planned a party and Donna Kosch, ASD, designed a beautiful "Certificate of Appreciation" for each individual volunteer.
The next stage is planning to convert these cards and adding full bibliographic records to OCLC and OSCAR. By cataloging these theses and dissertations and providing full bibliographic records to the OCLC database, the Ohio State University Libraries will be given significant monetary credit.
4) CJK contract cataloging:
M. El-Sherbini planned and implemented the CJK contract cataloging and started to send materials to OCLC Techpro.
5) Slavic contract cataloging:
Based on a conversation with Lisa Eliot, OCLC Techpro contact person, M. El-Sherbini proposed that since most of the remaining Slavic backlog materials are poor condition and it is very difficult to send these materials to be cataloged by OCLC Techpro, we decided to have them cataloged on site. This idea was appealing to OCLC Techpro. M. El-Sherbini worked with Beth Russell to identify some Slavic materials in the Special Collections Dept. to be cataloged as well. M. El-Sherbini made the arrangements, including discussing with OCLC Techpro the specifications, the current contract and the extension letter, and dealing with the OSU Legal Office. Currently, M. El-Sherbini is working on implementation details. This is the first time that OCLC Techpro are doing on site cataloging for OSUL, and it is considered to be a unique and unusual project.
6) Arthur E. Baggs Memorial Library project:
Upon the request of Susan Wyngaard, Head of the Fine Arts library, the Cataloging Department launched a new project in 2000 to catalog the Arthur E. Baggs Memorial Library at Hopkins Hall. M. El-Sherbini and J. Murphy planned the project. Progress this year was excellent, and all of the printed monographs and serials were cataloged (424 titles). Cataloging also began on the duplicate OSUL theses, which have only short records; these are being given full cataloging, including the advisor’s name and subject headings.
7) UMI Dissertation Express:
The Cataloging Department continues to receive and catalog the UMI Dissertation Express theses. A backlog that developed under the previous staff person has been eliminated, and T. Wei is nearly current with new receipts, although this necessarily varies with the academic schedule. This year, 595 titles were cataloged.
8) OSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertations:
Last year, the Cataloging Department started to catalog OSU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. These have been added slowly but the number should increase beginning Fall 2002, when dissertations will be required to be submitted electronically. The transition from single record for paper and electronic version to solely electronic version has been made and ETD cataloging is current. In Addition, M. El-Sherbini and J. Murphy participated in a Graduate School workshop to discuss the impact of providing information on the cataloging online.
9) The Arnold S. Johnson Collection:
The Cataloging Department completed cataloging all they had of the Arnold S. Johnson Collection. The total number of titles cataloged is 3687. David Lincove has more titles from this collection to be cataloged, but we will not catalog these as the cataloging priorities are shifted.
The Arnold S. Johnson Collection of radical literature originally consisted of 118 cartons of materials. Many of these materials were evaluated by library and university faculty and processed by the Cataloging Department in the mid-1980s. Approximately 1300 titles were added to the system at that time. The remaining pamphlets were stored in filing cabinets in the History Graduate Library. At the request of David Lincove, History Grad Librarian, we began processing these remaining items in 1999. The pamphlets (which were usually in English, often discussed communism, socialism or anarchism and were mainly published in the 1920s-1960s) were used for beginning cataloging training for new staff members and GAAs in the Cataloging Department. All of the pieces were pam bound after cataloging and sent to STX.
10) Cataloging the EL, AH, and PREA project:
Upon Jim Bracken’s request, the Cataloging Department launched a new project to catalog about 14,000 titles classified in local call numbers EL (English Literature). M. El-Sherbini planned this project, and Wilma Steele was assigned to this reclassification project. Progress in this project is very slow due to the Cataloging staff involvement in many other projects. As of July 2002, about 3,700 titles were cataloged.
11) Analytics back issues requests:
There are currently 62 analytics requests that the Cataloging Department has accepted because of the needs of collection managers. These are conservatively estimated as the equivalent of around one million analytic titles that must be cataloged. No progress was made this year.
12) Pinyin conversion:
The Cataloging Department started to plan for converting approximately 60,000 Chinese language records from Wade-Gale Romanization to Pinyin. M. El-Sherbini chaired a Task Force to do to the planning and implementation. As of December, the final report for the plan was submitted to Carol Diedrichs. The Non-Roman languages Section in the Cataloging Department started the implementation on October 2, 2000. We sent 1000 records as a sample record to OCLC to be converted and wrote the guidelines for reviewing this sample.
Based on the report and on the result of the sample, the specifications were written, cost estimate was completed and the Chinese records were sent to OCLC for conversion to Pinyin. At this stage, Cataloging is working on clean up projects for the records which did not get converted or have some problems.
13) Herbarium Project:
C. Diedrichs, M. El-Sherbini, and J. Murphy met with the new director of the OSU Herbarium and Herbarium staff in the year 2000-01 to discuss continuation of the Herbarium cataloging project. No progress has been made in this area.
14) Polar Library project:
Cataloging is pleased to have completed the first stage of this project, which was adding duplicates to OSCAR (2,156 duplicates have been added). We are currently in stage two which is doing copy and original cataloging. When J. Diaz met with Lynn Lay to discuss the copy cataloging of Polar Library titles, it was agreed that photocopies of title pages would be sent to the Western Language Section. The section would catalog and export these titles. Upon proper notification, Lynn Lay would barcode the materials.
Because Jose left the Cataloging Department, the project has been handed to Adrienne Dickson who is managing the project and acting as a liaison with the Polar library. In 2001-02, she cataloged 228 titles.
III) Training and Workshops:
On June 28, the Cataloging Department members attended the "Fish" workshop. This workshop was presented by Beth Flynn, Extension Associate Leadership Education, and organized by M. El-Sherbini. The workshop was very successful, focusing on how to be happy in the work place.
On September 6th, the Cataloging Department members attended the "Fish" workshop: Second Part, also presented by Beth Flynn.
Noelle Van Pulis offered an “Introduction to NACO” workshop on August 30. In addition to the PowerPoint presentation and handouts supporting the session, a new area of links relating to authority records were added to the Cataloging Dept. website.
Noelle Van Pulis offered an "Introduction to NACO" workshop on Nov. 6. Attendees included members of cataloging units at OSUL and LAW, and a visitor from Capital University. In support of the workshop, various links were added to a new section on the Cataloging Dept. website for ‘cataloging resources.’