Cataloging Department Monthly Report
September 2007
Subject: Monthly Report – September 2007
Date: October 2007
From: Magda El-Sherbini, Cataloging Department Head
To: Sally Rogers, Assistant Director for Technical Services
OVERVIEW OF THE MONTH
[No Report]
Western Languages Section
Barbara performed her committee responsibilities to P&P on September 4 and the Training Advisory Council on September 23. Barbara received notification of two updated for NAXOS available for loading. Barbara loaded the first update. On checking the links for the second load she found several records with links that did not work. This problem was referred back to OCLC.
The section cataloged 739 titles for 905 volumes. Of these records, 71 were original. Approximately 121 records were enhanced. During August, 339 titles (294 books, 45 non-books) were received from the regional libraries for cataloging.
One student, Caitlin O’Brien who worked in Western Languages Spring quarter, returned to work for us Fall quarter. Caitlin reports to Theresa. Because Caitlin took Spanish during her freshman year, Barbara has her looking for copy on OCLC for some of the backlogged Spanish titles so that some of the books can be processed. Once copy is found, Theresa completes the process. Title requiring original cataloging or there appear to be discrepancies in the records are set aside for processing later.
The section cataloged 739 titles for 905 volumes. Of these records, 71 were original. Approximately 121 records were enhanced. During August, 339 titles (294 books, 45 non-books) were received from the regional libraries for cataloging. During September, 114 (111 book and 3 non-book) titles were received from the Regional Libraries. With classes starting, Theresa had several rush titles for the text book project. Barbara received several free e-resource requests from Mary Scott. Jim cataloged the e-books and Vickie cataloged seven maps and one atlas.
Non-Roman Languages Section
News and project highlights
GAAs Zheng Wang and Mesut Sackes left the Non-Roman Section. The section held a farewell party for leaving students. Since last month, totally 5 student workers have left our section.
Summary
This month the section cataloged 820 titles (NOT including re-instates), and had 98 new receipts.
Sherab Chen (Section Coordinator)
During weekly meetings, Sherab discussed with the Head on hiring new GAAs for TechPro and Japanese cataloging, and hourly students on processing Cataloging Quality control files. He prepared job descriptions for GAA and hourly positions. The first new GAA, Mei Zhao, was hired and began to work beginning from the Fall Quarter, and Sherab was training her for basic Millennium operation.
Zaineb Bayahy (Arabic Cataloging)
Zaineb continued to train the new GAA, Omar, and reviewed his Turkish cataloging works.
| Languages | Original | Copy | Enhanced | Total | Volume | PCC |
| Arabic books | 20 | 5 | 25 | 1 | ||
| Sound recording Arabic
Turkish Books (Omer) |
9 | 5 | 8 | 22 | ||
| French Books | 1 | 44 | 32 | 77S | ||
| English | 12 | 29 | 12 | 53 | ||
| Arabic retrocon | 200 | 200 | ||||
| Total | 377 |
Anna Batchev (Slavic Cataloging)
Anna cataloged 20 new Slavic titles (12 in original), 101 Serbian gift books (90 in original), and 10 serials (2 in original). Some of the Serbian titles were quite difficult and required original and time consuming works.
GAAs and students cataloging performance
ChineseYang Yu (GAA) cataloged 101 new Chinese titles including 78 books (7 in original), and 8 DVDs (5 in original).
Mei Zhao (GAA) was under training.
Yang was the only student working on Chinese cataloging this month.
JapaneseFusako Yoneda (GAA) cataloged 71 new Japanese titles, including 35 books (20 in original), 2 serials titls in original, 277 added serial volumes, 26 DVDs all in original, 6 CD-ROMs, and 39 CD-ROM added volumes.
Natsumi Hirota (GAA) was working on the JMSTC project and cataloged 42 titles all in original. She was on vacation for two weeks.
Akina Ikudo (hourly) cataloged 74 JMSTC titles all in original and 24 added copies.
Korean(no action)
Turkish(see Omar under Zaineb)
Principal Cataloger and Special Projects
September 2007 was a busy month for the section as we continued to add item records for monographs received from MOD as well as doing our regular tasks. This month section members continued to work on new analytics and analytic retrocon and continued to work on auction catalogs for the Fine Arts Library.
Beverly McDonald spent her time this month training, answering questions and solving problems. She was able to work on her backlog of problems, solve some current complicated problems and also worked with Ed Plunkett to answer his cataloging questions. Beverly and section members attended the Technical Services Division meeting (September 12). Beverly and section members attended the Connexion 2.0 training session given by Mary Harris (September 20) and Beverly and Ed attended the Fire Extinguisher Workshop (September 7). Finally, Beverly worked at the retirement reception for Betty Sawyers (September 27) and the retirement luncheon for Sherry Dabe (September 24).
Christina Moore worked on Connexion questions and problems and continued to focus on analytics, the difficult ones in the analytic retroconversion project as well as the new analytics. She continued to work on series indexing and item record problems. She presented the New Student Orientation Workshop (September 28). As a member of the Training Advisory Council (TAC) and Risk Assessment Committee (RAC), she worked on projects. For TAC, she is working on item record training and, for RAC, she has been working on a fire safety workshop. Although Christina was unable to attend the Fire Extinguisher Workshop on September 7 because she was out of town, all of her hard work on this presentation paid off and the workshop was very successful and well attended.
Ed Plunkett now does all of the PromptCAT books and continued to work on a large collection of auction catalogs for the Fine Arts Library. Two special cataloging projects done by the former Library Associate 1 (i.e., maps for the Geology Library and books for the Byrd Polar Research Library) remained on hold. Ed continued to do the monthly statistics and attended the Instant Messenger Workshop (September 17).
The GAA position has been posted and we hope to have someone hired by November 1. The GAA will be used to help complete the analytic retrocon project in addition to several other projects for catalog maintenance. Student Jennifer Middleton worked with the books from MOD, adding the item records and distributing the Western language books to the catalogers.
Finally, members of the section took leave time this month (although Beverly did not take any leave time) and we all had one holiday.
Catalog Quality Control and Enrichment
The Law project continues forward with Amira now working as a GAA and Samantha working from Ackerman. The total for the month was 629. At Magda’s request, Melanie started keeping more detailed statistics to show specific problems she handles, like assigning 37 call numbers and 6 subject headings. Amira and Melanie are also working together to ensure that more books are being sent to Ackerman on a regular basis (once a week), so that Samantha has a steady stream of books to work with.
Melanie sent 3 errors to the OhioLINK Errors listserv, and resolved 14 duplicate OCLC problems. Beth and Melanie set a date of November 15th for NACO Refresher training for Special Collections. The training will take place at SEL so that it can be hands on. One problem Melanie tackled in September arose when some original OSU cataloging records were coded incorrectly on OCLC. The records were collected in a Boolean on OSCAR, but also collected on OCLC so no records were missed. The incorrect records (57 of them) were then corrected.
Lin continued to complete the bib and item delete Booleans. Melanie also assigned Lin the task of handling the incoming withdrawals, bib and item deletes, reserve deletes, duplicate OCLC problems, and OCLC updates that Sherry used to handle. Lin took all the new incoming material and, with help from Melanie, is also working on the backlog. Although incoming problem books are still Lin’s top priority, the materials Sherry received through e-mail and campus mail are extremely important and the regional and branch libraries depend on the section to get these completed quickly and correctly.
This will be an ongoing struggle for Lin as new paperwork comes in almost every day and these must be done by hand (not by Boolean). For example, in August Sherry did 4 reserve delete bibs, withdrew 175 items, 205 bibs and deleted holdings for 164 books.
Andrea reviewed 321 1xx changes, completed 256 duplicate authority records, 43 LC authority record deletes, and completed all of her regular updates and loads.
Sherry’s last day was 28th, so she spent much of her time in September cleaning up loose ends and updating documentation.
| Andrea | Stephanie | Lin | Melanie | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backlog/Requested | 3 | 504 | ||
| Completed/Referred | 12 | 184 | ||
| Remaining |
| Andrea | Stephanie | Lin | Melanie | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Authority Update | ||||
| Authority Delete | ||||
| Authority Reviewed | ||||
| Consultation | 2 | 4 | ||
| Boolean | 8 | 6 | ||
| BIBCO reviewed | ||||
| BIBCO submitted | ||||
| NACO reviewed | 19 | 19 | ||
| NACO submitted | ||||
| OCLC update | 900 | |||
| Bib/Item changes | 1236 | 30 | ||
| Books cataloged | 54 | 21 |
Catalog Librarian
Rocki Strader returned from vacation on Sept.13. She attended the following meetings and events: met with Melanie Schlosser re: problems with submitting Roy Lichtenstein's thesis to OhioLINK ETD, Sept. 19; Connexion 2.0 training, Sept. 20; ALAO Executive Board at OHIONET, Sept. 21; Sherry Dabe's retirement potluck, Sept. 24; Betty Sawyers' retirement reception, Sept. 27.
Misc.:
The Graduate School has officially announced the option for masters students to submit their theses electronically starting Fall Quarter 2007. These documents will not be archived on microfiche. Rocki brought up question to Magda re: copy numbers. It is assumed that the ETD will simply be copy 1.
There was some confusion on the handling of SEL masters theses. They receive the "selst" location code, but are shelved in ACK. Because of the current shelving arrangement (SEL theses have not been interfiled with the other theses shelved in ACK), selst will continue to be used. Any further questions, or if there is a change in workflow and shelving for these documents, are to be handled by Aaron Olivera.
Cataloging Department Monthly Statistics