Technical Services Committee Meeting: December 7, 2015

Conference call

Members attending: Melissa Burel (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), Keith Eiten (Wheaton College, co-chair), Ann Heinrichs (Catholic Theological Union, co-chair), Mary Konkel (College of DuPage), Mingyan Li (Oakton Community College), Joelen Pastva (University of Illinois Chicago), Sandy Roe (Illinois State University)

Members absent: Mary Tatro (Augustana College)

Staff attending: Jen Masciadrelli, Ted Schwitzner, Nicole Swanson

Decisions:

•    Minutes of the November 2, 2015 meeting were approved. 
•    The meeting was adjourned at 3:28 p.m.

Announcements:

  • CARLI offices will be closed December 24, 2015-January 1, 2016. If serious problems arise, it is better to call rather than email during break, as calls are forwarded to Systems Services staff.

Discussion:

  • Development of VuFind 2.5 discovery interface is still in progress with improved functionality for consortium catalogs, though there is no firm release date yet. Because 2.5 is a more mainstream version of VuFind, CARLI does not plan to do many customizations to the code. When it is ready, I-Share libraries will be asked to participate in beta testing. Keith inquired as to which committee will have ownership of VuFind issues since the reorganization of the CARLI committee structure. There is a perceived gap in the current committee structure for public catalog issues, though there may be potential for the Tech Services Committee to play a role. CARLI staff will report back when they learn more.
  • Global Data Change function in Voyager is still under investigation and not available for use.
  • Subcommittee report: Publishing the 2014-2015 Annual project
    • Project to be published as a news item – Keith has prepared a draft that awaits approval from other members of the committee
  • Subcommittee report: Updating the CatER Final Report
    • The second meeting will be on Thursday, December 10. Sections 6 and 11 have been reviewed. Updated links will include links to documents and links to pages that contain other documents.
  • Annual project
    • Topic: MarcEdit within the context of database cleanup
    • Working title: MarcEdit for Database Maintenance: A Select Primer
    • Possible projects revised list:
      • RDA-related topics: change “ca.” to “approximately,” change “violoncello” to “cello,” utilize RDA Helper functions
      • Insert desired field(s) into a group of records you have identified – for example, in order to group collections of materials for canned searches
      • Update URLs (856 fields) by adding or changing proxy
      • Massage vendor MARC records - convert character encoding, delete some unwanted fields, etc.
      • Other suggestions – consider briefly discussing function to export tab delimited text for data analysis
    • Deliverables:
      • Definite – instructional document with screen shots for each step
      • TBD – tutorial videos/online tutorials 
    • Contributors: 
      • Ann and Mingyan mentioned colleagues who may be available for input and assistance. 
    • Structure of document – see Appendix on page 3
  • Tech Services Spring Forum 
    • Topic: Same as Annual Project: Using MarcEdit for database maintenance 
    • Possible structure:
      • Plenary: General introduction to MarcEdit - Ted confirmed his willingness to do this
      • Breakout sessions on various functions of MarcEdit
      • Could include live demos and screenshots from Annual Project
      • Solicit feedback for possible hackathon to take place at a later date.
    • Possible presenters were discussed.
    • The date was confirmed for Thursday, April 21, 2016.
    • Jen plans to confirm the location for Heartland Community College, Normal, IL.
  • TSC recommendations regarding National Library of Medicine (NLM) changes in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
    • The general consensus was that it is best to follow NLM practices and recommendations, though retroactive changes are not necessary.
    • The changes do not have an impact on indexing and the VuFind environment.
    • Libraries with locally implemented discovery layers should investigate what (if any) effect the changes might have on indexing and display.
  • The next meeting will be schedule using a Doodle poll to minimize conflicts arising from the holidays and ALA Midwinter.

Tasks assigned:

•    Keith agreed to work on drafting part 1 of annual project document.
•    Sandy agreed to work on drafting part 2 of annual project document.
•    Ann agreed to work on drafting part 3 of annual project document.
•    Jen will set up a Doodle poll to find a suitable next meeting time for the week of January 11-15th.

Appendix

Annual Project - Structure of document 
Members agree that this could be a workable structure:

  1. General introduction to MarcEdit
  2. Database maintenance projects well suited for MarcEdit: (include why MarcEdit is better for these projects than Strawn or I-Share Shared Macros)
  3. Step-by-step procedure (explain):
    1. Use Access reports to gather records
    2. Request a file of those bib records from CARLI using a WRO
    3. Import the file into MarcEdit and perform appropriate tasks
    4. Transfer the file back to CARLI; ask CARLI to reload the records
  4. Take selected database maintenance projects, one by one – provide detailed instructions & screen shots for Steps 3a & 3c (Steps 3a and 3c will be different for each project)
  5. Wrap-up:
    1. Other possible projects for MarcEdit? 
    2. Projects better suited for Strawn or I-Share Shared Macros? (Strawn works well for authority work)