Sally Sinn (NAL) chaired the meeting and welcomed 22 task force members, participants, vendor liaisons, and others interested in the project.

Announcements and updates

• Harvard load. Rich Greene (OCLC) gave an update on OCLC's progress towards loading the Harvard holdings and pattern data. OCLC will only be loading those records that are CONSER and have OCLC control numbers, as other records are too problematic for matching. The specifications are complete and, while there is no set time frame, Rich hopes that it will begin within several weeks. The only changes to the record will be the addition of the 891 fields and a code in field 040. Project records will be referred to pattern participants for resolution.

• Statistics. Jean Hirons (LC) announced that LC's ability to do online statistics is about ready, thanks to the efforts of LC staff David Williamson, Les Hawkins, and Carroll Davis. All present agreed that keeping record numbers and displaying them to others would be useful and we will find a way to accomplish this.

• ALA/LITA preconference on MARC holdings in San Francisco. Linda Miller circulated a flyer giving the details of the preconference, which includes demonstrations of how the CONSER Patterns initiative is making it possible to download patterns into systems and how patterns can easily be uploaded into OCLC. Jean asked that the new SCCTP holdings course be mentioned at some point in the presentation. The MARC Holdings Discussion Group will meet directly after the preconference, providing an opportunity for informal follow up on some of the issues. Suggestions for places to advertise the conference included: CONSERhold and CONSERLST, NASIGnet, the NASIG newsletter, MARC-L, and the SCCTP list.

• SCCTP Holdings Workshop. Jean reported that 29 trainers had attended the 2-day train-the-trainer session for the SCCTP holdings course. The session was very successful and she was particularly pleased with the practicum which asked groups of trainers to discuss how they would use the materials in various scenarios. In answer to a question of whether further sessions will be held in different locations, Jean said she expected so, but probably not during the current year.
  

  Carroll Davis observed that the trainers are entirely from academic libraries with no public libraries represented. It was speculated that, while public libraries may not now be interested in using the MARC Holdings format, more public libraries might be interested in using it in the future and Hirons suggested that a simplified version of the course could be given.
  

  Hirons also said that while pricing has yet to be finalized, the materials will be available for a flat fee from CDS as PDF files.

Vendor Survey

Linda Miller (LC) described the summary of responses from 11 system vendors that has been placed on the CONSER Web site. The survey responses are limited in their usefulness and Miller hopes that all or most of the vendors will grant permission to present the detailed answers which will more explicitly state what a vendor has or has not implemented. She also noted that the file would be updated over time. To date, four vendors have agreed and work is underway to present this data. In addition, new questions have been formulated and the vendors will be re-surveyed. The 7 non-responding vendors will be re-asked and hopes are that the data will be up and available by ALA annual. Hirons noted that the SCCTP trainers were quite excited about the ability to have access to this data. Information about the survey and the URL will be included in the LITA preconference packet.

Participation

Hirons distributed a statistical report of contributions through December which showed that 237 patterns had been added by 8 out of the 19 participants. She suggested that participants who cannot contribute at this time be removed from the list and that new participants who are capable of significant contributions be added. Participants in the room were asked about problems with contributions. These included:

• Lack of sufficient information forwarded from acquisitions.
• The timing is bad as ILS conversion and the ongoing problems associated with this activity is making it difficult for many to contribute.
• Another issue is the fact that pattern data is assigned by non-cataloging staff.

Strategies for increasing contributions included:

• Using the macro developed by Robert Bremer which creates the pattern from data in the bibliographic record.
• Using templates for common patterns. Bremer mentioned that someone at the University of Oregon has created macros to assist in the input of patterns. Julie Su said that the use of templates was very useful.
• Try to get more CONSER members involved and include a demo and discussion at the CONSER Operations Committee meeting in May.
• Look to other sources for data that might be loaded.
• Diane Hillmann (Cornell) urged those who are novices with patterns to create a pattern and send it to CONSERHOLD-L so that someone on the group could check it out.
• Do a survey and report on the easiest ways to contribute on each particular system.

Ed Glazier (RLG) asked how long the pilot will last. The fact that it is still a pilot may keep people from actively participating. Will the Harvard load create a sizable enough number of records to end the pilot stage? Most disagreed with this, saying that the pilot needed to accomplish more. It was also noted that not all of the Harvard data includes the pattern subfields.

Next steps

Hirons said that she planned to focus on the pattern initiative during the upcoming months. The group agreed that the June preconference was an excellent opportunity to focus on holdings and patterns and that there were certain things we should do in advance as well as at the meeting. In addition to the recruitment efforts noted above, these include:

• Set a goal for contributions: the group agreed to a goal of 1,000 patterns (exclusive of the Harvard or other loaded data) by ALA annual!

• Provide more support for participants: Hold a participants meeting, instead of a task force meeting, at ALA in the same time slot that will allow participants to share ways in which they are contributing, ask questions about difficult patterns, etc. (Would we want to schedule this for more than 2 hours?)

• Explore further loads of data: Contact VTLS libraries, Northwestern, etc. to find out whether more patterns could be loaded

• Publicize the project
  • Contact the editor of American Libraries and suggest an interview with several involved in the project.
  • Write articles for: OCLC newsletter or OCLC's Bits and Pieces on the Web, CONSERline, the CONSER Web site, vendor newsletters. A general press release, perhaps at the time of the Harvard load, might work for some of these.
  • List upcoming events and milestones on the CONSER Web site.

Go to:

CONSER Publication Pattern Initiative Home Page

CONSER Home Page

Program for Cooperative Cataloging Home Page

Library of Congress Home Page

Library of Congress