Standing Committee on Automation

Background

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) is an international cooperative effort aimed at expanding access to library collections by providing useful, timely, and cost-effective cataloging which meets mutually-accepted standards of libraries around the world. The PCC, which is an umbrella organization made up of four programs-BIBCO, NACO, CONSER, and SACO-strives to produce more quality cataloging and authority records and make these records widely available for sharing and use by others. The most recent count puts the number of BIBCO contributors at 42, NACO at 350, CONSER at 39, and SACO at 89.

In WorldCat, BIBCO records are bibliographic records that may be recognized by the presence of Source c (cooperative cataloging), Encoding level blank or 4 (full or core level record), and field 042 pcc. The headings in BIBCO records, both core and full level, are fully supported by name, series and subject authority records in the OCLC Authority File. CONSER records describe serials; they have one of the following codes in field 042: lc, lcd, nlc, nsdp, isds/c, nst, or msc. NACO and SACO records are part of the OCLC Authority File.

At present, the majority of PCC cataloging records (including upgrades of existing WorldCat records) are contributed online in the OCLC cataloging system. Several PCC contributors have expressed a strong interest in being able to batchload their contributions more easily to OCLC. This survey seeks to determine your concerns about batchloading of PCC records and to gather recommendations for OCLC.

Q1. How familiar are you with the mission and goals of PCC and its programs?

- Not familiar at all Have heard of them Somewhat familiar Very familiar My library participates in one or more of the PCC programs

Q2. How familiar are you with the mission, goals, and standards for PCC full and core-level bibliographic records?

- Not familiar at all Have heard of them Somewhat familiar Very familiar My library contributes BIBCO and/or CONSER records to WorldCat

Q3. Does your library currently contribute some or all of its bibliographic records via batchloading?

- Yes No Not applicable

Q4. At present, batchloaded BIBCO upgrades do not replace existing WorldCat records, and with virtually no exceptions, CONSER upgrades cannot be batchloaded at all. OCLC is considering changing its practice to allow BIBCO and CONSER batchloaded records to replace data in existing non-BIBCO and non-CONSER records. The change is intended to facilitate the contribution of BIBCO and CONSER upgrades to WorldCat. How does your library view this potential change to OCLC batchloading?

- Opposed to this change Somewhat opposed Somewhat in favor In favor of this change No opinion/Not sure

Why?

Q5. In the OCLC online cataloging system, BIBCO libraries have National Enhance status. This means BIBCO participants working online in OCLC may lock and replace virtually any element in an OCLC member-input cataloging record. If OCLC changed its policy so that batchloaded BIBCO upgrades also replace existing OCLC member-input records, how should this occur? (Choose one)

Any core-level BIBCO record should replace any less-than-full record AND any full-level BIBCO record should replace any existing non-BIBCO record in its entirety.

Any BIBCO record (core or full) should replace any existing non-BIBCO record in its entirety.

A BIBCO record should be merged with the existing non-BIBCO record, retaining selected information in the existing record.

Do not change the current OCLC policy for batchloading BIBCO records (as described at the beginning of Q4).

Other (specify):

5A. If you chose the "merging" option in Q5, what fields should be retained from the existing record?

Q6. If OCLC implements enhancements that would make it easier for CONSER participants to use OCLC batchload as a contribution method, what is the likelihood that your library would become a CONSER participant?

- Definitely not Probably not Maybe/Not sure Probably yes Definitely yes My library already participates in CONSER

Q7. If OCLC implements enhancements that would make it easier for BIBCO participants to use OCLC batchload as a contribution method, what is the likelihood that your library would become a BIBCO participant?

- Definitely not Probably not Maybe/Not sure Probably yes Definitely yes My library already participates in BIBCO

Thank you for participating in our survey!
The SCA Task Group on OCLC Batch Processing

Responses due no later than April 13, 2001
Please send inquiries about the survey to esw3@cornell.edu

Survey version: 20010323-0900