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Editor's Notes

• #3: The obligatory slide giving background on the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library.
• #4: Isn’t RDA a nutritional requirement? Before I could explain the new Resource Description and Access (RDA) cataloging rules to our public services staff, I had some foundational work to do first. I had to find a way to get RDA out of the backroom of Technical Services and into the light of public services staff. Many of them were probably noticing things in the catalog were changing, but not really knowing why. When they did notice things, they reported them as cataloging errors, which they really weren’t if the catalog records were coded for RDA. Admin buy-in- I knew I had to get buy-in from the administration before developing any presentations on RDA for public services staff. The way to do that was to make the training one of my 2014 goals for my annual performance evaluation. I also got the training certified for Library Education Units (LEUs) in the state of Indiana and with the help of our staff trainer, made the training mandatory for public services staff. We identified 42 people to get the training. Elevator speech vs. gory details?- I felt that many presentations with titles like “RDA for non-catalogers” included too much information about the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), Linked Data, and the Semantic Web. I felt our public services staff needed more practical information, such as why the cataloging rules were changing, what was changing in our catalog records, and how these changes affected the display and searching of catalog records. I also wanted to show them how they could use Format facets in place of GMDs when searching our catalog. Cataloger-speak- I knew I had to avoid cataloger-speak and downplay using words like “MARC format” as much as possible, as well as strip MARC formatting from the examples and screenshots in my presentation. My goal wasn’t to train them to be RDA catalogers; I still have to train my own cataloging staff on RDA. I told them we had a hybrid catalog with hybrid records, but that was the case at other libraries too.
• #5: When I began preparing my presentation for public services staff, I started looking at the effects of RDA changes on our catalog records. What I discovered was a quite a mess on many levels. It was a catalog gone wild! Effects of RDA- Catalog records created under the new RDA rules have been creeping into our catalog since late 2010. Most of the questions I had been getting from public services staff involved what they thought were cataloging errors when General Material Designations (GMDs) were missing from RDA catalog records. But when I began looking closer at the changes brought about by RDA, especially those affecting access points, I uncovered several major problems lurking in our catalog. It slowly became clear to me I was going to have to tell public services staff that implementing RDA meant more than the loss of their beloved GMDs. Local customizations- Our library has been the King of Local Customizations for many years. We’ve stripped many MARC fields and subfields we didn’t understand or didn’t like seeing in our catalog and we’ve added unconventional things, like a GMD for “[large print]”. These practices worked well for us when we had more staff, loaded fewer batch files of MARC records, and didn’t outsource some of our cataloging to Baker and Taylor. System problems- I didn’t realize it at the time, but sometime around the beginning of April 2013, our Automatic Authority Control Process (AACP) stopped working. We had just loaded over 4,000 RDA-changed name authority records in March and as expected, they updated thousands of bibliographic records. Our Updated Bibliographic Headings Report was so full, we never realized AACP had stopped working in April. In July, we installed an upgrade to Sierra and the Updated Bibliographic Headings Report was emptied overnight, never to be filled again. I opened a ticket to report it, but it’s still not fixed. Authority record problems- While reviewing changes to access points and wondering how many bibliographic records weren’t changed after March of 2013, I discovered there were over 13,000 authority records that appeared not to have been updated in many years. It appears they never made it into our authority history file with Marcive in 2007, when we profiled for their Overnight Authority Processing service. I also realized too late that we should have updated our profile with Marcive to get all changed authority records, not just those with significant changes.
• #6: Explaining RDA’s changes to public services staff was more complex that I could have imagined it would be, but that didn’t diminish the need to explain how some of the changes were most likely already affecting their searches. Catalogers vs. Public services- There are major differences in how we approach catalog searches. Catalogers are usually working in the staff mode and are searching for a bibliographic record to match an item in their hand they’re about to catalog- they have a known entity. There’s very little guesswork necessary and they rarely need to use keyword searches. Public services gets off-the-wall inquires like, “Do you have any books that tell what happened to Germany’s war criminals after the Nuremburg Trials?” or “I watched a trailer on this DVD and wanted to know if you had that DVD in the library. I forget the title of the movie in the trailer, but it had a dog in it.” Yes, those are real questions I heard while working at two different information desks in our Central Library! It’s impossible to search for a known entity when getting those types of questions and keyword searching is probably the most efficient way to start the search. Thinking back to how these questions hit my cataloger's brain really forced me to think more about how public services uses our catalog, the types of searches they do, which interface they choose to use, and how RDA changes to access points are affecting their searches. Keyword searches- Keyword searches involve the entire catalog record and Boolean operators like “AND” combine multiple words in the search query. Keyword searches look at natural language found in the catalog record, such as on the title of the item, in the tables of contents titles, in notes, and in summaries. They also search controlled language terms from access points such as the author, uniform title, series title, and subject/genre fields. They’re usually a broader type of search and bring back a larger number of results, which may require post-search limiting. Keyword is the default search mode for both our Encore and our Classic Catalog. Keyword searches don’t work on suppressed fields, though. Left-anchored (phrase index) searches- Left-anchored or phrase searches are linear searches of controlled language terms and phrases from access points, such as author, uniform title, and subject/genre fields in bibliographic records. They’re usually a more narrowed search approach, unless you use a broad term that is widely used in the catalog, like “dogs” in a public library catalog. Some results sets may be large enough to require post-search refinement. Left-anchored searches are available as Advanced Search options in both our Encore and Classic Catalog, but appear not to work the same way in both catalogs.
• #7: At the EVPL, we’ve used several iterations of Innovative’s staff modules and public catalogs in the 20 years since we migrated to Innovative from a Geac consortium in 1994. We’ve also had lots of staff changes in recent years, as many librarians and support staff have retired. Millennium- We migrated from Millennium to Sierra on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 21, 2013, a little over 11 years after our migration to Millennium from the character-based INNOPAC, which staff deeply loved since 1994. I don’t think any of our staff ever really loved Millennium– until Jan. 22, 2013. Sierra- The aftermath of our migration was a bit bumpy, to put it mildly. I spent many hours documenting problems reported to me by my catalogers and opening tickets with the Help Desk, then following up with my catalogers as the Help Desk fixed some of them. Subsequent upgrades have also been bumpy, usually spawning a new round of problems and tickets for me to open. On the positive side, Encore’s facets made it into Sierra and I saw the Format facets as a way wean public services staff away from their beloved GMDs. Encore- Our public services staff have generally disliked Encore ever since we implemented it in December of 2008. I’ve tried and tried again to enthusiastically sell it to them as a much-improved interface to our catalog. They’ve steadfastly stuck to using the Classic Catalog or Millennium/Sierra for many of their searches when dealing with inquiries from the public. Classic Catalog- Kind of like that comfortable pair of shoes you’ve broken in, you know fit your feet, and you swear you’ll never throw them away, the Classic Catalog is turning out to be, well, a more accurate and reliable workhorse than I had previously given it credit. I ended up using the Classic Catalog for much of my RDA training for public services.
• #8: When explaining RDA to our public services staff, I broke it down into 4 main areas. My plan was to communicate what was changing in each area, what had changed or not changed in our catalog records, and what would be changing in the future. Descriptive- I highlighted the main changes to the descriptive areas brought about by RDA, such as no more abbreviations, no more rule of “three”, and the demise of the GMD and the three new elements replacing it. I showed them examples of how these changes looked in AACR2 and RDA catalog records- minus any MARC coding. For the three new elements replacing the GMD, I included screenshots of a real record Sierra and our Classic Catalog, which were very different from one another, since we decided early on not to display the three new elements in our public catalogs. I acknowledged there were inconsistencies in application of the GMD, but explained it was due to us accepting RDA and AACR2-coded catalog records from a variety of sources, and that both sets of cataloging rules were still valid to use. I gave them a heads-up that at some point in the near future, we’ll be stripping GMDs from all new AACR2 records and adding selected RDA elements to those records, as well as eventually stripping GMDs from old AACR2 records and adding RDA elements to all old AACR/AACR2 catalog records, most likely with the help of Marcive. Terminology- Access points- I showed them where RDA-changed access points would affect their searches, depending on whether or not they used keyword vs. phrase searches, and how their search results were further affected by which interface (Sierra, Encore, Classic Catalog) they used. I also gave them the bad news that we had some serious issues concerning authority records that weren’t updated, as well as bibliographic records that were updated in part or not at all. I told them we were working to identify the problems, then assessing our options for resolving them. I would say that they’re widespread enough that we probably need to completely re-do our entire bibliographic database and authority history files with Marcive, much like we did in 2005, but geared towards RDA conversion this time around. MARC fields- As much as I hated to do it, I had to talk about MARC format and tell our public services staff about new MARC fields generated by RDA.
• #9: This is an example of how I showed them the differences between AACR2 and RDA. I debated on whether or not to show them this much information about the descriptive portions of RDA, fearing they would think I was trying to turn them into catalogers. But this image doesn’t contain any MARC coding. I thought it would help staff who were probably noticing these changes in our newer catalog records, but who weren’t sure what was going on with them, especially since the changes weren’t appearing on all new records.
• #10: Like many Innovative Interfaces libraries, our library embraced Innovative’s highly-customizable material type codes, also known as Format codes. Format codes- Over the course of 20 years, we quickly exhausted all 32 of them, often doing creative things like combining similar, older formats and making them share a code, so as to free up a code for reuse. Since the days of our first WebPAC, those codes have been associated with format icons and have been available for pre- and post-search limiting using the Advanced Search option. Specific vs. General- We used our Format codes to get really specific, especially when AACR2 was general, as in when GMDs are used for non-book formats like [videorecording] and [sound recording]. This was most helpful as we saw formats evolve from filmstrips to VHS to DVD, from cassette tapes to CDs, and from floppy diskettes to CD-ROMs to websites. Secret weapon- Our catalogers have been meticulously assigning Format codes to bibliographic records ever since we went live on INNOPAC in May of 1994, even when we had a character-based catalog that didn't use the codes to refine searches or display any icons related to the codes. More than anything, we and our IT dept. used Format codes in our statistical reports, but we never gave them much thought beyond their use in reports, like using them for refining searches done in the public catalog or staff modules. Improvements to the WebPAC and the introduction of Encore, then Sierra, have made Format facets powerful tools for limiting searches in any interface. The demise of the GMD shouldn’t be that big of a problem for our library, since we have a wealth of bibliographic records containing Format codes. Now that the Format facet was available in both Encore and Sierra, I felt it was my mission to show public services how powerful and reliable this secret weapon could be when used to refine their searches, especially in the face of GMD inconsistencies between RDA and AACR2 catalog records.
• #11: A screenshot of our Format Codes, showing all 32 of them. Going forward with RDA conversion of AACR2 records, I plan to use the formats represented by these codes to tell Marcive which Content Type, Material Type, and Carrier Type (CMC) fields to add to existing catalog AACR2 records. But before I profiled for any kind of conversion project, I wanted to let our public services staff know they were going to lose their GMDs, they needed to become proficient using Format codes as limiters, and they could expect to see CMC fields in every catalog record at some point in the future.
• #12: RDA-changed access points are probably the biggest thing besides the GMD to affect catalog searchers.
• #13: RDA-changed authority records have affected our access points, both in the bibliographic records that were changed and in those that weren’t changed.