PROSPECTOR CATALOGING REFERENCE COMMITTEE MEETING
May 19, 2005
PRESENT: Cynthia Wilson (chair), Dawn Bastian, Joan
Beam, Pam Blome, Mary Beth Chambers, Gwen Gregory, Daphne Hyatt (standing in
for Gene Gardner), Florence Jones, Lois Jones, Terri Lewis, George Machovec,
Janet Ryan, Mary Sacomon
A. Quarterly database statistics: George distributed quarterly Prospector database statistics for April 2005 (Handout). As of the report, there are approximately 12 million MARC records loaded in Prospector from individual sites, and there are nearly 19 million total item records in the Prospector database. There are many unique titles in Prospector. Over 64% of the bibliographic records in the database have just one owning library. CRL records account for over 926 thousand bibliographic records loaded into the system, and over 94% of the CRL titles are unique titles in Prospector.
B. University of Wyoming: Wyoming is upgrading its Voyager system to Unicode next week, a necessary step before they can load records into Prospector. Wyoming's records will be loaded this summer. It should take about a month to complete the load. Expect to have live Prospector borrowing and lending for Wyoming by the start of fall semester.
C. CRL: There are currently 4 Prospector libraries that are CRL borrowers: CUB, DU, CC, and CSU. Selective borrowing of CRL materials requires a new Itype (Itype 207) and a special set of patron types for the 4 CRL borrowers. However, all other Prospector libraries must insert the new patron types in their local systems; otherwise they will not be able to borrow materials from CUB, CU, CC, and CSU. The patron types fall into the 230-240 range and should not conflict with Ptypes at local institutions. The Document Delivery Committee at its meeting yesterday received detailed instructions for setting up the new codes. To start with, the turn down message for non-CRL borrowers—the message that will also apply to anything that cannot be borrowed through a given institution—will be a simple, generic message. George will let us know later what the exact wording will be. The target date to begin CRL borrowing is June 21. Between now and June 21 the Alliance will be testing CRL records. If CRL records appear strange during this time, it is likely due to the testing.
The committee focused only on cataloging and general items and voted to categorize those items as follows:
Priority 1 items (non-Prospector items):
27 (Cat) Pass-through search on title rather than bib record number.
31 (Cat) Better alternatives needed when a pass-through search is
unsuccessful.
87 (Cat) Institution holdings: same order on central as local.
Priority 2 items (non-Prospector items):
63 (Gen) LDAP authentication for placement of INN-Reach requests.
68 (Gen) Create virtual record clean-up utility.
Priority 3 items (non-Prospector items):
29 (Cat) Allow option to set loading priority levels by agency rather
than by server.
32 (Cat) Improvement to summary holdings display needed.
86 (Cat) Record matching and merging-019. Make report available to
systems.
Unspecified items (non-Prospector items):
30 (Cat) Call number in record (DCB systems).
33 (Cat) Modify matching algorithm.
49 (Gen) Display DCB client table edits as they are done.
50 (Gen) Provide a quick way for the DCB system administrator to change
identities when using the DCB circulation system.
51 (Gen) Create a DCB control bar.
66 (Cat) Group multi-volumes by library, sort by volume number in OPAC
display.
93 (Cat) Add search <IR system> link in local III systems.
94 (Cat) Enhanced control of record contribution.
102 (Cat) The110-character INN-Reach merging matchkey needs to be longer.
Prospector items—all
cataloging and general items proposed by Prospector were given priority 1
rankings:
18 (Cat) Patron view local record.
19 (Cat) Icon(s) for multiple material types.
20 (Gen) Format types for non-Innovative libraries in an INN-Reach
system.
21 (Cat) Full date display on brief records screen.
o There is nothing on the main screens to tell a person what state or geographic region Prospector serves. After some discussion the committee agreed that the following wording should be added after the word Prospector at the top of the screen: linking Colorado and Wyoming libraries. George will talk to Scott at the Alliance about making this design change.
o In the browse display there is a line that reads, “n copies available.” This is misleading. If, for instance, the line reads, "5 copies available," it means that 5 libraries own the title. It does not mean that 5 copies of a work are available for borrowing through Prospector. Since the wording cannot be changed, the committee agreed that it should be turned off entirely. It is not present in the current version of Prospector. George will ask Scott to make the change.
o GMDs are not showing up in the new Web. The committee agreed that the GMD display should be turned on. George will ask Scott to make the change.
o Help is still missing. George noted that CSU's work on help screens will be modified for use in Prospector.
o When a search is done in Prospector for a title that does not exist in the system, a message appears in the index where the title would be that reads, "xyz entry would be here." The message appears in red text on a brown background, and it is hard to see it. The committee agreed this should be fixed. Making the words appear in white letters would work better. George will ask Scott to make the change.
George will send out a notice on the email list when the changes are made. He reminded the group that "we will always be tweaking this." Expect the Web version to be released sometime this summer.
Janet Ryan presented the idea of adding a pass-through button from Prospector to WorldCat as part of the Google/Open WorldCat project. George will check with Scott to see if it could be done. The committee agreed to revisit the idea sometime in the future.
Submitted by Mary Beth Chambers 5/24/05