Prospector Catalog/Reference
Committee
September 18, 2003
Present: Veronika Albl, Barbara Allen, Sandy Arnesen, Joan Beam, Carson Block, Pam Blome, Mary Beth Chambers, Gwen Gregory, Florence Jones, Lois Jones, George Machovec, Helen Reed, Carol White, Cynthia Wilson.
Guest: Janice Christopher, Alliance staff member
Minutes of the July 17, 2003 meeting were approved.
The entire Mines database is now loaded onto Prospector. There are still some issues with the display of electronic resources to be resolved. University of Wyoming records will begin loading as soon as the okay is given by Wyoming.
One display issue is that both multivolume sets and serials will have summary holdings records. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 2002 edition is an example.
University of Wyoming records will probably be loaded before the circulation functions are in place toward the end of the year. Testing continues on loading, updating, suppressing and unsuppressing records. Wyoming wished to re-emphasize that what works at Mines might not work at Wyoming and they are anxious to begin testing their own data.
Updates for non-III systems are done in batch mode overnight. Updates for Endeavor systems should work faster than for CARL systems because the Endeavor update is based on an update date, whereas CARL updates go through every record in their system.
The date for going live for the Endeavor sites is dependent upon the Unicode release from Endeavor and the local site decisions as to when they load the Unicode release in their own systems.
Regis is in the process of migrating to Innovative. LTI has done authority work and reloaded the bib records. The goal is to bring the Cataloging/Circ/PAC modules up over Christmas break. The rest of the modules will come up in the spring.
Mesa State went live in August. Their circulation stats are about equal between borrowing and lending in Prospector. Mesa State is very pleased with their Prospector participation and is urging participation from other MARMOT libraries.
AVS and PLUS/Prospector merger
Implementation of AVS in Prospector is being held up by issues related to the PLUS/Prospector merger. Both technical and cultural issues are under discussion. For instance, local subjects are indexed in PLUS, and PLUS has asked if the local subject field can be loaded in Prospector and made available through keyword searching. Cynthia gave background as to what these local subjects are (primarily children’s and fiction). The group agreed (with one objection) to allow 690s to be loaded into the system and added to AVS keyword searching.
Another AVS issue is that the default “and” search is now available (in Phase III) rather than the default phrase search. Each site is to check their local constituencies for objections to changing to the default “and” search. Objections should be sent to George and Lois by September 26. In order to make these adjustments, first Phase III must be loaded and then AVS can be implemented.
Prospector’s server is from 1998/1999. It is time to upgrade the server. The Alliance is proposing purchasing the server from their own funds. This purchase would split the hardware from the software contract with III (right now they are combined into one maintenance contract). The difference in price and maintenance fees would pay for the new server in about 3 years.
George has to do some research to find out if SSL is an option or is a required feature. If it is required, it will cause problems with CARL and Endeavor sites.
NetLibrary
Extrapolating from data from November 2002 through July 2003, the Alliance is on target for NetLibrary purchases. George distributed a chart tracking use during that period. NetLibrary has sent a list of new publishers for possible addition to the plan.
How to deal with unpurchased titles
George proposes leaving all MARC records in place for another year before purging records for older, unpurchased titles. There is an Alliance conference on October 3 at which there will be a discussion of print/electronic collection development issues. In addition, the Directors will decide if the NetLibrary contract will be renewed. If the directors agree, NetLibrary usage can be monitored during the first quarter to see if too much old stuff is being purchased rather than newer titles, and if the older records need to be purged sooner than the end of next year. However, there is no danger of overspending because of the contractual cap that is in place.
Web redesign
The web redesign project is on hold until Phase III is implemented.
This has been postponed. George will ask CRL of all Prospector Libraries could get CRL access and have borrowing privileges. George will put this topic on the Members Council agenda if CRL is willing to work a deal.
George will make the changes as described earlier.
The hope is that this problem will be fixed in Phase III. Will need to recheck records after Phase III is loaded to see if the fix worked.
New Business
Wording of “No local holdings”
This message appears when there are electronic items with no item records attached. It occurs most frequently with Government Documents. This is a bit of a misleading message, so the suggestion was made to change the wording to “copy information unavailable”. Lois will call III to find out if the message is customizable. If it is not, we will submit an enhancement request.
George provided background information on the problems we are experiencing with requests placed on DPL items. As the system is set now, requests will only go to DPL if they are the only owning location. The problems with the way requests work with DPL is seated in the time delay of updating transactions between the III and CARL systems. If an item has been checked out since the request was placed, the program will attempt to move the hold once, but only within the same branch location. If the second request is not filled, the hold is cancelled. Once a hold is cancelled, it will not be sent back to that library ever.
The addition of the PLUS libraries should help to alleviate this problem as there will be more locations available from which to request items. The fill rate for DPL has gone up to about 60% (a 10% improvement).
Next meeting:
October 9, 2003. 12:30 p.m.