The purpose of this newsletter is to provide summary information about activities in the three divisions of Technical Service that may be of interest to the library staff. The newsletter will be issued irregularly via NjP-L, the Library list serve, and archived accessible from a link on the Technical Services web page:
http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/tech/hptsd.html
In this issue:
· Moves in Catalog Division
· Preview of Catalog Division reorganization
· Site visits
· Adding URLs to records
· Recon update
· ITSO
· Moves in Order Division
Catalog Division:
Relocations in Catalog Division: Beginning November 28th Joyce Bell has relocated to the second floor office in 2-6-J2, formerly occupied by Clayton Redding. Clay has moved to C-17-D1 to share an office with Kevin Clarke, the new digital applications programmer. Phone numbers have not changed. Joyce can still be reached at 8-8625; Clay at 8-7290.
Preview of Catalog Division Reorganization: In addition to the above noted move of Joyce Bell to the second floor, further reorganization of the Catalog Division is set to occur on January 1, 2005. The first phase of reorganization, effective May 1, and detailed in the July newsletter and a posting to NjP-L, was the creation of the Approvals and Copy Cataloging Team. Following a successful search, a new unit head, Linda Turzynski, has been appointed and will begin in January.
Following further evaluation aimed at rationalizing staffing and workflow, the remaining staff of Cataloging Units I, II, and III, will reorganize into:Western Languages Original Cataloging UnitWestern and Slavic Languages Approval and Cataloging GroupNear East Approvals and Cataloging Group The above names are provisional, intended to reflect the broad responsibilities of each group. Expected implementation date is January 2005, at which time a more detailed announcement and revised organization chart will be posted.
Site visits: As
an offshoot of the Cataloging User's Group meeting, and to address questions
and issues like those arising out of the selector's meeting about call numbers,
representatives from Catalog Division have been making site visits to branch
libraries. Topics covered in these visits include general information
about upcoming system changes, and specific cataloging issues like converting a
series to a CAS (classed as set) for easier shelving, collection-level
cataloging for pamphlet-like material, converting Richardson call numbers
to LC, and miscellaneous questions about particular records. One
result of these meetings was the creation of a macro for SA to simplifying
changing the item type from Gen to Closed on their material. Branch libraries
that would like to schedule a visit should contact Joyce Bell, joyceb@princeton.edu, or Marie
Wange-Connelly, wange@princeton.edu.
Adding URLs to records: Cataloging Unit 4 is in the process of adding URLs to individual
records for titles in Methods in molecular biology, a large series
for which we have access to electronic versions. Other projects currently
underway 1nclude adding URLs for IEEE publications and Source
OECD monographs. Questions should be directed to Marie Wange-Connelly, or Amy
Kelly, atkelly@princeton.edu.
Recon update: The
first phase of the final stage of the project to finish the retrospective
conversion of titles not able to be cataloged by OCLC was completed at the end
of October. All non-roman script cards except Russian have been converted
and are now available through the Main Catalog. The project is on schedule
for completion by summer 2005. (Note: The East Asian recon is a separate
project and not included in this plan.)
Order
Division:
ITSO: Developed at Cornell, the Integrated Tool for Searching and Ordering, is in the beginning stages of implementation at Princeton. The Acquisitions Advisory Group is serving as the test group of selectors. The first phase of implementation will provide selectors customized access to the Library of Congress Alerts data via the web directly to their desktop. This will replace the card service that ceased in January of this year. The second phase will allow Order Division to automatically harvest the selections and create purchase orders, thus greatly reducing the time between selection decision and order creation. We hope to have a working system in place before the end of the calendar year.
Order Division on the move: The Invoice Unit and the Periodical Receipts Section have switched locales with each other. The change has provided the Invoice Unit with a quieter, more contained work area, and allowed the two halves of the Serials Acquisitions Unit (Continuations and Periodicals) to be reunited. Phone numbers for the staff remain the same