Orca Catalog Merger
Recommendations and comments
for Council
The following recommendations were developed by the ORCA Staff Team and will be considered by the ORCA Council (directors of member libraries) during their first meeting on April 3-4, 2003.
Catalog
Cascade has a separate subject index for Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) while Orbis includes MeSH with Children’s, National Agriculture Lib. and other non-LC subject headings. There is no additional cost to have this special index.
Recommendation: Include a MeSH index in the Orca catalog, and remove MeSH from the “Other subjects” index.
Although journal scoping was not available when Orbis was developed, Cascade was able to take advantage of this capability during implementation. III now recommends scoping as the most complete, economical, and effective means to identify journals.
for patrons: Journal Scoping offers the capability of searching for serials by title, and also by author, subject, keyword, etc.
for staff: no additional maintenance is required for scoping as long as local sites store the “bib lvl” serial code in the bib record BCode1 or BCode2
Recommendation: include a scope for serials (not just journals). Due to technical issues related to coding in individual Orbis records for a few members, the Scoping feature may be introduced in the late Summer or early Fall, when III adds the capability to re-map BCode1 and BCode2 values from local sites to central.
Journal Title is a popular Orbis search, but many have noted problems with the reliability and accuracy of this index. Contributing factors include backlogs in cataloging projects aimed at adding searchable JTI fields, the exclusion of certain kinds of serials, and a small degree of human error.
for patrons: JTI limits searching to title alone, and generally by only one form of the title. Many serials are excluded from the index and thus not retrievable via a JTI search.
for staff: JTI requires a commitment to ongoing maintenance, a labor-intensive effort from all member libraries to ensure a searchable JTI field in every serial record
Recommendation: do not include a Journal Title Index in Orca. Member libraries may elect to continue supporting a Journal Title index in their local system. Pass-through searches from a local JTI index to the union catalog would probably be directed to the primary title index. If desired, consortium staff will pursue an enhancement that would enable pass-through and apply a serial scope.
Recommendation: adopt the criteria currently used for adding new records to the Orbis union catalog, based on
1. Encoding level (full cataloging, brief, CIP, error in record, etc.)
2. Institution priority code. We often assign several members the same priority code, so it’s a system of high, medium, low.
Criteria for assigning the code:
§ completeness of record (no history of stripping fields such as medical or children’s subject headings, national level classification numbers)
§ compliance with national cataloging standards for content and coding
§ name and subject authority control
3. “First record in” – If Encoding level and Institution priority code are the same, then the first record in remains the master record.
Circulation
Orbis and Cascade have each adopted fine policies intended to be easy for patrons to understand and for staff to explain. Orbis developed a uniform, system-wide fine policy for INN-Reach requests, explaining that the “new” service applies the same loan period and fines for everyone, regardless of patron type (student, faculty, staff) or institution. Cascade also uses standard loan periods system-wide, but fines are charged and assessed using the structure of the patron's local system. For Cascade patrons, fines are the same regardless of how the material was borrowed, through local circulation or through INN-Reach.
Recommendation: The ORCA Staff Team sees merit in both approaches and suggests that Council choose between two policies
· all members use a standard fine for all Orca borrowers, or
· members each use whatever local fine structure they normally apply to circulation transactions.
Several Orbis members are now using INN-Reach Visiting Patron (VP). The remainder use VP only to confirm visiting patrons’ eligibility for borrowing, then key patron records on the local system and check out the materials via circulation (i.e., not through INN-Reach). All Cascade sites use INN-Reach Visiting Patron.
The INN-Reach system is now capable of accommodating local loan rules as well as the INN-Reach central Institution loan rule. Further, as soon as Pickup Anywhere is installed, distance ed. students will no longer be limited to the pickup desk or desks associated with only their home library.
Recommendation: As soon as the Pickup Anywhere feature is installed, all ORCA member libraries use INN-Reach Visiting Patron. Such a move would entail phasing out checkout to visiting patrons in any other form (for example, keying additional patron records at each member library visited by the patron), and discontinuing the use of “Orbis Borrowing” cards and any other separate, printed identification for patrons using other institutions’ libraries.