March 2021 Meeting Minutes

OCATS Meeting Agenda

Date: Thursday March 18, 2021
Time: 10:00am – 11:00pm
Location: Virtual Meeting via Microsoft Teams
  1. Welcome & Land Acknowledgement
    • Any feedback or suggestions for the land acknowledgement are welcomed and should be sent to Tammy Moorse.
  2. Approval of Agenda – approved
  1. OCATS Logo Update – options for the OCATS logo will be recirculated again before the next meeting
  1. Working during the Pandemic
    • Tammy Moorse – Hamilton Public Library
      • Team of three working entirely from home migrating data into the new Red Book database
      • Microsoft Teams has been a useful tool for both meetings and as a document repository
      • a large portion of the library staff have been seconded to work with the city public health department and open hours have been reduced to accommodate
    • Lindsay Shaw – New Tecumseth Public Library
      • opened up to the public this week
      • cannot do remote cataloguing due to firewall and non-web-based ILS
      • investigating VPN options for working from home
    • Jessica Van Keulen – Western University Library
      • major renovations to the largest library have displaced study space and holds pick up to the science library
      • technical services staff are mostly working from home with 1-2 days per week on site, only physical materials are catalogued on site
      • cleaning up issues from migration to Alma
    • Antonio Munoz Gomez – University of Waterloo Library
      • continuing with curbside pickup service
      • technical services staff are mostly working from home with 1-2 days per week on site to work on print materials
      • remote cataloguing of print materials is done with the help of receiving/holdings maintenance staff – for original and foreign language cataloguing scans of titles pages etc. can be requested, only cataloguing on site if absolutely necessary
    • Kelly Buehler – Toronto Public Library
      • processing, shipping, and receiving staff have been working on site since June, other staff including supervisors, acquisitions, and cataloguing are working from home with 1-3 days one site per week
      • staff are all using TPL laptops because of security issues involved with installing VPNs on personal laptops
      • workflow involves spreadsheets with information from vendor invoices, OCLC copy is compared with title pages available on Amazon or Publisher’s websites to verify, supervisors pull books that can’t be verified to be reviewed by staff when they are on site – the biggest issue is audiobook copy records listing the incorrect number of disks
      • working from home requires a lot more work in planning and administration of procedures and workflows
    • May Chan – University of Toronto Libraries
      • Transitioned to Alma in early January, currently learning the new system and redeveloping workflows
      • Cataloguing is completed off spreadsheets, onsite staff assist by scanning parts of books that require more complex description
    • Lorna Young – Toronto District School Board
      • Limited onsite staff based on a weekly rotation which includes technical services staff and managers
      • Supporting school libraries undergoing renovations by packing and unpacking collections
      • Will be holding a virtual book fair in the near future
    • Aurora Public Library
      • Beginning to plan changing Indigenous Subject Headings
  1. Ethics in Cataloguing Update – May Chan, University of Toronto
    • Final version of the Code of Ethics for Cataloguers was released in Jan 2021 after two rounds of feedback
    • Next steps are to get US, UK, and CAN endorsement from professional associations which is expected to take 6 months to 1 year
    • The steering committee is now expanding the Code by adding about case studies and they are looking for a few volunteers to test the process for submitting case studies. If interested email May Chan at ms.chan@utoronto.ca
  1. What more can be done to stimulate discussion on the google group?
    • Goal for 2021 is to complete the OCATS website, it will include a knowledge base of related links and resources
    • Emma Cross, OLA rep with CFLA/FCAB CMSC will gather input and relay it to OCATS
    • Looking into creating a more formal leadership structure for the OCATS group
    • Discussing eventually becoming part of OLA but there are concerns about OLA membership and associated costs becoming a barrier to involvement with OCATS
  1. Topics for presentations or presenters for meetings in 2021
    • Ad Hoc committee to plan themes and presentations for future events and meetings
    • Thomas Brenndofer to return with a presentation on the new RDA toolkit
      1. Interest in format-specific best practices
    • Canadian BIBFRAME readiness Task Force with an update on where Canada is on this and assistance to prepare libraries for the transition
    • Kris Wawrzyniak to do a tutorial on moving MARC data into and from OpenRefine and how to manipulate MARC data in Open Refine
    • Antonio Munoz Gomez to do a presentation on MarcEdit
    • Implementation of Indigenous Subject Headings and how to get vendors involved
    • Discussion surrounding LGBTQ+ subject headings
    • Stories and examples of other local treatments for subject headings
    • Introduction to Sinopia
    • Looking into creating or exploring existing alternatives to the Legislative Library of British Columbia’s MARC Records Batch Service
    • OLAC best practices for A/V resources including guidelines for the new MARC accessibility fields
    • Using ALMA analytics for cataloguing purposes
    • Different projects that people use tools for including special projects or regular workflows
      • Interest in Bookwhere and APIs for Alma
    • AHA! Moments where people discovered a new way of doing something that made a difference to their job
    • Suggestion for more voices from public libraries to avoid academic libraries dominating the discussion
  1. Other Business
  1. Next Meeting Date and Time – June 17
  2. Adjournment – Thanks Everyone