OCATS November 2023 Meeting Minutes
Date: November 30, 2023, 11 a.m.-12 p.m.
Location: virtual meeting via Zoom
Co-Chairs: Trina Grover (Toronto Metropolitan University), Diana Haefele (Hamilton Public Library), and Kelly Buehler (Toronto Public Library)
Trina opened the meeting with a land acknowledgement and welcome. Everyone introduced themselves and talked about what they’ve been working on:
Diana Haefele (Hamilton Public Library) – Indigenous subject headings (maintenance phase), lots of new physical formats
Janna Colton (Belleville Public Library) – has been with the library for 46 years and ended up in cataloguing about 8 years ago; had to learn on the job, take courses, now implementing RDA as much as possible, has started Indigenous SH and eliminating unacceptable terms, introduced People of Colour, LGTBQ+ headings, also labeling for some of these headings so that people can find the material
Jeanne Enright (Toronto Public Library) – in Senior Cataloguer position for 2 years now, previously reference librarian at Toronto Reference Library with assignment of periodicals and serials, pre-amalgamation was a cataloguer at Metro Toronto Reference Library, has been working on serials documentation and training a new cataloguer virtually
Kelly Buehler (Toronto Public Library) – due to the cyber attack on TPL, mostly working on procedures, training, reports, etc. and now on Business Recovery Plan. Cataloguers currently have no access to the ILS and can’t do any cataloguing. Will have a tremendous backlog in all departments
Michael Rutledge (County of Brant Library) – they moved to Bibliocommons a couple of years ago and he has been working since then to make things display correctly, especially series; they have implemented Indigenous subject headings, LGTBQI+ headings
Elisa Sze (University of Toronto) – metadata librarian, teaches a cataloguing course in iSchool, looking for a way to explain RDA instructions better, will be one of the people offering the RDA workshop at OLA elisa.sze@utoronto.ca
Thomas Brenndorfer (Guelph Public Library) – aka Mr RDA, will also be at the OLA workshop, interested to see what other people are doing: best practices, profiles, processing specifications; looking at various tools and their prices
Carrie Mauer (Aurora Public Library) (copied from Chat) – If it gets to me, I’ll pass speaking – I’m in an open work area today. I’m Tech Svs Team Lead at Aurora PL. First time attending OCATs meeting, excited to be here.
Tricia (Niagara Falls Public Library) (copied from Chat) – I’m not able to speak today either. I’m the “Collection and Digital Asset Technician” at Niagara Falls Public Library (which means I’m the cataloguer). We’re fully into wrap-up-the-year mode, as well as prepping to reopen a renovated branch. We have many non trad collections, like outdoor equipment, parks passes, board games, musical instruments, and more.
Maeve Sarazin (Nation Municipality Library) (copied from Chat) – I will have to pass on speaking as well. There’s a baby group right outside my office at the moment. I’m Maeve, I work at the Nation Municipality Library. We have branches in St. Isidore, Limoges and St. Albert. I am responsible for most of our cataloguing at the moment. though I also help out with school visits and technological things like the 3D printer. This is only my second year here, and my second OCATS meeting. Thank you for having me here!
Kathleen OReilly (National Gallery of Canada)
Jana (Burlington Public Library) – puzzles, birding kits, etc. lots of non-traditional items and now early years engineering kits, cognitive kits, 3 people in dept – documentation on every format to make cataloguing consistent – paired with 2 schools whose items they host – make sure the records are consistent
Jessica Hymers (University of Toronto) – works in metadata production, loading electronic books and journals, works on the OCATS website, doing a Masters degree at iSchool, also working with Janna on Conference of Ontario Association of Library Technicians in Hamilton
Discussion:
Closure of Library Service Centre has affected several public libraries, who have had to find new vendors
Cataloguing procedures – several libraries are working on documenting cataloguing procedures. Feel free to share procedures here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14urOZRmENv7xun3TuC7_35jxBUdeo5BzvhGjiwCd7uw/edit?usp=sharing. Also note that Edmonton Public Library has their procedures online: manuals.epl.ca
OCATS Survey – we worked on one a couple of years ago but if we go ahead with it we have to figure out what we are going to do with the information and how are we going to do it
Future ideas – workflows of other departments (could we share), authority control/management, critical cataloguing projects – how do you identify projects, different cataloguing tools and how do we use them
Several people discussed their workflows and the following points were made:
- Updating records (for fixed field coding, Type of Material, series tracing, etc.) – it is not feasible usually to look at the whole catalogue – have to choose a cut-off date – but you could upgrade records ad hoc at the same time you are doing other changes (e.g. replacing spine labels)
- Belleville has shortened some of their Dewey numbers by removing subdivisions for Biography or Location and using special Biography or Canadian labels instead
- Although many public libraries get MARC records from vendors, they still have to go over the records to edit them to the local standard and check for errors; Aurora uses various reports to help identify issues (cmauer@aurorapl.ca)
- When migrating to new web catalogues it’s easiest if all MARC records are correct and consistent before the migration. Editing records post-migration so that they display correctly is time-consuming
- Some libraries store cover images on a local server; others have a subscription to Syndetics for cover images; cover images for multilingual materials are a challenge
- Libraries get MARC records from a variety of sources other than vendors: Bookwhere, MarcEdit (Z39.50 tool), SmartPort on SirsiDynix Symphony
- AutoHotkey is a useful macro tool when cataloguing
- Consistent records are important – procedures help with this
- There’s a lot of duplication of effort when cataloguing – could we create a Canadian or public library application profile in RDA so that our records are consistent and we can share with each other and not have to edit heavily? E.g. we could all chip in on series tracing
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