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While reading the June issue of ALA Tech Source's Smart Libraries newsletter today, I saw that the Des Moines Public Library (DMPL)was the first library with a SirsiDynix (Horizon) system to switch over to SkyRiver's Catalog Service. SkyRiver, which was founded by the creater and co-founder of Innovative Interfaces (ENCORE), is a new, and less expensive competitior of OCLC Cataloguing Services.
The head of Technical Services at DMPL stated that "There really was no disruption in our operations. SkyRiver just worked from day one. Even better, our suggestions for enhancing the service were appreciated and are being implemented."
The article suggests that DMPL is "saving significant dollars by moving to SkyRiver", and the Director of DMPL, Saul Amdursky, has been quoted as saying, "It's great to know that you are helping move the library community forward while at the same time saving money for your own library."
Hmmm. Could it really be this good? Would anyone like to look into this further--maybe after we've made some progress on some of the other projects we're working on? Let me know if you're interested.
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Friday, June 25, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
RDA Toolkit Free Trial
Has anyone been preparing for the switch from AACR2 to RDA?
The new standards will be formally tested this October through December, with implementation probably occurring sometime in 2011.
RDA will not be available in print (unless you download the pdfs and print them out yourself....yikes!), but will instead be available through the ALA's RDA Toolkit, which has an open-access free trial going on as we speak, and is set to last until August 31, 2010.
To sign up, go to the following url: http://www.rdatoolkit.org/openaccess and follow the instructions under the "Complimentary Open-Access Period" heading.
According to Damian Iseminger of the MLA SCC,
"The planned pricing of the RDA Toolkit is as follows. The annual license fee will be $325, and only covers
one user. Each additional concurrent user will cost $55 for 2-9 concurrent users, $50 for 10-
18 concurrent users, and $45 for 20 or more concurrent users. So, for example, an
institution wishing to have 5 concurrent users would pay $600 for 1 year of access to
RDA ($325 + (5 x $55= $275)=$600). It should be pointed out that each institution can
have an unlimited number of user profiles, but has a limited number of concurrent users."
http://www.mlascc.org/mla2010/Iseminger.pdf
This is something we will need to consider.
You may also wish to view:
RDA Toolkit Webinar Archives
Making the Most of RDA Toolkit's Open-Access Period (originally presented June 17-18, 2010)
RDA Toolkit—A Guided Tour (originally presented Feb. 8-9, 2010)
The new standards will be formally tested this October through December, with implementation probably occurring sometime in 2011.
RDA will not be available in print (unless you download the pdfs and print them out yourself....yikes!), but will instead be available through the ALA's RDA Toolkit, which has an open-access free trial going on as we speak, and is set to last until August 31, 2010.
To sign up, go to the following url: http://www.rdatoolkit.org/openaccess and follow the instructions under the "Complimentary Open-Access Period" heading.
According to Damian Iseminger of the MLA SCC,
"The planned pricing of the RDA Toolkit is as follows. The annual license fee will be $325, and only covers
one user. Each additional concurrent user will cost $55 for 2-9 concurrent users, $50 for 10-
18 concurrent users, and $45 for 20 or more concurrent users. So, for example, an
institution wishing to have 5 concurrent users would pay $600 for 1 year of access to
RDA ($325 + (5 x $55= $275)=$600). It should be pointed out that each institution can
have an unlimited number of user profiles, but has a limited number of concurrent users."
http://www.mlascc.org/mla2010/Iseminger.pdf
This is something we will need to consider.
You may also wish to view:
RDA Toolkit Webinar Archives
Making the Most of RDA Toolkit's Open-Access Period (originally presented June 17-18, 2010)
RDA Toolkit—A Guided Tour (originally presented Feb. 8-9, 2010)
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Catalog Sites
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I ran across a couple of interesting websites last week, and I thought I'd share them with you.
The first one is called dewey.info and it is a collection of linked Dewey Decimal Classification Summaries. Click on one of the Ten Main Classes to see how it works.
The next site is out of OCLC and it's called Classify. I get a kick out of this one because you can plug in a title, ISBN, author, or even subject and Classify will spit out a pie chart showing you what percentages of libraries are classifying an item/subject one way, and how many are doing it differently. It's pretty cool.
If you have any links you'd like to share, either email them to me so I can add them as a new Post, or include them in a comment to this Post :)
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I ran across a couple of interesting websites last week, and I thought I'd share them with you.
The first one is called dewey.info and it is a collection of linked Dewey Decimal Classification Summaries. Click on one of the Ten Main Classes to see how it works.
The next site is out of OCLC and it's called Classify. I get a kick out of this one because you can plug in a title, ISBN, author, or even subject and Classify will spit out a pie chart showing you what percentages of libraries are classifying an item/subject one way, and how many are doing it differently. It's pretty cool.
If you have any links you'd like to share, either email them to me so I can add them as a new Post, or include them in a comment to this Post :)
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Shadowing
I sent out an email earlier this week about a title that wasn't showing up in Workflows when we performed an EXACT title search. We later realized that parts of the record had been shadowed (thanks Ginger), and we had simply forgotten to remove the shadows due to the amount of time between shadowing and original cataloguing. Once we removed the shadows, we were able to find the item using EXACT title search in Workflows the next day.
This did bring up some interesting questions, though. First of all, I was under the impression that shadowing did not affect Workflows, and that it only affected the patron's view of the catalog. And why did shadowing only affect the EXACT search?? We were always able to find the item using the KEYWORD functions--hmmm, very interesting.
It also brought about Chris Moede's question to Ginger about running a report to show each library which of their records are shadowed in some way (title, call number, etc.). She also noticed a title that wasn't showing up in her system, and later found that the title had been shadowed. Amy Eisenschink wonders if these reports might not be too large (for some of us, anyway) to be of much use.
What are your thoughts on the subject? Is this a very common issue?
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This did bring up some interesting questions, though. First of all, I was under the impression that shadowing did not affect Workflows, and that it only affected the patron's view of the catalog. And why did shadowing only affect the EXACT search?? We were always able to find the item using the KEYWORD functions--hmmm, very interesting.
It also brought about Chris Moede's question to Ginger about running a report to show each library which of their records are shadowed in some way (title, call number, etc.). She also noticed a title that wasn't showing up in her system, and later found that the title had been shadowed. Amy Eisenschink wonders if these reports might not be too large (for some of us, anyway) to be of much use.
What are your thoughts on the subject? Is this a very common issue?
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Wednesday, June 9, 2010
News:
Welcome to the LARS Cataloging Group's new blog! The purpose of this blog is to make it easier to share Aquisistions, Cataloging, and Serials information between the 6 MCLS Libraries.
Please feel free to comment on posts.
If you would like to have something posted to the blog, send it to me at cnessman@manitowoc.org, and I will add it for you.
If at some point we decide that it would be easier for everyone to post there own information, we can move to a wiki format--just let me know!
If anyone needs help navigating this site, I would be happy to assist you in any way I can.
Happy blogging!
Please feel free to comment on posts.
If you would like to have something posted to the blog, send it to me at cnessman@manitowoc.org, and I will add it for you.
If at some point we decide that it would be easier for everyone to post there own information, we can move to a wiki format--just let me know!
If anyone needs help navigating this site, I would be happy to assist you in any way I can.
Happy blogging!
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