WYLD Network: Online Quality Committee

Albany County Public Library date added: 2004-03-29 10:48:05.0
Submitted by: Katie Jones
Contact: Katie Jones : Technical Services Librarian kjones@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: Okay.
Issue retention: We feel that limiting a serial title to only 60 item records will negatively impact our service to patrons, as well as staff. Other libraries in their comments have detailed these concerns (maintenance of on-the-fly records, not being certain of inventory, length of time checking out on-the-fly periodicals out to patrons, maintenance of serial control records and discards, maintenance of fines/fees, cooperative collection titles), so we need not repeat them.
Outdated issues: See issue retention comments.
Fines: See issue retention comments.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: See issue retention comments.
Serials control records: Okay
Call number suggestions: 7a. This is a good suggestion. It will not only help with sorting on each title record, but it would help clean up the online shelf list as well.

other comments: 1. Would the WYLD Office or OQC be willing to do more research to see what libraries in other systems/consortiums do with their serials? 2. How about limiting to 156 issues (3 years of a weekly)? 3. One of the solutions that ALBY has considered with our back issues on titles that are older than 3 years (we have decades of Time and Newsweek) is to make them non-circulating. While that doesnt quite meet the need for an automated inventory, it does make the issues accessible to our patrons and a MARC Holdings statement in conjunction with a dummy item record listing the range will let others in the system know what we hold. Plus, we wouldnt have lengthy check-out lines and on-the-fly records piling up. We would plan on using the Mark Item Used wizard to track in-house usage of these titles. This isnt a perfect solution, but it is an alternative that could be considered. 4. Whatever is decided, ALBY would like to request that libraries are given ample time to make changes. The serials staff in many libraries are often part-time and also often have many other duties to attend. There are no global reports that can change call numbers and MARC Holdings statements (that ALBY can find), so these tasks will take a lot of staff time.

Big Horn County Library (Basin) date added: 2004-04-02 14:32:40.0
Submitted by: Gary Cates
Contact: Gary Cates : ILL bhnill@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: It seems like a good idea.
Issue retention: WE don't seem to have a problem with your idea for record retention. 98% of our serial check outs are in the first 12 months.
Outdated issues: I don't think it would be a large problem to change
Fines: It's a good idea
Circulation of barcoded back issues: I don't have enough experience to answer this question
Serials control records: We agree
Call number suggestions:

other comments:

Carbon Co. Library date added: 2004-03-25 15:52:31.0
Submitted by: Ann Marie Ross
Contact: Ann Marie Ross : Circulation Manager carbcircmgr@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: No problem.
Issue retention: We can do the 60 issues per magazines. (except the state title) We have decided to change our basic magazine retention to 3 years from 5 to matter what is decided about this proposal. However we always withdraw the last years magazines at the first of the year and it is a s-l-o-w process. So changing our holdings to 3 years is not a priority. The staff time isn't available.
Outdated issues: See #2
Fines: Good idea. We already do something like this but this idea will work better.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: We do not check out many back issues and have another way that we do it so this would not be an issue for us.
Serials control records: Our 866 tags are current as of now. Staff time is an issue to go in and change all of these.
Call number suggestions: We don't quite see the purpose in this suggestion. Need more info.

other comments: We don't use wyldcat to look up magazines very often so this entire issue is not a problem for us. We look in "magazines in wyld libraries".

Casper College date added: 2004-03-29 20:49:54.0
Submitted by: Lynnette Anderson
Contact: Lynnette Anderson : Director lynnand@caspercollege.edu

Single issue periodical records:: We agree with this recommendation as long as it applies only to journal holdings and does not affect our book collection.
Issue retention: We do have some concerns with this recommendation (some of which have been expressed by other libraries). We are not concerned in terms of reference service since our students really don't use WYLDCAT to look up our journal holdings. However, we do see it as very labor intensive for our staff. Can we assume that the resulting PAC display will be more user-friendly than the current display?
Outdated issues: See the concerns regarding "issue retention"
Fines: We agree with the Committee's recommendation.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: We have similar concerns about on-the-fly circulation as those expressed by WWCC. It guarantees errors will be made on a regular basis.
Serials control records: We agree with the Committee's recommendation.
Call number suggestions: This will be labor intensive but should bring about a good result.

other comments: We appreciate the work of the Committee members in regard to these difficult issues (pun intended). We hope that something can be done to address the valid concerns about inventory and usage statistics.

Central Wyoming College date added: 2004-03-31 16:03:06.0
Submitted by: Carol Deering
Contact: Carol Deering : Director of Library Services cdeering@cwc.edu

Single issue periodical records:: We certainly support accuracy and a cleaned-up database, so we agree with this concept, as long as it just affects periodicals and not other serials. It will take a little staff time to put this in place, though.
Issue retention: To echo Albany County, has any research been done as to what other systems/consortia do -- especially the academic libraries involved? Perhaps there could be a "top ten" (or 12, or 15, whatever) offending periodical titles list -- and only those records would need to be pruned regularly? [The Wyld office could run a report to identify them!] The only examples given in the recommendations are Newsweek types -- heavy-use, multiple-library weekly periodical titles. We have many quarterly journals, for example, with a much more specific focus, that are not high use at all -- and many of those are titles we have committed to keep forever (statewide cooperative collection commitment) and we'd feel proud to keep the full run linked. I would hope that when searching our own library's catalog, we could see all of our library's holdings; that only when searching another library would we just see the summary statement. Inventories and statistics are important! And, with a small staff and small budget, we are way behind in keeping EbscoHost informed of our holdings...
Outdated issues: "Ongoing maintenance" -- ouch! Imagine a tiny staff ready to burst! "On-the-fly" -- ouch! That means decreased accuracy of circ transactions, increased staff time (time to de-link the old issues, time to do on-the-fly at circ, time to clean up the on-the-fly mistakes, time to run more reports and study them...), and increased complication and stress.
Fines: We're not sure we'd use this function, but we have no problem with adding it. We already use the note screen.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: Please re-read the comments on "on-the-fly" (number 3). Surely Sirsi has a better system than this?
Serials control records: Again, we can't fault accuracy -- it's just the staff time involved...
Call number suggestions: We'd need more information on this. Is this just for sorting in the database? Certainly "Periodical" was selected as the location of choice for this material type.

other comments: Sorry this took so long. When you have a tiny staff, none of whom are 12-month -- well, we slipped our comments in under the wire. Whew!

Crook Co. School District #1 date added: 2004-03-31 19:32:03.0
Submitted by: Mary Jayne Jordan
Contact: Mary Jayne Jordan : Library Media Specialist jordanmj@hms.crooknet.k12.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: No problem
Issue retention: Hulett School/Branch is the only school in the district that has entered issues into the system in an ongoing fashion. I received confirmation from them that they went in and reduced the retained issues to 60 issues and will maintain that number.
Outdated issues: See #2
Fines: Can do as requested.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: See #2
Serials control records: I'm sure they've done that.
Call number suggestions: Will defer to group consenus.

other comments: Good luck and thanks for your ongoing efforts.

Fremont County Library - Dubois Branch date added: 2004-03-24 17:29:13.0
Submitted by: Lisa Marie Wetmore
Contact: Lisa Wetmore : Assistant Librarian lwetmore@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: Delete entire Serial Control Record
Issue retention: 60 issues is good for most periodical titles; however, there are several periodicals that are useful for reference, such as Cobblestone (for children's research), Discover Kids (for children's research), Wild Sheep (locked case), Annals of Wyoming (locked Case), Wind River Mountaineer (locked Case), Wind River Rendezvous(locked case)that we wish to keep in our collection. Most of these titles are ongoing. We don't feel there should be a limit on irreplaceable items
Outdated issues: Not keeping beyond 60 issues per title takes care of this for Dubois.
Fines: We agree with your recommondation.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: Barcoded issues remain barcoded for up to two years or the 60 issue limit and are available to patrons. Any "leftovers" are done "on the fly".
Serials control records: Monitor serial control records yearly and update. Maintain collection based on the 60 issue limit. Make sure Marc holdings are also updated yearly to reflect what issues are available to patrons.
Call number suggestions: PERIODICAL; that's how we were taught from SIRSI to begin with. Also, LCPER Call numbers are NOT needed.

other comments: Our biggest concern are the periodicals we need retain for reference use. Thank you. Lisa, MaryEllen, Betty and Sandra - Dubois

Hot Springs County date added: 2004-03-30 16:39:49.0
Submitted by: Tracey Kinnaman
Contact: Tracey Kinnaman : Children's, ILL, Serials kinnaman@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: I agree that they all need to be on the full bibliographic record, but hoping that the WYLD office will help in this. We do not have alot of man-power to do this ourselves.
Issue retention: We do not circulate alot of our older issues but feel secure in the fact that we do have them, "just in case". I belive that the bigger libraries and the academic libraries should have the final say in what they want. I am willing to go along with the majority.
Outdated issues: I agree that a clean-up is needed, but again, we simply don't have alot of time or man-power to take care of this problem ourselves.
Fines:
Circulation of barcoded back issues: Our library has never used "on-the-fly", so I am not sure at to whether this will work for our llibrary or not.
Serials control records: After the switch to Workflows our library is current on our textual holdings.
Call number suggestions:

other comments: We are such a small library here in Hot Springs County that I am hoping that this doesn't generate alot of extra work, because we just don't have the manpower. It will get done but it may be a slow process. I know that the Committee has worked hard on these issues and they are to be commended for that.

Laramie Co. School District #1 date added: 2004-03-30 15:24:53.0
Submitted by: Alice Hild Farris & Sheryl Fanning
Contact: Alice Hild Farris : Library Media Specialist farrisa@laramie1.k12.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: NA
Issue retention: Only Central H. S. checks in magazines on the serial record, and neither high school barcodes individual issues.
Outdated issues: This will need to be done regularly, but it will not be too labor-intensive due to the number of periodicals.
Fines: NA
Circulation of barcoded back issues: NA
Serials control records: No problem with this for either school.
Call number suggestions: Periodical would be fine.

other comments: Although neither school will be caught with a large amount of work in this transition, we can empathize with those who have tried to keep good, complete records so that those of us who want to access some of their periodicals can do so confidently. Surely there is some kind of compromise that can be worked out to avoid completely devastating some library staffs but also allow for good records which will provide information to those needing to access old copies.

Laramie County Community College date added: 2004-04-01 17:52:46.0
Submitted by: Karen Lange
Contact: Crystal Stratton : Librarian, Technical Services cstratto@lccc.wy.edu

Single issue periodical records:: Agree
Issue retention: Strongly Disagree--Especially for titles that are part of the "Statewide Cooperative Collection." Pursue alternative solutions.
Outdated issues: Disagree--We do have an annual process by which we withdraw issues based on our library's retention policies.
Fines: Thanks to the WYLD office for formulating this process.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: Disagree--Ditto concerns expressed by other libraries -- WWCC and Sheridan College specifically. Strongly oppose the creation of on-the-fly records.
Serials control records: Strongly Agree
Call number suggestions: Agree with Option A. Option B is really redundant of the summary holdings statements in the MARC holdings record.

other comments: Continue discussions and explore alternatives for dealing with the few troublesome titles.

Laramie County Library date added: 2004-03-18 12:04:11.0
Submitted by: Lucie Osborn
Contact: Lucie Osborn : Director losborn@larm.lib.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: LCLS is ok with this
Issue retention: We are generally fine with the 52 issues per library on any serials title. However we do have a question which voices a concern. Has anyone thought about the statewide collection? What are the expectations in terms of the statewide collection? A limit on the number of items to 52 issues seems to defeat some of the reason for the statewide collection. If only 52 issues can be linked and the holdings of the rest are just communicated via the summary holdings statement then a user cannot see if a specific issue is available and cannot place a hold/ILL on a desired issue. This would include a user not being able to see if an issue is missing as well which we know happens over time with serials.
Outdated issues: See above comment about statewide collection.
Fines: LCLS is ok with this
Circulation of barcoded back issues: LCLS is ok with this
Serials control records: 6. We have a concern in terms of staff time needed to handle this. We do not know how many records we will have to deal with and handling as a note as well as creating a bill is a multi-step process which is staff intensive. Seems this piece is not thought thru as much as it needs to be.
Call number suggestions: 7. LCLS is ok with this

other comments: 8. We recognize that we are giving up any ability to do an automated inventory process and that we will not be able to get a count or any related serials statistics for back issues other than those within the 52 issue limit. Long term believe this will create problems. The WYLD Office will: a. Need to address statewide titles before this is done. Does clean up include doing process on #6? If yes, can individual libraries choose to do something different on their own? b. LCLS is ok with this c. LCLS is ok with this d. LCLS is ok with this

Natrona County Public Library date added: 2004-03-29 16:20:38.0
Submitted by: Susan Stanton/Judy Highfill
Contact: Susan Stanton : Technical Services Coordinator sstanton@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: Does this mean issues created with add copy or add volume wizards? Or records created in addition to the main serial control record? Were not sure exactly what this means. We have created a few oddball records to keep track of irregularly received titles at one of our branches, and we could recatalog or delete these. Of course, there may be older records like this that we just havent run across yet can we get a list of those?
Issue retention: We agree with Laramie County Library that the 60 issues per library limit for serials titles defeats the point of having a statewide periodicals collection. Summary statements of holdings do not help patrons, and hinder librarians attempting to serve patrons. As Teton said in another context, without records that tell us exactly where our issues are (checked out, lost, in storage) we end up blundering around, being unable to tell the patron specifically what we have and looking like idiots. The expectation from patrons is that if we have a computer system it should be able to handle a large load of information. We have never experienced any problem other than slight inconvenience with the lag time in having records come up (and patrons are used to computer glitches so that has never fazed anyone). I would hate to be at a public service desk and have to tell a patron I can no longer tell which back issues of a periodical are checked out because of improvements to the WYLD system. For a lot of magazines and journals, we think this problem will resolve itself over the next few years. Patrons (in public libraries anyway) are now starting to use online databases rather than paper magazines for their research needs, so magazines are become more of a leisure reading/browsing collection. Therefore it makes sense not to keep more than a year or two back, and many libraries may come to see the wisdom of this regardless of what WYLD recommends. HOWEVER, this is not the case across the board; some journals have a much longer shelf life. Someone mentioned Annals of Wyoming; another one I can think of off the top of my head is National Geographic. We think there should be some flexibility on this rather than a hard and fast 60-issues-no-matter-what rule.
Outdated issues: See above
Fines: We would prefer to simply delete any overdue fines, and only charge patrons for lost items. This system should work okay, although once again more work is being created for people (having to write notes for every lost periodical) in the name of systemwide improvement. Right now we have 57 lost periodicals in our system, so once we got those transferred to the new record it wouldnt be too bad keeping track of them this way (hopefully).
Circulation of barcoded back issues: We agree with Teton that this is a burden on harried check-out clerks and a poor customer service practice that makes us look incompetent.
Serials control records:
Call number suggestions: Does this mean changing the base call number in the control record, rather than changing every single item record? If the base number is added (using the oldest holding) does this means we have to update it every time the collection is weeded? How would this base serial control record number affect the individual holding numbers? Also, is anyone out there shelving their magazines in Dewey or LC order? Maybe some of the colleges are, but all the public libraries Ive seen use alphabetical order. Using a Dewey number would confuse patrons. What about a one-word call number using the title of the magazine, e.g, Vogue|zDec 1, 2003

other comments:

Park County Library System date added: 2004-03-17 13:42:21.0
Submitted by: Arlene Ott
Contact: Arlene Ott : Director aott@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: Not being retained as a serial if there is only one issue. Delete item and record and create a monographic record if want to retain item.
Issue retention: I believe this relates to number of issues. I do not feel this is a problem. More problems would occur if the 60 copy limit is imposed.
Outdated issues: This is up to the individual library to decide how long they will retain issues. I do however think that WYLD should require libraries to do a dusty book report every x number of years, every three perhaps?
Fines: No comment
Circulation of barcoded back issues: If we were to delete the holdings but retain the issues, the problem would be at the circulation desk not knowing what is a valid barcode and what isn't. More time consuming and with small staffs this is not something we want to do.
Serials control records: We have very few people in this state who have knowledge of and training in creating serial records. That should be done at the state level. The SIRSI control records are not that easy to navigate around, but I think most are gaining familiarity with them.
Call number suggestions: Whether to assign call numbers is an individual library decision. Assigning the information to load the issue should be standardized at the state level. There are some really weird things out there--we've found some odd stuff in Park County doing our Dusty (or as Marc likes "Circulatus Restrictus").

other comments: Sorry that most of my comments sound negative. You all are taking on some very tough topics and deserve a lot of credit for being willing to address some things that very much need to be dealt with system-wide.

Sheridan College date added: 2004-03-18 12:09:03.0
Submitted by: Debbie Iverson
Contact: Debbie Iverson : Library Director diverson@sheridan.edu

Single issue periodical records:: not a problem; we can clean up our few records in this category
Issue retention: this is an issue for the library to determine; issue retention shouldn't be mandated at network level
Outdated issues: see inventory comments below in the additional comment area
Fines: not a problem for us
Circulation of barcoded back issues: it will be a problem to do on-the-fly circulation of older serials....both from the standpoint of the library (possibility of error in inputting detail) and from the perspective of the network (lots of bibliographic records to clean up)
Serials control records:
Call number suggestions: as long as we can make any necessary changes via reports we are okay with this.

other comments: MEMO DATE: February 25, 2004 TO: WYLD Online Quality Committee FROM: Debbie Iverson, Sheridan College Library Director RE: proposed changes in serials procedures I appreciate all that you have done as a committee to improve the function and usability of the online catalog for patrons. I must confess dismay and shock and anger to hear of a dramatic about-face in the recommendation for serials processing for WYLD members. Sheridan College library has spent hundreds of person-hours to finalize linking our serials collections; we even hired special help last summer to push through this huge project. Might the WYLD Network not have considered the issue of retrieval time before each library was encouraged to link its serial holdings? If we de-link older issues of serials at Sheridan College, we will be unable to conduct inventories of serials in our periodical or government publications collections. We will also be unable to determine the number of bound volumes which are housed in our periodicals collection; the bound volumes count is required for the bi-annual academic library survey (ALS, formerly IPEDS). It seems a big step backward to consider doing manual counts of collections and manual inventory processes. We have questions related to your proposal Would it be possible to mask older issues of serials which are beyond the number of issues allowed? If we masked those older issues, would we be able to use those records for inventory and reports? Why would anyone ever search the online catalog to look for all libraries which own serials such as Time and Newsweek where there are thousands of issues statewide? And, how often would patrons do that type of search? We teach our patrons to use the online WULP to determine who holds which titles. The other logical option for searching for serials is to use an index; in the EBSCO administrative functions, each library can specify the serials available within that library (please see the Sheridan College Library EBSCOhost records). We will look forward to hearing your considered response to our questions and concerns. Debbie Iverson Library Director, Sheridan College P. O. Box 1500 Sheridan, WY 82801-1500 diverson@sheridan.edu

Sheridan County date added: 2004-03-31 16:51:10.0
Submitted by: Marci Mock
Contact: Marci Mock : Circulation Services Manager mmock@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records:: We agree with the committee's recommendations.
Issue retention: We disagree on Issue Retention. Issue retention would be better at 2-3 year retention to assist patrons better than 60 issues. We do question the implication on the Statewide Collection and Laramie County's comments on this issue. Libraries have agreed to keep the collections for statewide accessibility and this issue retention would defeat the reason for the collection.
Outdated issues: We disagree with this recommendation. To update these issues monthly is too labor-intensive for staff. This issues also addresses the concerns about the Statewide collection in question 2.
Fines: We agree with the committee's recommendation.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: We disagree. OTF checkouts create a myriad of problems including: inconsistency, too many different staff working Circulation and as Teton and other libraries have commented, "the negative impact on customer service."
Serials control records: We agree with this recommendation.
Call number suggestions: We agree with using consistency in the call numbers, and agree that the most favorable term is Periodical.

other comments: We would like to thank the committee for their hard work on this very tough issue.

Teton County Library date added: 2004-03-18 12:02:30.0
Submitted by: Deb Adams
Contact: Deb Adams : dadams@will.state.wy.us

Single issue periodical records::
Issue retention: Issue Retention: Each library must maintain no more than 60 issues per library on any serials title. We deal with the daily frustration of lengthy retrieval times and will gladly support a reasonable solution to the problem, especially one that recognizes the different values of individual magazine titles to different libraries. Unfortunately, limiting libraries to 60 linked issues per title has serious impacts on the quality of customer service, reference service and our labor force. Patrons searching for titles can no longer be assured about the accuracy of a librarys holdings. Reference staff will be hindered in their efforts to efficiently and effectively find requested articles for patrons, especially when requests are called in. Because of the increased maintenance involved, staff will have less time to spend with patrons. Consider the following: Of the six titles reported on by the state, 122 individual TCL issues (older than 2003) circulated at least once in 2003. For another perspective, we researched 3 titles that we keep forever, Climbing, Cobblestone, and Fine Homebuilding. Of those 3 titles alone, excluding the most current 60 for each, 113 individual TCL issues circulated at least once in 2003. We currently have 241 subscriptions, and just for the 9 titles mentioned above, presuming only 1 circ each, we would have had to create at least 235 on-the-fly records in 2003. That is approximately 20 per month for only 3% of our titles. Considering the size of our collection, these are scary numbers.
Outdated issues: Outdated Issues: As ongoing maintenance, each library should remove from serials records outdated holdings that exceed the 60 issues per library limit. In 2003, we added 3,042 individual issues to our collection. Adhering to this proposal, we would have to unlink over 250 issues per month. Some of them will be checked out, so we would have to place holds on them, creating ongoing maintenance. Our staff is not set up to take on this extra burden. Weeding occurs on an annual basis according to our staff workloads. This proposal forces us to into a different workload we cannot automatically handle.
Fines: Fines We already spend time removing fines from patrons records so we can delete old issues. If we are forced to maintain unlinked magazines on our shelves, not only will we have to remove the old fines, but well have to add them back to a patrons record as a different type, because as long as we still own the magazine, we wont want to forgive the fine. This is another labor intensive step being added to the process that will impact daily production.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: Circulation of barcoded back issues We think the proposal has serious negative impacts on customer service. Picture the patron walking up to the desk with an armload of magazines that all have barcodes on them. Staff wands the barcodes and some of them wont be linked. These have to be set aside to create on-the-fly records. We have to explain to the patron that some of the items arent linked. This makes us look incompetent, angers the patron, and holds up the next patron in line. Furthermore, unlinked barcoded issues compromise the integrity of our shelflist and database. A patron searching in iBistro for a particular issue of a magazine cant tell whether the library owns a copy. Even worse is the situation where the patron determines that the library does have a copy, but neither staff nor the patron can tell if the issue is checked out, missing, or on a shelving cart. Determining the status of these on-the-fly items will be practically impossible because of inconsistencies in naming them. We already run into this problem with our newspapers and pamphlets, which we currently circulate as on-the-fly. Today, when were trying to locate a magazine, we place an on-shelf hold on the item, and the next morning we either locate it or mark it missing. It will be practically impossible to place holds on on-the-fly items. And we now wont be able to mark unlinked magazines missing. Well have to update the Marc holdings record with a list of missing issues, which will be outdated when that years worth of magazines is weeded. The beauty of SIRSIs 866 tag Marc holdings is it doesnt have to be updated on a yearly basis like DRA did. If we start adding missing issues, we will have to start maintaining these holdings. The result will likely be a long display for the patron in iBistro. Right now, we have an accurate accounting of our magazines, and we cant afford to jeopardize that. Besides providing poor customer service, our staff doesnt have the spare time to spend tracking these down. As regards removing on-the-fly records with reports, if the on-the-fly item is re-shelved, it can potentially be checked out again before it is removed. Picture the person using the report to remove these items, running up against items that were checked out after the report was produced. They are already going to have to deal with items that have fines on them, and they will also have to place holds on checked out items before they can clear their list. The amount of labor required to successfully clean up these records is horrific.
Serials control records:
Call number suggestions: Call number suggestions: a) Use an actual Dewey or LC Call number before the subfield z in the call number. How will the SUDOC system for classifying government periodicals be handled within this call numbering system? Were not sure that the current proposal will work with SUDOC, and want to stress incorporation of government periodicals into any revised call numbering scheme. Why does the Basic Tab of the serials control record need a base call number? We were told specifically by Bobbi to delete this field when we were entering our summary holdings, and the states online instructions also say to delete this field. b) Use a call number on an auto-generated barcode to include a date range of holdings for those older issues. What older issues are you referring to? Is this a suggestion to cover unlinked retained issues?

other comments: Teton County Library appreciates the time and deliberation of the WYLD staff in researching this issue. We recognize the frustration staff or patrons may experience with slow response times when linking current holdings and when searching titles to place holds. Several of the recommendations will benefit all patrons and library staff, and we support those actions. We would like the committee to consider that these problems do not occur for all magazines, nor for all libraries. We would like the committee to consider the serious negative impacts some aspects of this proposal will have on customer service, reference service and on staff workloads. We think retention of issues is a matter best determined as part of an individual librarys Collection Development Policy and Practices. Perhaps there are some incremental steps we can take to alleviate the problem, before we make any sweeping changes. We would like to offer some additional thoughts for consideration. We support the following actions: Single Issue Periodical Records: Teton County Library agrees that the single issue periodical records should be removed as recommended. Serials Control Records: TCL agrees that this requirement should be enforced. Our only concern is that we keep this maintenance to a minimum, and that the summary holdings statements be short and concise. Once these summary statements are set up, most of them should never have to be updated again. Call number suggestions: TCL agrees we should use a consistent call number scheme to allow our holdings to sort properly. Weve been holding off clean up of our records until the location code table is finalized. We offer the following suggestions as incremental steps in alleviating the situation: We think it would be valuable to ask all libraries to re-evaluate their retention schedules as part of their Collection Development Policies. Weeding guidelines are best set in response to the needs of individual library communities and their patrons. Over the past three years we have reduced our retention from five years to three years on ninety-four of our titles, because we determined the older issues werent circulating. This process obviously eliminates the number of holdings attached to a single title. We understand concerns about reducing loading times for titles, but we wonder if the majority of staff and patrons are searching all WYLD libraries for a single issue. Isnt the more frequent occurrence that patrons and staff are limiting their search to the holdings of their own library, which reduces the number of holdings to be loaded? We wonder if it would be more helpful to redirect the time WYLD staff planned to use deleting holdings in excess of 60 toward helping libraries produce reports to identify titles for potential retention changes. We believe the WYLD staff could recommend the optimum call # scheme for efficient sorting and display of holdings. So, even though it might take a full minute to display the holdings, they would at least be in perfect order to enable speedier location of a particular issue. Once we have a good call number scheme, all our holdings would have to be removed and re-linked. TCL is lucky in that we have a way to save our deleted holdings, edit them, and automatically re-link them with the same barcodes. Maybe the WYLD staff could develop a similar routine to assist other libraries with this massive cleanup. We wonder if WYLD staff could assist in making the periodical title search more selective. Currently it brings up some series records that are not periodicals, and there are probably some periodical titles that are not coded as such and wont appear on the hit list.

WWCC date added: 2004-03-19 08:12:45.0
Submitted by: Bob Kalabus, Carol Brown, Kate Kelly
Contact: Bob Kalabus : Director

Single issue periodical records:: (CB) Agree that this is a needed action. (KK) No problem (RK) Agree.
Issue retention: (CB) Retaining 60 issues for active title holdings seems reasonable, however; having a 60 issue limit per title per library stifles library and client accessability to older title holdings. Online periodical databases can be subject to copyright or publisher fluctuations that may cause library clients to seek older volumes of periodicals that are not included in various online sources. a. Perhaps additional serial control records could be added or changed to reflect only title holdings older than the 60 issue limit using different status designations on the Basic Tab in the serials record. Each library would have two basic serial holdings records, one for current holdings (60 issues) and one for older holdings. The 856 field in the marc holdings serials control record could reflect the older holdings or other holdings. When the client accesses I-Bistro, they could view only the more current holdings with the older holdings record being available via a linked message. (To see older issues of the magazine, click here.) (KK) Disagree. Create separate MARC records for each library's individual periodicals, e.g. Newsweek -- WWCC; then on a search within your library, only your holdings will appear. That will only add 52 new MARC records which will have considerably less than 3,180 barcodes per record, which seems to be what you are proposing for faster access and faster VDX loading. OR, create a separate MARC record with a GMD "Bound" and have libraries separate those holdings. (RK) Either Carol's or Kate's solution (or some modification) is better than the WYLD Office's recommendation.
Outdated issues: (CB) If each library is to maintain their 60 issue limit on each current title, perhaps a notice could be programmed into the system to alert libraries to the fact they need to take action. When personnel change, there must be some system generated notice to keep everyone up to date concerning the status of periodical records. This is especially important on the academic level if work study students are checking in periodicals. (KK) Disagree (RK) Many libraries want to keep track of the number of periodical volumes in their collections. Having everything linked and able to be counted (and inventoried) electronically is important. We have been acquiring long runs of bound periodicals from other libraries around the country, and they are a special part of our library. ("Outdated Issue" - that's a pretty derogatory term for an information source that might be very valuable.)
Fines: (KK) No problem (RK) Agree.
Circulation of barcoded back issues: (CB) On- the -Fly check out of older periodicals is a Pandora's Box. When the time comes for patron initiated check-out, On-The Fly checkout will be an absolute nightmare for anyone trying to clean up the database afterwards. Library clients will need to have the simplest procedures possible in place to check out materials. On-The-Fly Checkout is often not consistent with trained library staff and/or student workers. Circulation staffs simply do not have the time to clean up numerous On-The-Fly checkouts each week, month, etc. By using a separate serial control record for older issues, each bar code would still be in the system and usable when the item is checked out. (KK) Disagree with "on-the-fly" We have too many people working the circ desk and already there is a problem with on-the-fly items. Plus, who wants to run another report to manage one more thing. This is supposed to be a sophisticated system, and on-the-fly is a work-around arrangement. (RK) Checking out issues of periodicals on the fly and then running reports to find out what on the fly records to delete later is a clumsy and backward (half-assed) way to do circulation.
Serials control records: (CB) Agree that libraries need to keep records updated. (KK) No problem (RK) Agree (CB) Agree that libraries need to keep records updated. (KK) No problem (RK) Agree (CB) Agree that libraries need to keep records updated. (KK) No problem (RK) Agree
Call number suggestions: (CB) My suggestion for call numbers would be that some consistency be used rather than giving two options of Magazine or periodical. Because the word periodical is used in the 852 field on the Marc holdings tab, I would suggest using Periodical rather than magazine. An autogenerated barcode would not be needed if the original barcodes were left in tact. (KK) No problem (RK) No comment.

other comments: Dear Committee Members, Thank you for your work on this issue. As you will see, we don't agree with all of your recommendations. This is the text of our response, plus an attachment of the file.

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