Local Bibliographic Data Task Group

To:                   Randal Brandt (UCB, lead), Michael Colby (UCD), Lai-Ying Hsiung (UCSC), Adolfo Tarango (UCSD, Shared Cataloging Program), John Riemer (UCLA, Implementation Team Liaison) Margery Tibbetts (CDL, consultant)
From:               UC-OCLC Implementation Team
Subject:           Request for Assistance (Charge), Local Bibliographic Data
Date:                May 23, 2007


As you know, the University Librarians have given us the go-ahead to explore the feasibility of using the WorldCat Local service as the basis for a Next Generation Melvyl and to work toward the creation of a pilot for evaluation system-wide. They have appointed an Executive and an Implementation Team charged with coordinating the effort and asked us to proceed without delay.  While the Implementation Team is sufficiently resourced to guide the process, it is clear that we will need additional expertise to analyze, plan, implement, and evaluate the complex bibliographic and technical issues and workflows involved in the creation of this pilot. Moreover, given the tight schedule and UC’s wish to embrace the concept of rapid development, we need to develop an organizational structure that is capable of working in parallel and providing the above teams with rapid analysis and feedback in an iterative manner. In keeping with these objectives, we have broken the project into discrete tasks and assigned each to a small group of individuals for rapid study and response.

As recognized experts in the field, you have been selected to act as UC’s expert team on representing UC local bibliographic data in OCLC.  Randal Brandt will be the lead and John Riemer will be your Implementation Team liaison to facilitate communication and filter questions that may have to be answered by OCLC. Your team may call on others for help, as needed, provided that the above caveats about rapid turnaround time and flexibility are kept in mind.  We also need to ask all groups to remain as flexible as possible since priorities will shift as details of the UC-OCLC collaboration emerge.  The details of the tasks and the charges may change, and new tasks may arise that need to be addressed.

For this team, the project tasks we’ve identified so far are listed below, in priority order, with target completion dates.

Charge: Identify what important fields and subfields exist in local bibliographic records that do not appear in corresponding WorldCat records, e.g. local added entries, local subject headings, local notes, local URLs, donor information, table of contents, etc.)

For pilot:  Make initial plans for the full range local URLs, as documented in the in the CDL Link Resolver Statement (http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/linkres/linkresolverstatement.pdf ) .  Then prioritize the various other categories of local bibliographic data.  When information is available from OCLC on which places the data could reside and be successfully accessed by WorldCat Local, which data should we attempt to move or copy, and where should it go?   Choices may include incorporating data in the WorldCat master record, local holdings or item records, OCLC MARC Holdings records, or as a last resort OCLC Institutional Records.  Depending on the time available, make plans to accommodate either a sample of the local data in a given category, or all of it.
During pilot: Evaluate retrievability and usefulness of the data.  Make plans for accommodating the remainder of the priority local bibliographic data. Recommend changes in cataloging policy and practice that would facilitate easier and more widespread use of bibliographic data in the future.  Given the decision to use OpenURLs whenever possible, be sure that the pilot plans deal effectively with OpenURLs.  Consider also what it would take to convert some or all existing PIDs to OpenURLs in WorldCat during data reclamation that may follow the pilot.  (Outside the scope of this workgroup is considering proposed chanes to our local URL linking practice.)

Target Completion Dates: Developing prioritized list: July 9.  Recommending where to place data; how much to move/copy; and providing a plan to get it there: August 1.   Evaluating results in pilot; strategizing for movement of remainder of priority data; presenting recommendations on cataloging practice: early 2008.