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From June 5 to 8, Chris and I attended the 2008 NASIG Conference in Phoenix, Arizona at the Tapatio Cliffs Resort, which sounds nice until you account for the fact that Arizona is a sun-blasted hellscape unfit for human habitation. Nevertheless, I attended a number of useful sessions at the conference. Highlights included:

Real ERM Implementations: Notes from the Field – a panel discussion including Ted Fons of Innovative Interfaces (moderator), Karl Maria Fattig of Bowdoin College, Jeff Daniels of Grand Valley State University, Paul Moeller of University of Colorado, and Toni Katz of Colby College. The panelists discussed their experiences implementing an ERM at their library. The libraries ranged in size of staff, size of collection, timeline and preparation of implementation, and in their staff’s enthusiasm for the process. However, a few common concerns and observations emerged. Far from reducing the amount of work performed by Technical Services, the implementation of the ERM meant that staff spent more time working with the knowledge base and link resolver, rather than doing copy or original cataloging. The ERM allowed information regarding terms of use and other acquisition information to be consolidated in one generally accessible location, and allowed for the divorcing of content from the management of that content. In order to implement the ERM, huge flows of communication had to be maintained among all parties involved and, in at least one case, a long, often painful process of re-working and re-designing all workflows and responsibilities had to be performed, with a goal of designing the system as if it were a new start-up (a process that included three consecutive all-day meetings, with the director present forcing the process along). It was difficult to figure out the workflow and procedure consequences of implementing the ERM, and was made more difficult by the fact that there were no standards for data entry into the ERM. All recommended that planning for ERM implementation should be thorough, have sufficiently long timelines, should bring in all stakeholders (including public services), and should encompass widespread training among the staff in accessing the ERM.

When Did (E)-books Become Serials? – a panel discussion including Kim Armstrong of CIC, Bob Nardini of Coutts, Peter McCracken of Serials Solutions and Rick Lugg of R2 Consulting. The gist of this presentation was that the similarities in the management of e-books and e-serials are becoming greater than the similarities that e-books share with print monographs in terms of management. The primary similarity is that e-books and e-journals share similar deliver systems. Also, e-books are like e-journals in that they are available by subscription, and they are acquired primarily by pre-defined publications from the publisher or by self-selected collections by subscription. However, e-books are not like e-journals in that there are many more individual titles that require many more individual decisions, they have less granular content, there are questions of long-term ownership, their purchase may include platform or maintenance fees, monographs have a strong tradition of expert selection, monographs tend to have more data in their bibliographic records than serials which creates metadata issues, they are discovered traditionally by the OPAC and MARC records, and linking and aggregation are less developed. The acquisition of e-books is based on inventories of individual titles and selections are decided by the library/customer. There is often coordination with print access in acquiring e-books. And e-books make possible acquisition on demand (bibliographic records for e-books are loaded into the catalog, and if a customer selects the book for access, it is purchased at that point). The acquisition of e-books also raises the issue of whether to subscribe to e-books or purchase them, if purchasing them is even possible. Libraries generally say they don’t like subscriptions, but they have a history of purchasing subscriptions, so it’s very likely that publishers will continue to offer e-books by subscription. The management of e-books is complicated by the existence of multiple editions with many different ISBNs, making it difficult to collate editions of a single title (although the xISBN may help here). Different editions in multiple languages also add problems with efficient discovery of the e-book you’re looking for. Serials Solutions announced at the conference that they have added e-books to their knowledge base, and will now be providing management and tracking resources for e-books.

MARC Holdings Conversion: Now That We’re Here, What Do We Do? – a panel discussion including Steve Shadle of University of Washington (moderator), Frieda Rosenberg of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ted Schwitzner, Illinois State University, Sion Romaine of University of Washington, and Naomi Young of University of Florida. This panel discussion covered the experiences of various libraries in implementing full MARC format holdings records in their catalogs. The benefits include establishing prediction patterns for claiming, allowing for automatic update of holdings summaries, and the ability to upload holdings records directly to OCLC’s Union List. However, the planning for the conversion and the amount of work required is large and daunting. Here at Wake Forest, we use only a couple of fields in the MARC holdings records and have other means of establishing claim patterns, updating our holdings summaries and Union List records, which do not require very much work. Or, at least not enough work to make it worth our while to fully implement the MARC holdings record. It may become an issue when we are preparing to migrate to another system, but I recommend that until then we leave our current system in place.