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Background information:
Cornell's draft and notes for Phase 1 report
Columbia's draft and notes for Phase 1 report
1. Summary of original cataloging staff and expertise at both Columbia and Cornell, including a comparison of current job assignments
- Summary of staffing in terms of approximate FTE:** Columbia has about 15.2 people who form the core of the original catalogers (10 in OSMC, 2.70 in the East Asian Library, 2.50 in MPS) as well as other staff who do some cataloging (some cataloging in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library as well as at Barnard and the Health Sciences Library; these are not part of 2CUL). Not all of them catalog full time.
- Cornell has about 13 people who form the core of the original catalogers. Not all of them catalog full time.
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- Both institutions have limited coverage of a number of languages including Hebrew, Armenian and South Asian languages
- Cornell makes greater use of student help; Columbia sometimes uses library school interns
- Columbia uses pairing of librarians with bibliographic assistants for special materials, such as for music, rare books, serials and metadata
- Columbia has made greater use of grant-funded positions for special projects (for example, a recent project to catalog Hebrew manuscripts)
- Columbia original catalogers do some quality control of vendor records before loading;At Cornell, vendor records are massaged by the Acquisitions Unit, with catalogers consulted as needed.
2. Summary of reporting and decision-making structures at both institutions
- At Columbia, OSMC librarians report to the Director, Original and Special Materials Cataloging. OSMC support staff report to one of the OSMC librarians. MPS librarians report to the Director, Monographic Processing Services. MPS support staff report to one of the MPS librarians. EAL librarians report to the Head, Technical Services, Starr East Asian Library. EAL support staff report to one of the EAL librarians. The cataloging department heads ("Catheads") meet regularly to discuss and finalize policies and priorities. Some topics also go up to Management Committee. The Law Library and The Augustus Long Health Sciences Library are administratively separate. Org charts available here.\
- Cornell's cataloging operations are spread across the three Library Technical Services (LTS) departments, as shown in the organization chart. In practice, staff in the three departments work closely together at all levels; high-level decisions that cross departmental boundaries are made by the Senior Management Team consisting of the Director of LTS, the three departmental directors, and the Electronic Resources User Experience Librarian.
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- At both institutions, individual staff may receive functional training and direction for specific duties from people other than their designated supervisors. Generally speaking, the relationship between academic librarians and support staff is looser at Cornell than at Columbia. Institutional factors (e.g. unionization at Columbia) can influence reporting lines and allocation of duties.
3. Summary of policies, practices and workflows involving original cataloging at both institutions including which department is responsible for which activities; summary of significant significant similarities and differences
- At Cornell most original cataloging is done in the Cataloging and Metadata Services Department; at Columbia most original cataloging is done in OSMC, MPS and EAL
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- Both institutions have outsourced some original cataloging to vendors; Columbia has shelf-ready books with YBP and Cornell with University of Hong Kong Library.
- Both institutions have some local classification schemes
- Columbia generally includes an 050 class number in the bib record even if not needed for shelving, such as for online resources and microforms
- Cornell generally catalogs in their local Voyager system; Columbia generally catalogs in OCLC
- Columbia emphasizes authority work for NACO including names, corporate bodies, conferences, series, geographics and author cutter proposals; Columbia recodes NACO records to RDA on encounter including adding all available elements
- Both institutions use 948 for statistics gathering; both use local fields to identify aggregations and special projects
- Catalogers at both institutions are involved with training and documentation
- At both institutions some catalogers are involved with the PCC and other professional activities; professional involvement is a factor in promotion and performance review
4. Summary of dependencies and limitations inherent in working with other units
Collection-related dependencies
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- See attached spreadsheets for Columbia's cataloging statistics from 2010 to 2013. Each document has separate sheets for OSMC, MPS and EAL.
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- See attached spreadsheets for Cornell's cataloging statistics from 2010 to 2013** Overall copy and original statistics
- While Columbia has PCC as the default for most formats, some categories of material have been excluded in past years and are being folded in now. Free online resources (a big workflow) are usually cataloged as level 3 but generally with authority work for NACO; subject headings, and 050.
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- Examples of recent authority work statistics for Columbia:NACO stats for OSMC and MPS for fiscal year 2012/2013216 new class numbers
296 series (105 new; 191 updates)
29 new SACO headings
1704 new names (personal, corporate, etc.)
3197 updated names
Grand total: 5442
Recent annual statistics for EAL included:
1035 new headings
350 updated headings.
- More recently, with recoding to RDA as part of Columbia's workflow NACO statistics have grown substantially. As an example, in June 2013 OSMC/MPS catalogers created 170 new NACO records and recoded 386 to RDA.
- Examples of recent authority work statistics for Cornell:
For fiscal year 2012/2013 (all libraries):
894 new names
684 updated names
6. Recommendations regarding a work plan and critical issues to explore in Phase 2
Below are some areas that we have identified for further exploration. Collaboration in some areas (e.g. training) can proceed more or less immediately, while others will need careful planning. We propose to continue to develop this list as we proceed with Phase 2.
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