Re: Bib Records for Electronic Resources (Peggy Sealor) ERCELAA@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu 17 Apr 1998 21:28 UTC
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:35:04 -0400 From: Peggy Sealor <psealor@SIL.SI.EDU> Subject: Bib Records for Electronic Resources (Mitch Turitz) -Reply Mitch, we have just finished cataloging each of the 177 electronic serial titles which are the Academic Press' IDEAL Project. We have access to the IDEAL Project though a consortium with a half dozen other libraries. We have access to all of the titles whether they are in our scope or not. We have a list of the titles on our homepage located at http://sil.si.edu This list is cited in one of the 856 tags in each record in our Catalog, and provides access to the journals for the Smithsonian staff and community. We found that 38 of the electronic journal titles are held in the print version in one or more of our branch libraries. We added information about the electronic version to the bibliographic record for the print version for the titles we held (single record method). A virtual branch library was created for electronic resources which are available across the library system. It was decided to catalog all 177 electronic journal titles in our online catalog. All of the IDEAL titles have good records on OCLC, so the "new" titles were straightforward to process. A Team was formed and trained by the serials cataloger, who also catalogs computer files. Because of good specific decisions made by the Database Planning and Standards Committee I was able to create a procedures document which was well received by the Team members. We used constant data records and some cut-and-paste configurations when possible (NOTIS doesn't have many editing functions). There were several title changes already. Frustrating, but to be expected, I guess. There will probably be other upkeep aspects. Other concerns are about the brief display: the http addresses are in the wrong place, availability is "Check Shelf" and so on. You can access the Web version of the SIRIS catalog through our homepage. Hyperlinks in each record are from the Digital resource part of the long display. Each record has two 856 links, one for SI staff and research community, and one to the IDEAL homepage for non-SI folks (click on one to follow the path to your chosen title). It is hard to track actual usage since we found we cannot do it by electronic mathods. At present, we rely on the reference staff impressions and on direct communication from the patrons. We are still working on this aspect. Peggy Sealor, Serials Cataloger Original Cataloging Section, CSD Smithsonian Institution Libraries psealor@sil.si.edu