ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES NEWSLETTER OF THE FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Vol. 19, no. 07 GP 3.16/3-2:19/07 May 15, 1998 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CATALOGING BRANCH REMARKS BY THOMAS A. DOWNING Chief, Cataloging Branch, Library Programs Service Before the Depository Library Council and Federal Depository Conference Monday, April 20, 1998 Arlington, VA PURLS I am pleased to report that we now have a PURLs application within the Library Programs Service (LPS). Persistent Uniform Resource Locators, or PURLS, are now associated with Browse Electronic Titles (BET) applications and with Catalog records at our Web site. As Gil has indicated, PURLs are a critical element in our ability to provide cataloging and locating services and in managing the products in the FDLP Electronic Collection. This initiative has been an extensive multi-phase project that has involved the efforts of people within OCLC, GPO's Production Department, and the Library Programs Service. PURLs provide a means for supporting efforts to provide continued access to electronic resources. As links change, new links will be substituted for old ones within our PURLs resolver and users who click on a PURL will be redirected to the current link. This application is of value to such LPS applications as BET and our Web Catalog and may be useful for other applications in the years ahead. I wish to thank Mike Clark for his persistent efforts during the most recent phase of this project. Mike has set up, tested, and initiated the first-time use of OCLC's most recent PURLs release for LPS applications. I also wish to thank OCLC for responding to our request for substantive changes to its PURLs resolver software. OCLC has improved its PURLs software to include an integrated URL checker application, the automatic assignment of sequential accession numbers as unique PURL identifiers, and a basic exception report module. The new release, which is freely available to everyone, is more amenable to large-scale applications than earlier versions. Our first PURLs were assigned to electronic titles for the week of March 30th. PURLs are built into BET entries and work behind the scenes to redirect users from older URLs associated with agency Web sites to the most current URL. PURLs are also now input into the 856 field of Web Catalog records that represent electronic titles on BET. At present, more than 360 Catalog records representing titles posted from January, 1998 through the present now include PURLS in records produced in OCLC. We anticipate that most of these PURLs will be visible in our Web site records by May of this year. Links for BET applications and for records within our PURLs server are checked each week. When Mike Clark identifies broken links, he very often is able to locate new URLs so that access can be restored. We are selectively converting URLs to PURLs in the more than 3,800 Catalog records that contain URLs. As we learn of new URLs for these old records, we will substitute PURLs for URLs on a record by record basis. In this way, we expect to gradually convert most URLs to PURLs in the months ahead. We hope that those of you who know of new URLs for electronic titles with broken links will advise us of this information via askLPS. The LPS PURLs application is significantly useful for the many library catalogs that contain URLs. With LPS PURLs, libraries will not need to update records locally when URLs change. PURLs are an essential component of our efforts to bring bibliographic control to products in the FDLP Electronic Collection. Collection Level Cataloging Policy Effective this March, catalogers now apply a collection level cataloging policy to electronic titles when such entries take users to collected works associated with an electronic title. This new policy has been posted at the publications portion of the FDLP Administration Web page. This policy was endorsed in principle during Midwinter ALA by the GODORT Cataloging Committee of the American Library Association. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Arlene Weible, chair of the committee, and the committee members for their continued interest, advice, and support of our efforts to establish a satisfactory level of bibliographic control for many Internet related works. We appreciate the involvement of the committee in developing cataloging initiatives and have benefited from its good counsel. This collection level record policy is an important new initiative that establishes, for the first time, a one-to-one correspondence between each electronic title and a single cataloging record. Collection level records provide users with access to collected works associated with a major topic that are often further identified at a site via a clickable index or search window. Our new policy has been approved by the ALA GODORT Cataloging Committee, is consistent with AACR2 practice, and is consistent with the realities that face users when they encounter multiple resources that are accessible via a single electronic title. A one-to-one correspondence between Catalog records and each new electronic title also sets the stage for the assignment and use of the same unique PURL for each electronic title and its related Catalog record. This collection level record cataloging policy joins two other electronic related cataloging initiatives available at the Web site. These earlier initiatives include policies on computer files and linking records. Participation in Revising the Cataloging Manual We are involved in the effort to revise ALA's 1984 edition of Cataloging Government Documents: A Manual of Interpretation for AACR2. Rhonda Marker, Head, Cataloging Department, Rutgers University, and a member of the ALA GODORT Cataloging Committee, is editing this publication and has welcomed our interest in participating in the revision process. We look forward, in particular, to working with people on chapters associated with maps and electronic resources. Cataloging of Browse Electronic Titles As of March 30th, the Depository Administration Branch has posted 2,728 BET entries. As of the week of March 30th, all but 192 of these entries had been cataloged. Of the 192 titles in the BET backlog, 67 were monographs and 125 were serials. With our new collection level record policy, we expect that, as of April 20th, most of the monographs in the backlog will have been cataloged and that many, but not all, of the serials will have been cataloged by this date. As of the present time, electronic titles are cataloged within one week after posting. Cataloging Production >From October, 1997 through the end of March, 1998, the Cataloging Branch received 16,818 pieces of work. To date, we have processed 13,287 pieces. We have also cataloged, from the inception of BET until the end of March, 2,536 BET entries. Cataloging Backlog A recent inventory of uncataloged physical format and BET entry related works indicates a backlog of 6,858 pieces of work to be cataloged. This figure includes uncataloged BET entries. Most of our backlog is associated with serials, very large numbers of which have been received from contractors within the last few weeks. With the exception of serials, BET entries and works in paper are processed within one week. Works in microfiche are usually processed within two weeks. GPO Cataloging Tapes Have Been Re-Issued And Made Available to CDS Many of you are aware that GPO Cataloging Tapes made available by the Cataloging and Distribution Service (CDS), Library of Congress, have not been issued since November, 1997. CDS staff have experienced technical difficulties with the tapes for December, 1997 and for the months of January and February of 1998. We have recently re-issued tapes to CDS for these months and are engaged in ongoing discussion with CDS about how this service might be improved. Based on discussions, we expect that CDS will soon provide these tapes to customers. We also expect that CDS will soon issue tapes for March and April and that tape-related services will soon be on track. 1998 Issues of the CD-ROM Edition of the Monthly Catalog to Be Issued Soon We also have experienced a delay in producing the January, February, and March 1998 issues of the CD-ROM and paper editions of the Monthly Catalog. This delay has been caused by shifting work priorities within the organization that processes our data, provides file conversion to support the Documents Sales Service Integrated Processing System (IPS), and works to assure compliance with Year 2000 requirements. Data processing components are working to produce data for our products. We expect that the January issue for the CD-ROM Monthly Catalog will be distributed in the middle of May and the subsequent issues will be available soon after. In the meantime, we hope that people will use our Catalog Web site application as a useful alternative. The Catalog application has the advantage of including records that have been produced in OCLC as recently as one day before posting. Seeking Data Processing Alternatives We regret delays associated with the GPO Cataloging tapes and CD-ROM and paper editions of the Monthly Catalog. Unfortunately, given shifting priorities for data processing support staff, such delays may become increasingly common. Given this situation, we see a need to develop long range data processing alternatives for supporting Monthly Catalog related products and applications. We would welcome advice concerning available options and expect to devote staff resources and time to seeking suitable solutions. The Catalog of United States Government Publications Our Web Catalog edition of the Monthly Catalog now contains more than 98,027 records produced from 1994 through the present. As stated previously, more than 3,833 of these records contain URL data. When broken links are detected we convert URL data to PURLs. When links cannot be re-established, we delete URL/PURL data from records and add a note advising users that the resource is no longer available via the Internet. Librarians encountering records with bad links should advise us by using . Proposal for More "User Friendly" Default Display of Catalog Records Council has recommended that a more user friendly labeled data element default display be added to the Web edition of the Catalog. We appreciate the usefulness of Council's recommendation and have made available a handout for a proposed "user friendly" display for your consideration. This proposed display achieves the goal of presenting information in a more easily understood manner than is possible with the numeric MARC tagged display. We do not propose development of a compressed printed "card catalog" display similar to records within the old paper Monthly Catalog. While some nostalgia is associated with such a display, the value of this type of display is outweighed by the costs and time involved in creating it. A line by line name labeled display of bibliographic elements such as we propose is a common standard used in many libraries today. Under our proposal, users wishing to see all data elements associated with a record may choose to view the MARC numeric tagged display. We anticipate making some improvements to the MARC "Catalogers" display and hope to improve this application in the near future. Resumption of Publishing the Paper Edition of the Periodicals Supplement I would like to conclude my remarks by adding that a product with popular appeal has made its way back in print as a paper edition. The Periodicals Supplement for 1998 is being distributed to depository libraries. We ceased publishing a paper edition in 1995 as a consequence of our need to fund the costs of developing Web and CD-ROM editions. With Web and CD-ROM editions now established products, the costs saved from producing an abridged paper edition of the Monthly Catalog may be applied to resume publishing the Periodicals Supplement in paper. This is a very popular title. Nine hundred ninety libraries chose this title under item number 0557-D-01. We hope that people are pleased by the re-appearance of this title in paper. We intend to publish a paper edition of the Periodicals Supplement from this time forward. The Periodicals Supplement will continue to be part of each CD-ROM issue of the Monthly Catalog. The Periodicals Supplement paper edition also is expected to be available for sale in the near future. This ends my formal presentation. As always, it is a pleasure to be here to answer questions and to meet with you. I look forward to our meetings and thank you for being here.