Bibliographic Access Group

Minutes of the 8/21/2001 meeting

Present: Nicole Bouche, Steven Arakawa, Sue Crockford-Peters (recording),Tobin Nellhaus, Paul Stuehrenberg, Joan Swanekamp

Absent: Jim Shetler, Rich Richie, Kalee Sprague

1.Review of previous minutes. Suggestions and additions made by Sue and Nicole. Approved with corrections.

2. Joan Swanekamp spoke about the reasons for establishing the Group. She referred to the need for a group that would speak library-wide for the public service voice as changes and improvements to the catalog are proposed. She commented on how in such a large organization, many people can be consulted but consensus can be hard to reach, especially in a highly distributed system where there are sometimes conflicting needs and goals. She also stated that she hoped the group would assist her and others in prioritizing projects that demand large investments of technical resources in order to accomplish. She mentioned that there might be times that the group would serve a steering committee role.

Discussion followed regarding how to establish the group's identity and credibility within the YUL and how to and when to vet decisions or proposals that the group will make.

3. The |k discussion was taken up from where it left off the previous week. The group's understanding of the issues for maintaining very large location code tables in Voyager was discussed. The need for clarification from Kalee about whether there would be a negative impact on system performance was expressed. Joan provided the group with a brief explanation of the original purpose of |k in MARC.

A consensus seemed to be forming around how, in Voyager, there would need to be a standard list of accepted "stamps," it would need to maintained by professional staff and well documented and promulgated, there would need to be an emphasis on staff training, a means for regular and preferably automated quality control, a place to go to approve new or changed stamps, and a strategy for dealing with "legacy" stamps. Joan mentioned that the Medical Library was open to reducing the numbers of stamps in use now.

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Susan E. Crockford-Peters