Minutes for October 20, 2005
Meeting took place October 20, (not October 18 was previously indicated in the Agenda).
In general, Thursdays 2-3 pm, at the Law School seems OK for all members.
New members of VTF: Becky Slitt and Tom Bolze, introduced and welcomed.
Discussed Team Leader Recommendations. Question for Joan (in absentia): How far (or close) are we from acting on any of these? Are some more likely to be implemented than others? [I think part of this hinges on what happens at the next team leaders meeting with Meg.] Youn pointed out that the focus of the TL document seems to be on reducing shelf-listing costs. Is it pretty much a given that this is where we can obtain the greatest savings? [Has anyone done a cost-benefit analysis?]
Becky expressed concern that we might be doing our readers (and ourselves) a disservice by allowing further upheaval in shelf arrangement. [Granted, there is already a scatter of literature due to LCC versus Old Yale, octavio versus quarto, overflow in the stacks, and 23 separate library facilities, etc., but things could always get worse.] Speaking as both a department member and Ph.D. student, she is concerned that the loss of real and virtual browsing capability would be significant. Question: has anyone conducted a user-satisfaction survey to determine how discontinuation or further diminution of shelf-listing would impact usability and the overall research experience at Yale? Possible idea for future consideration: ask Katie Bauer (of Integrated Access Council) to help analyze Orbis search transactions, looking for evidence for or against a change in policy for call number assignment.
Committee members seem to agree that discontinuing call number assignment for LSF-bound items (prop. I-B) would be fairly benign and simple to implement. There is more concern about props. III-A and III-B, III-D, and III-E, each of which would cause added disruption to both real and virtual browsing of the stacks. However, if the department really wants to move in that direction, it would seem wise to present such changes as an undesirable but necessary consequence of otherwise positive developments.
Daniel mentioned that, far from being a relic from the card catalog environment [contra, e.g., recent remarks by Clay Shirky], class notation such as UDC is used by Web developers to harness the compact semantic and syndetic information captured therein. [Cf. position paper by Diane Vizine-Goetz (1999): Using Library Classification Schemes for Internet Resources]
Tom pointed out that it's not clear from VTF documents that a metadata consulting service is in the works. Daniel agreed that it hasn't been discussed at length in catalog department or team leader meetings, but that it's already started to happen in certain cases (e.g., with the Yale core metadata set), and other areas where bibliographic control and metadata experts consult with students, faculty, ITS, librarians, etc., from other departments.
How can the VTF make progress on its charge? One idea: draft new document, based on Team Leaders Recommendations, but framed in terms of desirable changes (movement toward metadata production and consulting service, maintaining register of metadata tools, helping to build trusted digital repository, etc.). Then, as secondary component, discussing amount of staff time that will be needed for work on the new programs, and then, finally, what current workflows can be made more efficient in order to free up the necessary staff?