Links Monitoring and Maintenance Committee Minutes 
March 10, 2000

Present were: Lawan Orser of the Database Maintenance Unit, Daniel Cromwell of the Copy Cataloging and Science Cataloging Units, Priscilla Williams of the Social Science Cataloging Unit, Naomi Young of the Serials Unit, Denise Bennett of Marston Science Library, Rich Bennett of Systems, Jean Bostwick of the Legal Information Center, Cecilia Botero of the Health Center Library, Mary Ann O'Daniel of FCLA and Jimmie Lundgren of the Science Cataloging Unit.

 

The meeting began with an introduction to the landscape of URLs in the UF online catalog - what, where, and how many are they? by Lawan. She gave a brief history of the numbers of links in the catalog, what kinds of resources are included and how the correctness of the links has greatly improved through our procedures based on a list of all 856 fields in our catalog generated at regular intervals by FCLA, our Link checking process that is repeated at the beginning of each month by the Database Maintenance Unit, and the distribution of the resulting report to the various cataloging units which then correct errors in the database.

 

This was followed by a discussion by Mary Ann concerning how the NOTIS-type online catalog that we use determines limitations in our options for displaying information to the patron concerning holdings, etc. She also stated that the URL list produced by FCLA is based entirely on 856 fields in bibliographic screens of records, and does not include any URL's from volume holdings records. Regarding the change from Elsevier journals accessed from files at FCLA, there is no maintenance or addition to those files currently due to the decision to use Science Direct. Elsevier will provide a list of URL's for the journals after the contract is completed. 

 

An interesting discussion followed regarding the use of electronic location codes in WebLUIS. Lawan played devil's advocate and asked, "Why should we use location codes for Internet resources?" Rich and others in the group responded with various points concerning how the location codes serve our purposes. They permit the limiting of searches to electronic journals based on use of the elec,jour location, sublocation.  They allow the creation of volume holdings records to record parts of electronic journals that are available online from a particular provider. It was also noted that there is some inconsistency in practice of entering copy holdings for electronic versions of resources that we also own in print.  The use of a class number in the copy holdings statement enables the generation of an ARROW report that is used by Collection Management, even though it is suppressed from public view at the insistence of Public Services to avoid confusion of the patron.  There was also discussion of how powerful our search capabilities are in the current system, including the limit by format function. Titles will be included in an advanced search when the format "computer file" is selected from the format dropdown menu based on the record being in computer file format or having 006 computer file fixed fields added to a record in another format such as serials or books or maps. Records retrieved when "Online" is selected from that menu are included based on the existence of an 856 field in the record. 

 

Naomi introduced the new guidelines document developed by the Serials Policy group for use of 856 fields for electronic journals in publisher practices and already in use. This had been distributed by email before the meeting and is attached below, along with a list of publisher codes. Most points of the guidelines are consistent with previous practice, but also introduces adding to the record the electronic version issn's and a delimiter a subfield in the 856 with a distinctive publisher code to enable keyword searching to generate lists of journals acquired from each provider. 

 

The question was raised about how the addition of a second issn might impact the hook-to-holdings function, and someone said it would still work. Denise mentioned the continued desirability on the part of public services to use the single record method for those electronic journals which we hold both in print and remotely. It was suggested that as we have fewer index databases through WebLUIS there will be less use for the hook-to-holdings function from them, and that some other databases will offer similar functionality.

 

Rich mentioned the new display of links from the index view, and also the possibility of displaying anchor text rather than the actual URL in the patron view of the bibliographic record. This is desirable because it looks better. The down side is that it would not offer the URL as information in the prominent way we do now or print, although it would continue to be available in the technical view and displays at the bottom of the screen when the cursor points to the anchor text.  The separate database for the Florida Heritage Collection can bee examined as an example at: http://susdl.fcla.edu/fh/  Rich also gave us a "heads-up" about the NetLibrary trial with regard to anticipating possible future inclusion of these resources in our collection.

 

The last topic was an update on our participation in the CORC program from Jimmie. She distributed the following notes, along with a printout of the CORC homepage:

OCLC has accepted our application to participate in the trial period of CORC, which lasts until June 30, 2000. Recently we were assigned 1 administrative login, and we will be assigned additional administrative, cataloger and patron logins when we determine our needs for each of these and request them. Training has been scheduled in the MSL Conference Room for 3/29 9am-1pm or 3/23 1-5pm. Only a limited number of key people have been invited to attend the training so far, but there is room for additional interested staff. Beginning in July, CORC will join with other OCLC services that are offered for cost, and will be integrated with their other databases and services. We hope to have explored the potential of CORC sufficiently by that time to decide if we wish to subscribe. There are 2 databases in CORC: pathfinders and records for individual resources in MARC/Dublin Core formats. MARC format records will be able to be exported to our catalog. Patrons should find CORC helpful for identifying and locating valuable Internet resources that have been selected by librarians with a minimum of false hits and poorly substantiated information sites. Denise Bennett has begun working with a group of Collection Management librarians to explore the pathfinder aspects of CORC. Denise then mentioned that the practice database of CORC had been a disappointment to those who were exploring it with her. Since this is a small subset of CORC and includes records by librarians just learning to use the system, it is hoped that this will not prove true of the larger database. 

Prepared by:  Jimmie Lundgren, Sept. 26, 2000