Acquiring Chinese E-Books: Where to Start and How to Get Here-- University of Pittsburgh Library System's Experience Hong Xu March 24, 2007

Where to start  Talking with the senior administrator  Talking with e-book producers  Having trials  Evaluating e-books

Decision-making in purchasing Chinese e-books  Perpetual access vs. subscription  Quantity to purchase  Database hosting  MARC records requirements  Whether or not loading the records to OCLC

The minimal level MARC records we required include the following fields:  001, 005,006, 007, 008, 020, 040  1xx (or 7xx if no 1xx)  245  250 (if needed)  260  300 (if needed)  533 (if needed)  856

Problems in sample MARC records  Both e-book producers use CN-MARC as the base and automatically convert them into MARC21.  Problems in understanding MARC21, particularly CJK records in MARC21.  Problems in converting some fields  Examples:

Team work  Communicating with relevant senior administrators and with EAL librarians  Coordinating with other two departments at the ULS:  Information System: install reader software, test interface, load records  Cataloging Management: review records; follow ULS and OCLC rules/policies  Communicating with e-book producers

Where we are and what we’ve learnt so far--  Contracts have been signed/to be signed soon.  We are on the third run of testing sample records.  Timely communication ensures things are moving on smoothly.  Team work is essential.  It is important for the e-book producers to be consistent with the contact personnel and the test records during the data trial period.  Documentation is important  Quality control is a big on-going issue.

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