MARC Record Services: A Comparative Study of Library Practices and Perceptions By Rebecca Kemp Serials Coordinator Librarian William M. Randall Library UNC Wilmington SEVENTEENTH NORTH CAROLINA SERIALS CONFERENCE What's in a Name? From "Serials" to "Continuing Resources" April 10-11, 2008

A note about the presentation. This presentation is based on an article by the same title that has been accepted for publication in The Serials Librarian © 2008 Taylor & Francis. The article will appear in The Serials Librarian v.55, no.3 (2008). A preprint appears on the web: -MARC-record-services pdf

Cataloging Serials Then… Image courtesy of Mona KwonMona Kwon

Cataloging Serials Now UNCW has access to over 30,000 serial titles!!!!!

How do we tell our patrons what we have? Catalog A-Z List Option 1.Option 2. Option 3.

Single Record or Separate Records? Print Bib Online Bib Option 1. Option 2. Microform Bib Print Holdings Online Holdings Microform Holdings (Print) Bib Print Holdings Online Holdings Microform Holdings (Oversimplified.)

How to catalog largest number of serial titles? Option 1. Employ many, many people Option 2. Work many, many hours Option 3. Outsource to a MARC record service vendor

MARC Record Service Vendors Serials Solutions 360 MARC Updates Ex Libris MARCit! EBSCO A-to-Z with MARC Updates TDNet Holdings Manager with MARC Records Talis Base Cassidy Cataloguing MARCIVE Innovative CASE

The MARC Record Service Process Based on case study of University of Colorado Boulder (UCB), which uses Serials Solutions 360 Updates Courtesy of Paul Moeller, Serials Cataloger, UCB  Subscribed to Serials Solutions 360 Core, including MARC 360 Updates  Populated Serials Solutions “knowledgebase” with titles and holdings  UCB filled out a profile indicating preferred types of MARC records. Options: CONSER online, print, microform, or CD- ROM records, CONSER “neutral” records, National Library of Medicine records, Serials Solutions-created full records, Serials Solutions-created brief records

The MARC Record Service Process, continued  Selected ways to customize records; e.g., 245 |h [electronic resource] general material designation  Serials Solutions made a batch of records available  UCB downloaded records via FTP  UCB used Innovative Interfaces loader to bring in records and modify them slightly (856 field changed to 956)  Subsequent loads: UCB receives different batches of records for “new,” “changed,” and “deleted.”  UCB deletes brief bibs (no unique ID) before each new load.

The MARC Record Service Process, continued Based on case study of Duquesne University (DU), which uses SFX MARCit! Courtesy of Carmel Yurochko, Serials/Electronic Resources Librarian  Similar process to Serials Solutions  Populated the SFX knowledgebase  Were not given the option of which types of records to choose  Chose customization in the SFX admin center  Requested load: fresh export

The MARC Record Service Process, continued  When loads are sent, records are marked new, changed, or deleted and sent with a statistical report indicating number of new, changed, or deleted records  Downloaded records via FTP  On local machine, made edits using MarcEdit open source editor  All records, including brief records, have unique SFX ID, are overlaid by subsequent loads

Surveying MARC Record Service Users How do you use MARC record services? Surveyed SERIALST-L, NASIG-L, ERIL-L, NGC4LIB, LIBLICENSE-L, and the Lis-e-journals Discussion List Survey goals:  Common practices in implementing and maintaining MARC record services?  What are library perceptions of the MARC record services?  How would library personnel like to modify MARC record services?

Here’s what I found. 130 participants responded; varying numbers of participants answered the questions, most of which were not required Who are they?  86.5% academic; 9.6% special; 2.9% public; 1% library cooperative  76% US, 8.7% UK, the rest from countries as scattered as Lebanon, Finland, North Africa, and Pakistan  How many titles? Mean: 29,346, median: 25,000, mode: 30,000

Results, continued How do they provide access to their serials? 92 out of 96 (95.8%): catalog and A-Z list. 4 out of 96 (4.2%): catalog only Which MARC record service are they using?  Serials Solutions 360: 62.5% of 96  MARCit!: 25%  EBSCO MARC records: 5.2%  Cassidy Cataloguing, TDNet, “as provided by aggregators and vendors,” MARCIVE, and Talis Base made up the other 7.2%

Results, continued Single or separate?  Separate: 63.5% of 96 respondents  Single: 22.9%  Both: 13.5% How is this accomplished? 10 responses:  Separate records except for titles that require original cataloging (2)  Single record if batch-loaded records match on ISSN, but separate if they do not match on ISSN  Microfilm and print holdings represented on one record, electronic kept separate  Various others…

Results, continued Did the library transition from single to separate records a result of adopting a MARC record service?  Yes: 55.4% of 56  No: 44.6% Perhaps a surprising find? How many records are brief?  0%: 32.8 % of 58 respondents  1-40%: 55.2%  Mean = 20.2%, median = 15%, and mode = 0%

Common Features of Brief Bib Records Lack of 780/785 linking fields: 51.7% of 58 No persistent unique bibliographic record identifier: 31.0%  Note: This only affects Serials Solutions brief records, and Serials Solutions has plans to add unique IDs Incorrect ISSN: 25.9% Incorrect use of diacritics: 25.9% Duplicate records in the same batch: 19.0% Inconsistent use of acronyms: 17.2% Lack of detail in the records: 15.5%

Common Features of Full Bib Records Records contain notes for print or microform versions: 48% of 50 Fixed fields have incorrect values for online version: 24% ISSN for electronic format is in 776 field rather than 022 field: 18% I don’t know / I haven't noticed serious or common problems: 18% Records are missing 245 |h [electronic resource]: 12% Links in 856 fields are incorrect : 12%

What do users do to the records? Post-load modifications? We make no modifications: 39.4% of 71 We batch-update records using the integrated library system: 35.2% We fix records individually by hand: 21.1% We batch-update records using scripts: 18.3% We modify records before loading: 11.3% We notify the MARC record service vendor to fix the problems: 5.6%

What do the users want? Suggested Enhancements/Improvements to MARC Records We want fewer brief records: 22.9 % of 43 We are satisfied with the records: 20.0% Improve accuracy of records: 17.1% Add persistent ID to brief records: 14.3% Fix problems with subject headings in full records: fewer Library of Congress headings, provide English-only headings: 8.6% Want to use OCLC records if no CONSER available: 8.6%

What do the users like most? Best Liked Features of MARC Record Service Satisfaction of being able to spend time on projects other than cataloging aggregated titles: 74.6% of 71 Satisfaction of knowing that all titles have bibliographic records: 71.8% Ease of use in loading records: 69.0% Accuracy of bibliographic records: 19.7% Services create access to titles that would otherwise not have access: 9.9%

What do the users like least? Least Liked Features of MARC Record Service Inaccuracy of bibliographic records: 43.1% of 58 Time spent cleaning up bibliographic records after the load / clean up is too extensive: 31.0% Difficulty of the load process: 20.7% We are satisfied with the service as it is: 10.3% Too many brief records or presence of duplicate briefs: 6.9% Problems with loading the records: 5.2%

How would users improve services? Suggested Enhancements/Improvements to the Overall Load Process The service works well enough: 23.3% of 30 I don't know / no comment: 13.3% Provide better brief records: 10.0% Make it easier or more automated: 10.0% ILS has trouble handling load: 6.7% We would like to receive “cleaner” records: 6.7% It's not possible to improve the process: 6.7%

Tying it all together More libraries (22.9% of respondents) are maintaining a single record approach than I would have thought Brief records appear to lack detail or accuracy Library personnel want to receive fewer brief records and more accurate records. Library personnel use various methods to modify loaded records, but a large minority (almost 40%) do not modify Many respondents are satisfied with the records as they are

Questions? Thank you for attending! Presenter contact information: Rebecca Kemp Serials Coordinator Librarian Randall Library UNC Wilmington kempr uncw edu