ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program --------------------------------------------------------------------- May 1, 2000 GP 3.16/3-2:21/07 (Vol. 21, no. 07) --------------------------------------------------------------------- CATALOGING AND LOCATOR TOOLS PROPOSALS Remarks by Laurie Beyer Hall Supervisory Program Analyst Before the Depository Library Council April 11, 2000 Newport, RI Good morning! I'm Laurie Hall, Supervisory Program Analyst in the Library Programs Service (LPS). For those of you who are somewhat unfamiliar with job titles in the Federal government, I head up the team of systems and project analysts responsible for developing new LPS products and services and maintaining many of the existing ones. That's why I have been asked to brief you on the report "GPO's Cataloging and Locator Services: Action in Progress and Proposals for Change" [see report, p. 41 and Council recommendation 7, p. 54]. In October 1999, the Depository Library Council recommended that GPO and LPS conduct a review of our online locator tools and services to "evaluate the need, redundancy and the organization of current tools." The discussion of this issue began in the 1999 Spring Council meeting and was continued by a number of LPS staff, including former Electronic Transition Specialist Judy Andrews and members of the Electronic Collections Team. The current offering of tools and services evolved since the beginning of the electronic transition in the mid-1990's, and some originated during the tenure of the first Electronic Transition Specialists. Products were enhanced when modifications were feasible and staff was available. Each tool was usually maintained by one staff member, independently from the other locator tools and services. With the Council recommendation in hand and a deadline looming, staff got down to the business of gathering and analyzing data and crafting specific proposals. For the purposes of this review, we focused our analysis on the six specific locator products that are primarily created and maintained by staff of the Library Programs Service. These are: 1. The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) also known as MOCAT online 2. Browse Electronic Titles 3. Browse Topics 4. GILS applications 5. Federal Agency Internet Sites - the partnership with Louisiana State University 6. Pathway Indexer Knowing that our users are from the library community and the general public, we didn't want to eliminate any tools because we felt there was utility in all of the services and tools we were offering. The browse tools served the users who like to browse and the search tools filled the need for those users who were more comfortable and experienced with searching. We also knew that the applications we created 3 years ago needed technological fixes. There was some redundancy among tools as well. When deciding what kind of changes we would propose, we identified several objectives that we hoped to meet: For the USER, these were to: 1. Eliminate redundancy 2. Make the services easier to use 3. Provide more comprehensive coverage of electronic resources 4. Continue to ensure that electronic resources in the FDLP/EC are authoritative. Given our previous experience in maintaining the current tools, our goals for LPS were to: 1. Create tools that incorporate electronic resources 2. Better integrate electronic resources in the LPS workflow 3. Simplify maintenance 4. Make more effective use of staff resources 5. Find better technological solutions to support LPS operations Data Analysis Before we came up with specific proposals, we gathered statistical data from various sources to assist in the analysis. We looked at 6 months worth of data that was gathered from GPO Access logs and data from Question 43 of the 1999 Biennial Survey. Question 43 asks "If you use the cataloging and locator tools and services and which ones." We also relied on feedback we received from the community via askLPS and input you have given us directly. (Some of the data are available in attachment 1 of the handout). These data helped us identify the tools and services that were used heavily and those that were used less frequently. The Catalog of Government Publications was the most heavily used. That was not a surprise to most of us. We were a little puzzled by what we thought were low hit counts for the Browsable services. After checking with a few libraries which maintain similar browsable services, we felt that our hit counts for Browse Topics and Titles were pretty consistent. Based on this analysis, LPS crafted 6 proposals for your consideration. These are: 1. Find a partner for Browse Topics 2. GILS browse page consolidation 3. Find a Pathway Indexer partner 4. Refocus Browse Electronic Titles 5. Phase out publication of the CD-ROM MOCAT 6. Reconfigure the paper MOCAT The first four proposals make changes and/or modifications to 4 of the existing Locator Tools and Services. Browse Topics A partnership to maintain the Browse Topics seems to us to be a great fit. Topics is by its nature user-driven, and you know what subjects and topics your patrons are asking for and can keep the existing topics more current. Currently, individual topics are created and maintained by volunteer librarian partners, with assistance of an LPS staff person. Based on the success of that model, we would like to have a partner assume overall coordination of the entire Topics resource. GPO would still have an oversight role, as we do with all of our partnerships. Many of you have expressed an interest in partnership opportunities and Steve and George may be contacting you in the near future. GILS Our second proposal is to simplify the GILS applications. The usage data indicates that the GILS applications are used heavily. We have heard from many of you who were confused by the three choices of types of GILS records and didn't understand the subtle differences in record sets. We are proposing to combine the Browse GILS Records by Agency and the Browse GILS pointer records into a single browsable tool. The Browse Pathway GILS Records will be eliminated. These records were created by LPS staff and are not recognized as official and authoritative by publishing agencies according to the GILS mandate. This process will eliminate redundant records and the additional maintenance burden associated with offering similar sets of records. Pathway Indexer According to the statistical data that we analyzed, use of the Pathway Indexer was very low. The application has always been high-maintenance, and the technology is based on the Harvest freeware that is no longer supported. In cooperation with Office of Electronic Information Dissemination (EIDS), LPS is investigating newer technology solutions provided by an external partner like Google or GovBot. Browse Titles Our next proposal is to redesign the Browse Electronic Titles to improve the current awareness value of this tool. Over the years, as the list of titles continues to expand, the BET began to lose its browsability. With over 3000 entries, the current BET is very maintenance intensive. We are proposing that the BET organized by agency as it currently exists be eliminated. We will continue to offer the New Additions, now called the NET (New Electronic Titles) every week for four weeks, which is approximately 100 new titles offered per month. Our goal is to catalog all new electronic titles in NET before the weekly list is posted each Friday. Additional Proposals These are the 4 major proposals that directly impact the locator tools and services we provide. Two specific proposals in the report impact the publication of two tangible cataloging products. I'll just go over what is being proposed. 1. LPS is proposing to phase out the production of the CD-ROM version of the Monthly Catalog after all of the issues for the year 2000 are completed. It is expensive to produce and the publishing schedule is very slow. The cataloging records in the CD-ROM are more readily available in the CGP. An annual cumulation on CD may be an alternative. 2. The 2nd proposal is to make the print Monthly Catalog and Periodicals Supplement current awareness lists of products arranged by classification number. The current MOCAT process, as many of you know, is based on early 1970's technology that is very expensive and very difficult to maintain. By reconfiguring the paper MOCAT, we can migrate the publication to a desktop application that can be produced in LPS. This process will shorten the production time, increase accuracy and timeliness of the product and reduce costs while still meeting our statutory obligations. [See Council recommendation 7, p. 54.] In Progress By adopting these 6 product proposals, LPS can shift staff resources to work on projects that will enhance the complete suite of locator tools and services. As you consider these proposals, I would just like to highlight some projects that are currently underway in LPS that help us gather information to meet the goals and objectives that we have identified earlier. 1. CGP maintenance - Staff has begun a project to clean up many of the records in the CGP. Our proposal to reconfigure the BET will help us focus on the new additions while encouraging users to search the CGP as the most comprehensive resource for identifying, locating and accessing both tangible and online products. 2. LPS/CORC Participation - To gain experience with alternative bibliographic description methods, and to provide access to a more comprehensive range of electronic resources, we are currently exploring OCLC's Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) project as the first tentative steps to integrating "cataloging" with "metadata." We are negotiating with the United States Institute of Peace to attempt a small pilot that will bring previously inaccessible resources with high research value created by the Institute into the FDLP/EC, with MARC records that derive from metadata tags. This will involve not just examination of our own cataloging processes, but close collaboration with United States Institute of Peace to provide useful metadata. 3. CORC/OCLC archiving project - As Gil Baldwin mentioned in his presentation yesterday, LPS continues to meet and work with OCLC to develop a business model for digital archiving, including defining the requirements and technical infrastructure for this potential joint project. 4. The BET Retro Project project is being coordinated by members of the Electronic Collection Team to ensure that all resources previously posted to the BET receive cataloging records in the CGP and if necessary, are archived. 5. GILS work- Staff in Office of Electronic Information Dissemination (EIDS) continues to perform on-going maintenance activities for existing GILS records. 6. Technology Planning -LPS staff are in the planning phase of a project to replace key systems in LPS to create better technological solutions that support LPS operations. I want to thank you for allowing me to brief you on these proposals. We will take questions now and for those who haven't had an opportunity to digest these proposals and need a good night's sleep to think about it all, Tad and I will be available tomorrow morning for additional questions.