Support and Training Report: June 2011

State Shutdown will NOT affect PALS

It has been announced that MnSCU will be allowed to operate even if there is a state shutdown. That is very good news for all of us in MnSCU and for MnPALS Consortium members. All PALS servers will remain up and our services will continue as usual.

Aleph

Acq/Serials

  • New answers added to the answer book
    • 3432 - New functionality in Aleph v.20 for Offline Item Editing
    • 3434 - How to print a list of budget transactions
    • 3436 - How to move a group of items from one holding to another holding on the same BIB record

Cataloging

Record Loading Service to Provide Discovery for Sets of Digital Resources

At the 2010 User Group Meeting the question of how to handle records for sets of digital resources in the most expedient way was considered. Examples of these types of sets include Credo Reference and Films on Demand. Many libraries get these identical sets of records and it seems needlessly burdensome for each library to have to load duplicate sets of records into Aleph and keep them up to date. Stephen outlined a plan for loading the records once and providing discovery via MnPALS Plus that avoid this duplication of effort and provide effective discovery of these resources. This idea met with general agreement.

As a result we have created a test environment where this solution has been implemented.

CASE: Films on Demand is subscribed to by two different libraries. In this test case it is Dakota County Technical College and Hennepin Technical College.

A student at DCT goes to MnPALS Plus from the campus page and the default is to search only DCT. They are interested in Films on Demand and choose that collection. They see the following results and can launch the Film after being authenticated by the DCT proxy.

http://plustest.mnpals.net/vufind/Search/Home?lookfor=&date1=&date2=&sort=&type=all&library=DCT&filter[]=shelf:%22Films%20on%20Demand%22

A student at HTC goes to MnPALS Plus from the campus page and the default is to search only HTC. They are interested in Films on Demand and choose that collection. They see the following results and can launch the Film after being authenticated by the HTC proxy.

http://plustest.mnpals.net/vufind/Search/Home?lookfor=&library=HTC&type=all&filter[]=shelf:%22Films%20on%20Demand%22

A student searches “All Libraries” and sees a single record for a Films on Demand title with multiple links showing:

http://plustest.mnpals.net/vufind/Search/Home?library=&lookfor=film+voices&type=all&sort=&submit=Find&date1=&date2=

Free film voices why go to film school? Published: Films Media Group, 2006 Located: Films on Demand Online Access : DCT - Part of the Films on Demand collection, access requires authentication. HTC - Part of the Films on Demand collection, access requires authentication.

We believe that this is the best and most efficient way to catalog and maintain records and provide end user discovery for sets of digital materials. It will save your staff time and reduce duplication of effort. If you subscribe to Films or Demand, Credo Reference or other record sets for digital resources and would like to use this approach for access and discovery, please contact the PALS office for a “Digital Services Request Form” and return it to PALS as indicated.

Global Changes to Bibliographic Records

On June 19, we made global changes to bibliographic records in SYS01 as listed below.

Please note that in records with multiple 007 fields, changes will be made only to any single 007 in which all criteria are met (e.g., 007/00=a AND 007/01=o).

For each change, we have provided a CCL query that will allow you to preview records that might be changed.

(1) For Map format (007/00=a), position 007/01 (SMD), the value "o" (Photomap) was made obsolete in 1997. We will change the value from "o" to "j" (2D map).
CCL query: wgd=a and wsd=o

(2) For Map format (007/00=a), position 007/03 (Color), the value "b" (Multicolored) was made obsolete in 1982. We will change the value from "b" to "c" (Multicolored).
CCL query: wgd=a and wff=00703b

(3) For Sound Recording format (007/00=s), position 007/07 (Tape width), the value "a" (1/4 inch) was made obsolete in 1981. We will change the value from "a" to "m" (1/4 inch).
CCL query: wgd=s and wff=00707a

(4) For Projected Graphic format (007/00=g), position 007/01 (SMD), the blank value (Not applicable or no attempt to code) was made obsolete in 1980. We will change the value from blank to "|" (No attempt to code).
CCL query: wgd=g not wsd=(a or b or c or d or e or f or g or h or i or j or k or l or m or n or o or p or q or r or s or t or u or v or w or x or y or z or 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or |)

(5) For Projected Graphic format (007/00=g), position 007/04 (Base of emulsion), the blank value (Not applicable or no attempt to code) was made obsolete in 1980. We will change the value from blank to "|" (No attempt to code).
CCL query: wgd=g not wff=(00704a or 00704b or 00704c or 00704d or 00704e or 00704f or 00704g or 00704h or 00704i or 00704j or 00704k or 00704l or 00704m or 00704n or 00704o or 00704p or 00704q or 00704r or 00704s or 00704t or 00704u or 00704v or 00704w or 00704|)

(6) For Projected Graphic format (007/00=g), position 007/01 (SMD), the value "n" (Not applicable) was made obsolete in 1981. We will change the value from "n" to "|" (No attempt to code).
CCL query: wgd=g and wsd=n

(7) For Projected Graphic format (007/00=g), position 007/04 (Base of emulsion), the value "n" (Not applicable) was made obsolete in 1981. We will change the value from "n" to "|" (No attempt to code).
CCL query: wgd=g and wff=00704n

(8) For Video Recording format (007/00=v), position 007/04 (Format), the blank value was made obsolete in 1980. We will change the value from blank to "|" (No attempt to code).
CCL query: wgd=v not wff=(00704a or 00704b or 00704c or 00704d or 00704e or 00704f or 00704g or 00704h or 00704i or 00704j or 00704k or 00704l or 00704m or 00704n or 00704o or 00704p or 00704q or 00704r or 00704s or 00704t or 00704u or 00704v or 00704w or 00704|

(9) For Remote Sensing Image format (007/00=r), position 007/01 (SMD), the blank value (No type specified) was made obsolete in 1999. We will change the value from blank to "u" (Unspecified).
CCL query: wgd=r not wsd=(a or b or c or d or e or f or g or h or i or j or k or l or m or n or o or p or q or r or s or t or u or v or w or x or y or z or 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or |)

(10) For Video Recording format (007/00=v), position 007/01 (SMD), the blank value (Not applicable or no attempt to code) was made obsolete in 1980. We will change the value from blank to "|" (No attempt to code).
CCL query: wgd=v not wsd=(a or b or c or d or e or f or g or h or i or j or k or l or m or n or o or p or q or r or s or t or u or v or w or x or y or z or 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or |)

(11) For Continuing Resources format (006/00=s), position 006/03 (ISSN center) was made obsolete in 2004. If 006/03 contains any value, we will change it to a blank.
CCL query: wt6=s not wff=00603-

Both the PALS staff and members of the Cataloging Steering Committee have tested and reviewed these changes on the development server. Except for a small number of records with manual changes, we are through with the 007 and 006 fixed field changes that Mary Ann and the Cataloging Steering Committee had identified.

If you have any questions or comments, please submit them at https://pals.custhelp.com/

Problem with Authorities/Indexing of Series Titles

A problem was reported with authorities/indexing of series titles. It appeared that Aleph corrected series statements by removing the "A" or "An" or "The" but did not alter the related skip character. Examples:

  • "Ary of America" (to get Library of America where the "The" was stripped)
  • "brary of literary criticism (to get Library of ...where the "A" was stripped)
  • "ory of Accounting" (to get History of Accounting where the "The" was stripped)

There were well over 100K old bib records affected. The problem stems from the bib record obsolete 440 fields that were coded with a second indicator stripping the articles from the heading.

The authority records come in without the articles so when a match is made, it removed the number of characters that were coded in the 440 field second indicator.

We did global changes to the 440 field second indicators to change them from a 4/0 for the headings with The articles, 3/0 for An articles, and 2/0 for the A articles to clean this up.

The cleanup of the second indicators has been completed. There were nearly 87000 bib records corrected. There should not be anymore problems since the 440 field is obsolete now.

Circulation

  • The Minnesota Historical Society will be trained on using the Circulation module in Aleph on June 27. We are converting their patron database to Aleph. Although the collections at MHS don't circulate, we are helping them develop a workflow to use the Circulation module to track patron visits.
  • We again had a problem with the daily PLIF load that was first discovered in April. A corrupted patron record in the patron database caused 53 patron records from several campuses to be created without a barcode. We have fixed those patron records and have identified a special patron record that may have been causing the problem.

Course Reserves

  • SMU and RCL-Hutchinson have started to set up course reserves.
  • RCL has requested on-site Course Reserves Training. Jenny will travel to Hutchinson the week of August 1 to conduct training.

Systems

Barcode Scanning

  • A few sites have been reporting problems with scanning the printed barcode found in the ILL slip. (Also can be found ANYWHERE a barcode is printed in ALEPH)
    This issue pops up when sites upgrade to Windows 7 on their pc's. Windows 7 appears to alter the CarolinaBar-B39 font slightly.
    By re-configuring the name of the font used in the system, we can correct this issue. Answer ID# 3435

Upcoming Training

System Librarians Training

  • A two day System Librarians training will be held at PALS on June 22-23.
    Thirteen people are scheduled to attend. (Representing DNR, 2-MSL, BLC, HTC, UCR, 2-RCL, NCT, WSU, NHC, SCS, LSC)
  • Due to the quick fill of this class, another will be offered in September 2011.

Evergreen

ECRL Implementation

  • ECRL was upgraded to 2.0 on May 19.
  • Anoop noticed errors in the logs and reran the upgrade on May 20.
  • Galen Charlton (ESI) worked with Anoop and Jenny to troubleshoot issues with the upgrade.

Training

  • We are waiting to hear when ECRL would like to have Acq/Serials/Booking training.

Documentation

  • Dee and Jenny continue to go through existing acquisitions documentation from GPLS and KCLS in an effort to combine the two sets for Evergreen's Documentation Interest Group (DIG).
  • Jenny created a basic workflow document for acquisitions set up and ordering to use in ECRL's training.
  • Jenny continues to solicit reports documentation/documentation testers for DIG.

Other Products/Services

EZproxy

MnPALS Plus

  • A new tab should be appearing in your MnPALS Plus Catalog.
    • Mn Digital lib: The Minnesota Digital Library is available to search just like you would search your MnPALS Plus Catalog. You can jump from your local catalog to the Digital Library by clicking the tab at the top of the results list, and any search you have done in your local catalog will carry over to the Digital Library.
  • For more information on MnPALS Plus, check out the PALS Forum: http://forums.mnpals.org/index.php?board=35.0

PALSconnect ERM

  • A CSV file of ERM records for Century College was loaded into the PALSconnect ERM.

PALSconnect Linker

  • ProQuest has reported that they are working to resolve problems with their new platform. Fixes are expected to be implemented in June.
  • We invite you to post all your Open URL Link Resolver questions and tips on the PALS Forum: http://forums.mnpals.org/index.php?board=68.0

Task Forces

Authorities

Indexing

MnPALS Plus Working Group

Reports Task Force