MARCIVE Newsletter

Erlanger is an urban medical center serving a metro population of over 400,000. It is a teaching hospital with residency programs in nine medical specialties. The Library serves a population of 3,000 employees, 800 physicians and over 200 residents, medical students and clinical interns. Their collection consists of 8,000 medical textbooks, 345 current journal subscriptions, assorted CD-ROMs and medical indexes.

The Library needed to automate quickly—we were already nearly a decade behind in our automation. We needed to do it cheaply as well, given the current financial climate in health care. We have only three staff and couldn’t possibly do the data entry ourselves, so recon was a necessity.

I interviewed and solicited bids from three different recon vendors. While MARCIVE’s competitive price was a major factor, my favorable impression of the staff also played a big part in the final decision. Of all the vendors reps I spoke with, yours was by the far the most knowledgeable person I encountered.

Yes. When I was hired in late 1997, I was given the charge of bringing the Library up-to-date technologically and I set a goal for myself to have it done within one year. It took two months longer than that, but now, in early 1999, our physicians can access our catalog from any workstation on our Intranet. The records MARCIVE provided have turned out to be of excellent quality.

I would say "Don't wait! Go ahead and do it". There are still an awful lot of small hospital libraries out there that continue to rely on the paper card catalog out of habit or perhaps out of fear that they cannot afford to automate. Automation is not as expensive as you might think. Good systems can be had for as little as $2500. Recon for a small collection can be done very affordably. And it’s hard to overstate how incredible the benefits are. The time savings and increases in efficiency alone can allow a small one or two person library to reach new heights of service.

We will use MarciveWeb SELECT to get our cataloging, spine labels and barcodes. It’s very simple and economical. And I love being able to search as much as I want to find the record I need.

I would like to mention that I am a non-cataloger and come from a background that is entirely in public services. I had never cataloged a book, never attempted to maintain a card catalog and, for that matter, had never even worked in a library that had a traditional paper card catalog! So needless to say, I was completely lost at points during this process because I know so little about the science of cataloging, the structure of MARC records and how it all fits together within a database and an online catalog. I am eternally grateful to Rose Marie McElfresh and Carol Love for helping me through this project with such good humor and patience. Rose Marie and Carol were always there with helpful answers and tips on what I needed to do next. And now I can say goodbye to that old card catalog and my new online catalog works just like I wanted it to!

For a project which relied on MARCIVE’s Database Output service, we spoke with Elizabeth R. Franck, Director, Health Sciences Library, New York Methodist Hospital, in Brooklyn, New York. She had elected to have her MARCIVE catalog card database output for loading into the Professional Software’s OnLine Catalog module. At the same time, Ms. Franck obtained smart barcode labels for applying to the Library’s collection.

When I went to New York Methodist Hospital in the spring of 1994, I decided to purchase books primarily from Rittenhouse and have them order cards and labels from MARCIVE. That way there would be an archival tape of most of our holdings to await the day when I could start an online catalog… In late 1997, I declared 1998 "The Year of the Online Catalog".

METRO, the Metropolitan New York Library Agency, financed small technology grants every year. In 1997, I applied for a grant for software, barcode reader, barcode labels and database output.

This is a work in progress. We have run into many delays, mostly due to lack of staff time. We are a very busy 602-bed teaching hospital with ten medical residency programs, including a new emergency medicine residency and a chaplaincy residency. [Even with all that we do] the online catalog is going to be a reality before the next century!

I would have started the weeding process at the time of purchasing each new book. Do an inventory of the collection first, if you can. If you don’t have the time or staff, consider hiring an outside agency. You may be able to make a case for this if you tell administration how much staff salaries and overtime this would save. Stress the fact that an inventory gives a good estimate of the worth of the collection. It is also a base line for monitoring security, and providing information to residency programs being reviewed.

Read everything you can about online catalogs and talk to those in institutions similar in size to yours who have been through it. (Take notes!) Brooklyn and Staten Island Librarians were wonderful resources.

When applying for grants read every word of the requirements; then read them again. If the grant does not cover salaries, request other costs to be covered.

We are now requesting cataloging through MarciveWeb SELECT. This is great because one can alter the call number to fit local needs. We add edition statements so that they appear on the spine labels. It also enables the Librarian to take similar records and change them to fit the item in hand—that is, if the only record on Web SELECT is for the earlier edition, you can tailor it to fit the current edition. Books get out of the processing room faster.

Order cataloging one day, it’s ready to download the next day. Upload it into your system that same day and—voilà!—the book is accessible by the staff and public within 24 hours.

We still get spine labels from MARCIVE, which are much more professional looking than anything we can type. The smart barcode labels are tied to the cataloging record so it eliminates another step.

An unexpected benefit of the online catalog project is that it is generating more reader interest. Since I am spending more time at the computer in the processing room—you know, the one with the big sign on the door LIBRARY STAFF ONLY, the attendings and medical students are coming into that room to ask reference questions. This has led to sharing more information about what they have learned on their own computers, and web sites that they find useful.

There are also happier customers charging out books. For doctors who dash into the Library to take out, renew, or return a book, one zap with the barcode reader and it’s done—they can dash out the door again.

New York Methodist Hospital Library

OCLC libraries who need MeSH authority work performed on daily cataloging should stop by our booth (#402) for more information. And if you are migrating to Endeavor, Innovative, or any system which utilizes MeSH authority records, ask how we can ease the transition—for less money than you think.

If the interviews on page 1 have you ready to start retrospective conversion or database output, come talk to Rose Marie McElfresh and Janifer Meldrum May 15-18.

We are also happy to be the sponsor of the New Members Reception. See you there!

Are you migrating from a nonMARC or short-record system to a full-fledged MARC system? Looking for a more efficient way to do authority work? Have US government documents for which you need cataloging? Please come by booth #1333 and talk to Joan Chapa June 6-8.

We look forward to meeting with all of the Air Force librarians who are able to attend our session Thursday June 24. We’ll be explaining the new contract options.

Want to put a face to the name? Stop by our booth at ALA and say hi to Cindy Fleming, Denise Thompson, Joan Chapa, Rose Marie McElfresh, Janifer Meldrum, Jim Noël, Scott Fleming, and Bob Fleming. We look forward to meeting you and answering your questions June 26-29.

As a sponsor of the Government Document Round Table membership reception, we hope to see all of our GODORT friends Sunday evening.

Whether you work in a law school library or a firm, MARCIVE has services that will save you time and money. Hope to see you in DC July 18-20!

Medical school and hospital librarians, please drop by our booth at this October conference.

School librarians have responded enthusiastically to our retrospective conversion service, Brief Record Upgrade Service, and MarciveWeb SELECT cataloging service. If you want to discuss any of these services in the context of your district or school, please stop by our booth during the conference (Nov. 11-13).

Do you have questions about using MarciveWeb SELECT?

Many questions can be answered using the context-sensitive Help. Some librarians have printed those screens out and put them in a binder so they can refer to them and make their own notes in the margins.

Other questions can only be answered by our Customer Service department. For example, if you submitted an order and you’ve checked to make sure MarciveWeb SELECT really shows 0 titles in your order now, but you haven’t received it, Customer Service will track the order for you.

However, there are other questions which deal with procedures or handling particular types of materials which you might want to pose to another librarian. To help you find other users of MarciveWeb SELECT, we have initiated an electronic list so that you can post your questions or answer other librarians’ questions. We have subscribed every cataloging customer for whom we had an email address.

Postings are only accepted from MARCIVE cataloging customers.

If you have any questions about or problems with the list, send a note to the moderator/owner:

So far this has been a very low volume list, so don’t worry about being overwhelmed, as you can be with AUTOCAT or LM-NET.

We view this list as being the online equivalent of a users’ meeting, so we may post information to it from time to time, just as we would share announcements at a users’ meeting.--JM

Moving News

Before you ship shelflist cards or other packages to our street address via courier, please see the story on page 8. We have a new street address!

Most of you use our PO Box and that’s fine. We still prefer all orders and correspondence to come there.

P.S. If you were subscribed to one of our electronic lists, you would have been the first to receive the news about our move. So that’s a good reason to subscribe right there!

Retrospective Conversion: (Option chosen by Erlanger Health System Medical Library) Library sends its shelflist cards to MARCIVE, where the cards are searched against a 10 million title database, including all records distributed by the National Library of Medicine, the Library of Congress and other agencies. If a match is found, searching staff update the record with the library’s local information. If a match is not found, data entry staff create a MARC record from the information on the card.

Database Output: (Option chosen by New York Methodist Hospital) For libraries which have used MARCIVE for catalog cards, a MARC record has been retained for each order submitted. Outputting this file is a an excellent way to develop a database quickly and inexpensively.

What many libraries do not realize is that outputting a card database can have a few drawbacks. Unless the library was careful to send deletions for any discards or incorrect orders, the archived database will require work before truly reflecting the library’s holdings. 2) The records do not contain detailed holdings that some systems require and that we can provide as part of a retro. 3) The records reflect the cataloging practices and call numbers at the time, whereas during a retro we can normalize some practices and call numbers for a more consistent output.

Do-It-Yourself with MarciveWeb SELECT: You can also get MARC records for older material by going into MarciveWeb SELECT and downloading the records yourself.

Whether the library chose retro conversion, database output, or MarciveWeb SELECT, all subject headings can be examined for conformity to NLM’s medical subject heading thesaurus (MeSH), or LCSH if appropriate. Names and series can be compared to LC files, which shares practice with NLM. Authority processing of headings is free with retrospective conversion and available at a nominal charge with database output and MarciveWeb SELECT.

Over the years, we’ve had a profile option for a printed report called the "New Titles List." Developed by Texas A&M University, it is a single-line listing of the records supplied on the monthly Ongoing GPO Database Service file. The elements included are decided by the customer, but generally what is displayed are the SuDoc number, item number, brief title, OCLC number, holding code, and format. The Library used it to identify documents by format and to direct them to different locations in the library. The list has become more useful—again thanks to our customers, as we can now at the library’s request include the "tmp" number from the shipping list record that the full record should have overlaid. This feature assists the library in determining which records should have overlaid, and reports those that did not. Including the format (serial, monograph, etc.) gives further clues as to why a full record would not have a "tmp" number, such as the presence of "s" for serial. Libraries receiving shipping list records generally do not receive records for serials, but would get a full GPO record.

The University of Minnesota has us split the list into two parts: those records with "tmp" numbers, and those without these numbers. There is no additional charge for this split.

Since the cost of this report (in paper or via FTP) is not part of a subscription and is based on a unit cost per bib record produced, a library may start or stop this option at any time. Many libraries state that the report is particularly useful when they are first starting the SLS and Ongoing services to fine-tune their technical services procedures.

If you would like to see some samples, inquire about pricing, or have further questions, please contact Jim Noël.--JIC

On the face page, you may notice that some new customers are receiving "changed records" or "all records with URLs". Ongoing GPO Database customers will see these new options on their renewal statements.

The "Changed Records" option allows the library to receive records that GPO has changed and re-distributed. There are all kinds of changes: item number/SuDoc number correction; if it’s a serial, the change in frequency of distribution; and the most popular—the correction to or addition of a URL or PURL to previously distributed records. If the library can accept all changed records which match their item profile integrated with the new records that we distribute monthly, there is no additional charge. Libraries wanting the changed records in a separate file, or only certain changed records based on some criteria (e.g. only serial records or records with URLs), pay an additional charge above the regular yearly subscription rate.

To truly open your documents collection—without increasing your depository rate of selection, you can opt to receive any record with a URL—without having selected the item number in the record. This option is very attractive to smaller depositories (or even non-depositories) that wish to broaden their collection, without having to select more item numbers and process additional documents in paper or microfiche format. GPO adds an increasing number of records with URLs or PURLs each month. We do have to output these records to a separate file, so there is an extra charge.

For more information and pricing regarding these options, please contact Joan Chapa.—JIC

Congratulations to customers completing a GPO Retrospective Extraction project and/or starting subscriptions to Ongoing GPO Database Service and Shipping List Service (SLS), from January 1998-February 1999.

As we were going to press, MARCIVE was in the process of moving to a larger facility with a much better layout. Over the last 14 years in this location, we had added space as we needed it, although the arrangement of offices did not always permit an entire department to be together…or even at the same end of the building.

What this move will mean to our customers is a more efficient operation, which we hope will serve them better. Some disruption is anticipated in the use of MarciveWeb DOCS and MarciveWeb SELECT during the move itself, however every attempt is being made to keep it to a minimum.

Planned date for the move: Easter weekend, April 2-4.

Please note that we still prefer to receive mail at our post office box, which remains the same. The new street address only affects shipments of shelflist cards and other items arriving by courier. Telephone numbers have all the stayed the same, as have our email addresses and website.

If you are a local customer who drops off orders in person, please call for directions. And certainly anyone who lives here or is visiting, we would be happy to give you a tour….as soon as the dust settles!

MARCIVE, Inc.
P.O. Box 4750
San Antonio TX 78265-7508

MARCIVE, Inc.
12100 Crownpoint
Suite 160
San Antonio TX 78233-5367

Toll free voice 1-800-531-7678
Voice 210-646-6161
FAX 210-646-0167

info@marcive.com