We are always so busy looking forward, or on some days just keeping up with current events, that it's kind of fun to look back in this anniversary year. MARCIVE was incorporated in 1981, the same year that the first US space shuttle Columbia successfully made its maiden flight.

Ronald Reagan became President and nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman justice on the US Supreme Court. She obviously has staying power, a quality we admire. Under a less auspicious star, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Henry Cisneros was elected mayor of San Antonio, the first Mexican-American to run a major American city. (San Antonio is the ninth largest city in the US, at least until the next census comes out.)

At a cost of $7.2 million, the 1884 Lone Star brewery was renovated to become the magnificent San Antonio Museum of Art. (I still have the button used for their grand opening, "We brew art".)

The Rolling Stones sang "Start Me Up", a theme that would be recycled a few years later, and earned a record $25 million doing a forty-city tour of the US.

The portable Sony Walkman became a huge seller and made the world start thinking there wasn't anything we couldn't make mobile. All of you Palm Pilot owners probably recognize this trend.

Films we watched included Arthur, starring Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli, John Gielgud; My Dinner with Andre, Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory; On Golden Pond, Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Fonda; Raiders of the Lost Ark directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford. We didn't have easy access to video cataloging then, as we do today.

We were reading (and cataloging) Andrew M. Greeley, The Cardinal Sins; Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune; John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire; and John Updike, Rabbit is Rich.

Of course, here at MARCIVE, we have been offering affordable, fast cataloging the entire time we have been in business.

Many things have changed in 20 years. But we like to think that the unchanging philosophy of our business—working hard to satisfy our customers—will continue to sustain us.

We thank all the staff whose dedication and hard work have brought us here, both those who are with us today and those who helped us in the past. But most of all, we appreciate the wonderful librarians who have encouraged us all these years, and allowed us to be of service.

Sources:

Victor Bondi (editor) American Decades, 1980-1989, Gale Research, Detroit, MI, 1996.

Bernard Grun. The Timetables of History : A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events, 3^rd rev. ed., Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1991.

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Three services from MARCIVE are especially appealing to III customers: government document cataloging, outsourced authorities processing, and MARC Record Enrichment Service (TOC data).

From May 20 to 22, Janifer Meldrum will be available to discuss how III customers can benefit from these MARCIVE services as well as retrospective conversion, Brief Record Upgrade, and catalog card production from exported MARC records.

Colgate University librarian Ann Kebabian will be speaking on "In or Out : Options for Making Authority Control Work". Colgate obtains Ongoing Authorities and Notification Service from MARCIVE, as well as government document cataloging and Shipping List Service.

Start your "information odyssey" with US government documents on the web. Stop by booth 333 from May 26-29 and ask about Documents Without Shelves.

We can also help you obtain cataloging in MARC format or on catalog cards, book labels, smart barcode labels, and MeSH and LC authority control.

And to all our hospital librarian friends, we are proud to be a sponsor of the Hospital Library Section Colleague Connection, Monday night 5:30-7:00 PM. See you there!

Joan Chapa will be participating in a meeting for libraries of the University System of Georgia on June 4-5. She will be presenting implementation information about MARCIVE government document loading, authorities processing, and MARC Record Enrichment (TOC).

From June 9-14 please drop by booth 732 for information about simplifying your cataloging process.

We also have insider information about our hometown!

Law firm librarians, please ask us about cataloging over the web. Academic law librarians, we can offer you authority control and government document processing. We would love to discuss any of our services July 15-17 in booth 319.

IFLA is meeting in the United States this year and we are looking forward to welcoming customers and other librarians from around the world August 20-23. Booth 2117.

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We always invite you to drop by our offices when you are in San Antonio, whether for business or pleasure, or conferences, which are often a mixture of both. San Antonio was the site of last year's ALA MidWinter and this year's Texas Library Association and Special Libraries Association meetings.

Those occasions are a great opportunity to meet your Customer Service Representatives.

But if your travel plans do not include San Antonio, we would like to do the next best thing: use our newsletter to introduce you to our hard-working Customer Service team. Here they are, in their own words:

Patricia Harwood, Wanda Leasman, and Samantha Nichols

I started working for MARCIVE in 1992. For my first two-and-a-half years, I worked in the GPO Services department where I was responsible for the record input and distribution of products from our Shipping List Service.

In 1995 I moved to the Customer Service Department, and was promoted to Team Leader in the department last year. I like helping people, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my contact with customers as a Customer Service Representative.

I started work at MARCIVE in 1997 as a temporary in the Data Entry Department, where I keyed retrospective conversion projects. I became a permanent employee on June 8, 1998. I was then promoted to a position of Customer Service Representative on March 26, 1999.

I really enjoy working with our customers to set up their accounts and answer questions they might have about MARCIVE cataloging services. I believe we have the nicest, most polite customers I have ever worked with.

I've been with MARCIVE for about two years total. I started as a temp in the Data Entry Department, and was brought up to Customer Service in December of 1999. This has been the most gratifying position I've ever held. I truly enjoy talking to and serving our customers. They've been a real blessing.

What Do Our Customer Service Reps Do?

Talk to prospective customers and explain our cataloging services (cards, MARC bib records, book label sets, smart barcode labels, accompanying authority records).

Establish accounts for new cataloging customers.

Create computer profiles based on the paper specifications submitted by the customer.

Make sure products are formatted the way the customer wants.

Solve problems, such as customer's records not loading properly.

Help GPO CAT/PAC and MarciveWeb DOCS customers with access problems.

Answer MarciveWeb SELECT questions.

Modify profiles to adapt to customer's changing needs.

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In March 2001, we announced the availability of four reports to customers who send us bibliographic records for MARC Record Enrichment. These reports make it easier for you to see the age of the materials that are being enriched and broad subject categories as revealed by the LC classification.

A statistical report is available at no charge. It gives the number of bibliographic records processed, the number enriched, and the breakdown by category of enrichment (Table of Contents, Fiction/Biography, and Summaries).

Now available for a one-time setup fee are three additional reports, providing lists of titles enriched and sorted by

Existing MRES customers: To change your profile to begin receiving the new reports, please contact Denise Thompson at dthompsn@marcive.com.

Cataloging customers: Reports are not available for daily cataloging customers.

Prospective MRES customers: Please contact your marketing representative, either Joan Chapa jchapa@marcive.com or Rose Marie McElfresh rmcelfrh@marcive.com for a current profile and additional information.

MARC Record Enrichment is a service that adds information to your cataloging records to make it easier for patrons to find relevant library materials and determine the appropriateness of retrieved titles. We've added these reports as a service management tool.—JM

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When the Novanet Consortium found themselves without an authority vendor, they decided to see what outsourcing options were available to them. Robert Cook, Head of Cataloguing Systems at the Patrick Power Library, Saint Mary's University, cochaired a committee to make the decision. We asked him if he would talk to us about the process.

Saint Mary's University is part of the Novanet Consortium of University and Community College Libraries in the province of Nova Scotia. We previously obtained our authority control through Blackwell North America and were left high and dry when BNA was no longer able to provide this service.

We contacted the various authority control providers to obtain information on their services, had preliminary discussions with representatives of the most promising of them, and then requested estimates. MARCIVE was able to provide all the services we required at a competitive price. We were also impressed with the competence and helpfulness of the MARCIVE representatives.

We established our project with history file creation, gap file processing, and optional electronic reports. We continue to use Overnight Authorities and the Notification Service.

Absolutely. Our mission is to provide efficient access for our users to all our resources, and our online catalogue is an integral part of this. Authority control is essential to maintaining a high quality catalogue.

Robert Cook, Head of Cataloging Systems, Saint Mary's University

I would say go ahead and do it, even if resources and time are too scarce to undertake all the manual intervention that is desirable to maintain the quality of any authority control system. Imperfect authority control is still far preferable to no authority control.

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At the beginning of this year, the Library of Congress implemented the long-planned change to the format of control numbers for its authority records. Newly assigned numbers reflect a 4-digit year. LC is not changing the format of LCCNs for authority records distributed before January 1, 2001. When LC updates an old authority record, it retains the old LCCN, in the old format (2-digit year). Therefore, in any given batch of authority records, libraries will receive a mixture of old format LCCNs and new format LCCNs.

Examples of old and new LCCNs for names                                      Examples of old and new LCCNs for subjects

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Janifer Meldrum presents plaque and check to Tom Rohrig at TLA.

At the Texas Library Association Annual Conference in San Antonio, the TLA GODORT Awards Committee and MARCIVE, Inc. presented the TLA GODORT/MARCIVE "Knowledge is Power" Award for 2001 to Thomas Rohrig.

Richard Smith, one of the founders of MARCIVE and long active with the government documents project, and Janifer Meldrum, Director of Marketing, were on hand to congratulate Mr. Rohrig.

This award honors an individual recognized by his or her peers as being an active supporter and advocate for the use of government information in education, research, and/or commerce. We support this award with a $400 contribution.

Tom Rohrig has over 20 years experience with government documents at Texas Tech University. He is the Assistant Head of Information Services for Government Documents and Maps. As the regional depository for the northern half of Texas, Texas Tech under the guidance of Mr. Rohrig, serves not only the local community but also 25 selective depositories in its territory.

A tireless advocate for government information, he works to promote documents in the local, regional, and state levels. He has presented several workshops to local and regional groups: "Business Reference Sources for Small and Medium-Sized Libraries" for the West Texas Library System and "Getting to the Heart of Lubbock: Local Information Sources" for TLA District 9.

Mr. Rohrig is very active in TLA, being a member of the Government Documents Round Table since 1981. He has served as an officer, committee member, and conference presenter over the years and has been active in the district and national arenas. A core member of the TLA GODORT Electronic Resources Committee and of the State Plan for Texas Documents Committee, he is working to establish policies for the management and protection of electronic information and for the coordination and promotion of resource sharing among depository libraries.

Service is at the heart of Mr. Rohrig’s philosophy. As one of his colleagues writes, "He is patient and thoughtful and will work tirelessly to resolve a question for any patron". He works with students, citizens from the community, and librarians from the selectives with equal consideration and dedication. It is a tribute to him that he shares the respect of library user and library professional alike.

Tom Rohrig, Assistant Head for Information Services for Government Documents and Maps, Texas Tech University, and
Knowledge Is Power 2001 Award Winner

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From April 1-4, Government Printing Office administrators and depository librarians came to San Antonio for four days of programs and networking.

After a day of meetings on Monday, the participants congregated at the San Antonio Public Library for a reception planned by the San Antonio Area Documents Users Group and underwritten by MARCIVE. The reception planners had a real hit on their hands.

Librarians at the Depository Library Reception

Jim Noël, our Manager of GPO Services, and Joan Chapa, Marketing Representative, stand ready to greet party-goers at the San Antonio Public Library.

The reception was planned by the San Antonio Area Documents Users Group: Myrna Langford (Trinity University), Kathy Amen (St. Mary's University), Jackie Crinion (University of Texas, San Antonio), Donna Hogan (University of Texas, San Antonio), Amory Irby (San Antonio College), Michael Kaminski (Trinity University), Wilson Plunkett (San Antonio Public Library), Rhonda Davila (San Antonio Public Library), Dorothy Blow (San Antonio Public Library).

We offered a tour of our company on Tuesday morning. Twenty-seven librarians came out to see both our government document and non-document operations. Richard Smith, Jim Noël, and Joan Chapa led the tour and the group was welcomed by our President, Robert Fleming. Participants met Donna Nystel, who handles GPO retro projects and ongoing subscriptions, Ron Volz, who processes the Shipping List Service products, and Charity Fleming, Business Office, who handles new sales and renewals.

One of the topics that came up during the conference was our investigation into using Department of Energy records for some kind
of project. If your library is interested in DOE records, please contact Jim at jnoel@marcive.com.

On the last day of the meeting, Jim attended the LPS Systems Modernization discussion. He was asked whether we might be able to dispense with item numbers eventually. He said we would, as long as classification is still being done and materials get consistent treatment.

Librarians on the tour of MARCIVE met Ron Volz, Donna Nystel, Jim Noël, and Richard Smith

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NELINET members will now find it especially easy to use several MARCIVE services, including authorities processing, match/merge deduplication, MARC Record Enrichment (such as Table of Contents), and reclassification. In April of this year, the two institutions agreed to work together on selected projects for their mutual customers.

NELINET is a member-owned, member-governed cooperative of more than 500 academic, public, and special libraries in the six New England states. Although NELINET provides access to OCLC services, they also provide a number of services from other suppliers.

If your library is a member of NELINET and you are considering having authority work done, you may contact NELINET representatives Shelly Edwards (sedwards@nelinet.net), Mary Jo Boland (mboland@nelinet.net), or Amy Benson (abenson@nelinet.net) to discuss your project. They are also available toll-free at 1-800-NELINET; Voice (508) 460-7700; FAX (508) 460-9455.

Alternatively, you may contact our representatives Joan Chapa (jchapa@marcive.com) or Rose Marie McElfresh (rmcelfrh@marcive.com) first to discuss your requirements. Be sure to tell them if you want your project billed through NELINET.

NOTE: Even MARCIVE projects not listed in the box to the right may be billed through NELINET for the payment of a small invoicing fee. Please contact your NELINET representative if this option is useful to you.

We welcome this opportunity to work with NELINET and all of their members.

Applicable MARCIVE Services
Authorities processing
Overnight Authorities
Match/merge deduplication
MARC Record Enrichment (TOC, Fiction/ Biography/ Summaries)
Reclassification

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