# Presentation: 934023

## Access Level for Remote Access Electronic Resources

- Results of the Access Level Test
- December 2004-January 2005

- David Reser, Acting Digital Projects Coordinator, Bibliographic Access Divisions, Library of Congress

## Background

- The concept of an "access level" MARC/AACR catalog record is proposed by an internal LC workgroup operating under the FY03/04 strategic plan (for the full report, see _[http://www.loc.](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)__[gov](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)__[/](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)__[catdir](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)__[/](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)__[stratplan](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)__[/goal4wg2report.](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)__[pdf](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/stratplan/goal4wg2report.pdf)_
- LC managers agree to pursue, Office of Strategic Initiatives agrees to fund a contract with consultant Tom Delsey (Spring 2004)
- Delsey works with LC project team of cataloging and reference staff (Summer 2004)
- Final Access level project report and core data set received from Delsey (August 2004)
- LC managers approve report and implementation plan based on report, including a test (October 2004)

## Background (continued)

- Briefing on "access level" at Bibliographic Access Divisions' all-staff meeting (October 2004)
- Delsey report posted to public Web page with announcement of test (November 2004) _[http://www.loc.](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/access/accessrecord.html)__[gov](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/access/accessrecord.html)__[/](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/access/accessrecord.html)__[catdir](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/access/accessrecord.html)__[/access/](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/access/accessrecord.html)__[accessrecord](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/access/accessrecord.html)__[.html](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/access/accessrecord.html)_
- Five catalogers recruited to conduct a test of the core data set and cataloging guidelines (first orientation, November 2004)
- Collections and Services staff recruited to recommend sites to support test (December 2004)
- Phase 1 of Test commences (December 2004)

## Access Level Test

- 100 records to be cataloged at full level (control group)-Phase 1
- Duplications discovered at cataloging stage reduced total to 96 records
- 100 records to be cataloged at access level-Phase 2
- 25 records to overlap both groups to aid in comparing results

- Full

-        Access

## Catalogers selected	

- 5 catalogers
- From 3 different cataloging divisions
- All fully trained to catalog electronic resources
- Each to catalog 20 resources at full level, and 20 resources at access level

## Data collection 

- Data collection sheet accompanies each resource to be cataloged.  Data recorded by catalogers includes:
- Test phase (full or access)
- Time spent cataloging the resource
- Authority records created or edited
- Authority records **not** created (access only)
- Presence or absence of summary in original recommendation
- Availability of external record for copy cat or resource record (full only)
- Special problems/comments

## Full level results- 96 records

| Cataloger | Time spent in hours (mean) | Authority work |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cataloger 1 | 2:16 | 14 |
| Cataloger 2 | 2:13 | 2 |
| Cataloger 3 | 1:35 | 5 |
| Cataloger 4 | 1:16 | 7 |
| Cataloger 5 | 1:11 | 7 |
| Total | 1:42 | 35 |

- Wide variation in mean time spent between catalogers is result of a complicated set of factors, including amount of authority work required, cataloger experience, comfort level in performing subject analysis on a broad range of topics, etc.

## Impact of externally available copy– Full level

|  | Cataloging copy available
(N=57) | Original Cataloging
(N=39) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Time spent in hours (mean) | 
1:36 | 
1:51 |
| Authority work | 
11 | 
24 |

## Impact of summary presence in TrackER request– Full level

| Summary present
(N=59) | No summary
(N=37) | Difference |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 
1:36 | 
1:53 | 
- :17 |

- Time spent in hours

## Phase 2– Access Level

- Second orientation session for catalogers (Jan. 2005)
- Feedback on phase 1
- Introduction to access level core data set
- Introduction to cataloging guidelines
- Introduction to treatment of authorities
- Formulate name/title headings according to AACR2, but only update/create name authority records if references and research need to be recorded
- Access level template distributed
- Sets standardized data elements, including encoding level (Ldr/17) in use for test (3- Abbreviated level)
- Full level "overlap" records deleted from LC catalog

## Access level results– 100 records

| Cataloger | Time spent in hours (mean) | Authority work | Authorities not made |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cataloger 1 | :55 | 13 | 0 |
| Cataloger 2 | 1:12 | 0 | 0 |
| Cataloger 3 | :41 | 0 | 7 |
| Cataloger 4 | :31 | 1 | 1 |
| Cataloger 5 | :35 | 1 | 2 |
| Total | :46 | 15 | 10 |

## Full vs. Access– Time spent

| Cataloger | Time spent in hours (mean) |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | Full | Access | Difference |
| Cataloger 1 | 2:16 | :55 | - 1:21 |
| Cataloger 2 | 2:13 | 1:12 | - 1:01 |
| Cataloger 3 | 1:35 | :41 | - :54 |
| Cataloger 4 | 1:16 | :31 | - :45 |
| Cataloger 5 | 1:11 | :35 | - :36 |
| Totals | 1:42 | :46 | - :55 |

## Full vs. Access– Name Headings

| Name headings (100, 110, 111, 700, 710) |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Full level |  | Access level |  | Difference |
| Number | Mean per record | Number  | Mean per record |  |
| 141 | 1.47 | 108 | 1.08 | - .39 per record |

## Full vs. Access- Name headings

- All of the "difference" between full and access level is related to fewer Added Entry—Corporate Name headings (MARC 710 field)
- 111 in "full level" and 78 in "access level"
- Difference most likely attributable to "Guideline 18" for access level
- Corporate body must be named prominently
- Likely that a user would search for the resource under the body
- Avoid current practice of "keep looking" for a body to name in the record until one is found, no matter how deep one has to look

## Full vs. Access– Title access

| Titles  (240, 245, 246, 730, 740) |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Full level |  | Access level |  | Difference |
| Number | Mean per record | Number  | Mean per record |  |
| 232 | 2.42 | 166 | 1.66 | - .76 per record |

## Full vs. Access– Title access

- All of the "difference" between full and access level is related to the Variant title field (MARC 246 field)
- 129 in "full level" and 65 in "access level"
- Difference most likely attributable to "Guideline 19" for access level
-  the cataloging guidelines specifically targeted the reduction of 'frivolous' variants, e.g., those that don't contain significant differences from the title proper or from other variants, and prefaced variants that are traditionally recorded, e.g., "Welcome to [real title]"

## Full vs. Access-- Subjects

| Subject access (LCSH: 600, 610, 650, 651; 653 subject keyword terms) |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Full level |  | Access level |  | Difference |
| Number | Mean per record | Number  | Mean per record |  |
| 343 | 3.57 | 334 | 3.34 | - .23 per record |

## Full vs. Access-- Subjects

- The very small difference was a satisfying result, as catalogers were instructed in the guidelines to assign LC subject headings to "access level" records in accordance with practices for "full level" (e.g., including the same level of specificity in subject heading selection)

## Sample records from Phase 2 of test (access level)

- LCCN 2005567054
- Medieval illuminated manuscripts
- LCCN 2005567056
- Moving image collections
- LCCN 2005567060
- The Drexel Digital Museum project historic costume collection
- (available via http://catalog.loc.gov)

## Anecdotal Feedback from Catalogers

- General impressions
- breath of fresh air
- enjoyed creating the records
- able to capture the most important parts of a site
- provided summaries were a big benefit
- required a "mindset" shift that was beneficial
- would like to do only access level
- access level would be ideal for training subject catalogers to do Web sites

## Feedback from Catalogers (con't)

- What do you attribute the savings to?
- Not having to search for or supply the place, publisher, and date of publication
- Elimination of redundancies (e.g., statement of responsibility, justifying added entries)
- Restricting the selection of descriptive elements to prominent sources
- "In case of doubt" rules in guidelines provided the freedom to make a decision and move on
- Do you feel the record limitations prevented you from supplying important information?
- Subtitles, in certain instances, would have been helpful to 'prop up' a brief or misleading title
- Not doing authority records (it is the "easy" ones that were skipped)

## Reference review

- Several of the reference librarians recruited to recommend sites for the test were also asked to evaluate the resulting records with an eye toward identifying any significant adverse impact on the end user's ability to find, identify, select, or obtain
- To aid in the comparison, they were provided:
- descriptive statistics comparing the full and access level records
- OPAC printouts (brief and full record views) of the 25 records done at both full and access to allow a record-by-record review

## Reference review- Anecdotal comments

- "In general, I feel access level is adequate as long as primary subject headings and summaries are present in the OPAC ... I don't think access level cataloging would adversely affect OPAC searches ..."
- "For most catalog searches the differences between the full level and access level records would not significantly affect the search results."
- "I think the access level records will serve very will for providing users with access to these resources."

## Reference review- Anecdotal comments

- Several reviewers noted that some of the differences between the "full level" and "access level" sets for the same resource were due to factors other than the guidelines, most notably the lack of consistency between catalogers:
- "In fact, greater differences between the two records are caused by cataloger idiosyncracies than from the records not having the same fields (i.e., greater differences between the fields common for the two records than from the lack of certain full level fields in the access record)"
- "... it is impossible not to be concerned about the often total lack of agreement: in several instances, subject headings assigned in full and brief records are entirely different."

## Reference review- suggested improvements

- Reviewers also provided valuable feedback on how the access level records could be improved.  Representative comments include:
- "There should always be a summary, but long quotations from reviews should be avoided. LC should give a course in writing concise, pithy annotations for those catalogers or recommending officers not versed in the technique."
- "Perhaps this information [obvious places of publication, publisher, or beginning date of publication] can be incorporated into the "summary" (annotation) if it is not indicated in ... [separate] fields."
- "I think it is useful for patrons to have some idea of when the record was prepared. But rather than in a cataloger's note, I think the issue could be addressed by having recommenders add a date to their summary statement (e.g., as viewed on Feb. 11, 2005.)"
- "The lack of information about the date the page was viewed is a significant omission on the access level record. This information gives the reader a sense of how old the record is and what a broken link might mean..."

## Future plans

- Given the substantial cost savings derived from access level cataloging identified in the test, and the fact that there is no appreciable loss of access for searchers, the BA divisions suggest the following framework for a "preliminary phase" to be carried out in the next year:
- Continue to apply access level cataloging for non-serial remote access electronic resources (with guideline modifications based on cataloger and reference feedback)
- Expand the group of trained catalogers from the five testers to include all catalogers trained to work on this category of material
- Solicit feedback on the access level core data set, cataloging guidelines, and future plans from internal and external constituencies
- Collaborate with the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (see Objective 2.1.2 in the PCC Tactical Objectives, http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/pcctactobj-2004-06.html)

## Future plans (continued)

- Distribute records created as part of the test, as well as for preliminary phase via normal record distribution products
- Consider additional tests of the functionality of the access level records in the catalog
- Given the considerable savings derived from doing original cataloging at access level, as opposed to adapting copied records at full level, perform only original cataloging for the preliminary phase; re-assess this decision after one year
- Work with other institutions testing the guidelines to decide on the optimal record identification indicia (e.g., encoding level, possible use of authentication code)
- Adjust MARC Validator program to incorporate access level records
- Consider whether the "access level" model might also apply to other types of resources (BA Strategic Plan for 2005-2006, Goal IV, Objective 7)

## Questions, comments

- Please send any comments or inquiries to David Reser (dres@loc.gov)