Original_To:  JNET%"INNOPAC@Maine"
Original_cc:  RITCHIE
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.innopac
Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 11:02:00 PDT
              <INNOPAC@MAINE.BITNET>
From:         RITCHIE@ACUSD.BITNET
Subject:      Long vs short order records responses

From:         Paula Nielson <FPIN@LMUACAD>

>About the long vs. short bibs:  I am frequently grateful that we have
>short bibs from acquisitions as they are immediately identifiable,
>have no added index points, do not contain call numbers to confuse, and
>may end up being removed or replaced whereas full bibs are more permanent.
>Short bibs are really temp records, and most other acquisitions systems
>are designed to have temps at time of order to be replaced by a permanent
>record selected or input by a cataloger.

>At my last job we had a program called "cataloging at point of receipt."
>This meant that for easy materials (DLC copy, no series statement) the
>acquisitions person would catalog the item at the time of receiving on
>the system.  In this case having a full record already on the system
>would save time as the receiving person merely validated while receiving that
>the book and copy matched and perhaps would also fill in CIP-related
>data such as the collation.  A large portion of the new collection
>bypassed the Cataloging Dept. going directly to the shelves after labelling.
>To do this type of operation you need very bright acquisitions people
>who also are trained somewhat in copy cataloging.

From: AKEBABIAN%COLGATEU.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

>At the time Colgate brought up III, they were supporting only the short bibs
>for order records (Jan. 1991).  We have been considering changing to long
>bibs, primarily in order to cut down on our OCLC expenses (must re-search &
>overlay *every* record, when probably 75-80% are exactly the records used
>for the orders)  This is very hard to justify in the present economic
>climate!  I still have a lot of questions, though, about just how the
>long bib as order works.  (Does it display call number & subjects in the
>OPAC?  Will new headings report?  What editing actions will the cataloger
>have to take in order to change the OPAC display from the on-order type to
>a fully cataloged record?)  Unfortunately, the III documentation is not
>helpful.  We have not persued the matter via the listserv, etc. because
>we feel the III editing is not advanced enough to support doing most of our
>work on III rather than OCLC.  This is about to change, though, so we are
>much more serious about investigating the long bib for orders.  I'm looking
>forward to your summary.  Would it be possible to include names & email
>addresses from your respondents who are using the long bib, so those of
>us who are investigating changing our practice can contact them? (Just a
>thought).

From: amyers@bu-pub.bu.edu

>I can't speak for all of BU, but I can speak for our little part of
>it!  There are four separate libraries on campus who share the same
>INNOPAC here; three are OCLC libs and we are RLIN, which gives us
>some flexibility in what we do.

>At law, we opted for a fuller bib record than the ones used by the
>other folks.  It's not complete:  we don't take selected fields
>(such as that long one on serials that says where something is
>indexed).  In fact, it took us a long time to dream up our list
>of fields that we WOULD take.  However, we do have full imprint,
>collation, series, subjects, and added entries, as well as any
>unique numbers (ISSN, ISBN, LCCN, SuDoc).

>Why?  We knew that some things sat in the backlog for longer than
>we'd like, and access to the material was limited by what was on
>the order record.  It's our hope that by providing increased access,
>we can help our patrons identify material they want
>that is already on order or awaiting processing.  It hasn't been in
>place that long yet so we don't know whether we will regret it by
>an increased demand for rush/priority cataloging.

>So far there haven't been any problems in law having fuller bibs
>than anyone else.  Mostly we do our own thing, anyway, so it doesn't
>come up much.  In fact, no one even batted an eye when we told them
what fields we wanted to be mapped.
>

From: "Bonath,Gail J" <BONATH@AC.GRINELL>

>We have two acquisitions units, one for monographs and the other for sound
>recordings.  Both download what I believe you would call long bibs, but they
>do use different downloading tables.

>You probably want to clarify with Innovative what the difference is between
>long and short bibs.  For a brief period of time our downloading table was
>set up for the "short" bibs and they were non-MARC records which caused
>problems for us -- titles were indexed under articles, subject headings
>filed incorrectly (as if a subdivided heading was all in one subfield).

>Here are some of the reasons we like the long bibs:

>Patrons searching the catalog under subject headings (which is a lot of
>what undergraduates do) can find out if we have something on order, or more
>importantly, in process.  We have set up a procedure so that patrons can
>request in-process items and we have them cataloged in 24 hours.

>Collection development can search under the subject headings to see not
>only what we have on a topic but what has been ordered.

>Our sound recordings acquistions unit wants to have all the uniform titles
>as well as all the composer-title added entries on the record.  Often when
>they are ordering they are checking to see if we have one particular piece
>by a composer.  If the uniform title and added entries were not downloaded
>they would not be able to tell if they were duplicating an order.  They
>also like the uniform title so that the recording files in the proper place
>in the catalog.

>We have not found any problem downloading the long bibs.  I also hope that
>someday we may be able to download only once in acquistions, and not have
>to download in cataloging.  As long as we continue to produce shelf list
>cards this does not seem to be a possibility, but I keep thinking about it.

From: L_BILLS@OLDCC.BRYNMAWR.EDU

>Here are some answers to you question from our point of view.
> We have used the long records from the beginning.  The reason
>was to (1) give the user the most possible information and the most
>possible searchpoints, (2) give our staff the most ways to catch
>duplicates - because sometimes the joint author is given on a
>second request as the author, etc. and (3) so we don't have to
>re-download if the original record is good (especially as
>OCLC export is rather slow) - we just give a student the
>OCLC numbers and have them Update the record so our holdings
>appear.

>At multi-acquisition sites, could one library use the short bibs and another
>use long bibs?  Are there any problems for patrons with this approach?

> I think this would be difficult becuase the long library
>would presumably not like having their record overlaid with a
>short record.  - I guess you could set it so that the long library
>downloads would overlay short records but that the short library
>would not overlay on downloading.  But then the long library
>would also be able to overlay (in adverterntly) short CATALOGING
>records.  If no acquisitions overlays of records were allowed
>to safeguard cataloging records, the long library would sometimes
>have to settle for the short reocrd.

>In terms of patrons - I doubt they notice.  They would be getting
>less information but they probably won't object.

>The problems with the long record have to do with heading reports.
>Which short records only the author will show up on FTU reports,
>but with the long record, you will get more elements showing up
>on reports before the books are in-house.  However, with release
>8 you can hold back printing of heading reports until the
>cat date is in the bib record, so this issue goes away.

>The other reason for not downloading full records has also
>gone away - it used to be that the first t tag printed on the
>PO - so a lot of 240 fields printed.  Now III has fixed it so only
>the 245 prints.

>We have been pleased with this procedure - even when the old
>problems existed.

From:         Janet Lai <JLAI@LMUACAD.BITNET>

>For approval plan books, the duration of acceptance/processing of the items in
>the Acquisitions/Serials Dept is no more than a week.  Recently, we have decide
>d to create short bib records and attach order records for them and write down
>the bib #s on the gutter of each book.  Then Cataloging Dept will overlay our
>short bib with the OCLC record. This will reduce the cost of searching in the
>OCLC & speeds up the whole processing of the approval plan books.

We found out we can have more than one order record.  Our Law Library will
export a long record from OCLC to PAC.  They will also export the record to
the OCLC ME.  Catalogers will make corrections on ME and over lay records
from ME.  Copley Library staff will continue to use the short record.  We
have not had any problem with this method so far.   Barbara Ritchie
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU