Bibliographic Services — McMaster University Libraries

The transformation of McMaster’s University Library is well underway, and Bib Services has seen some major changes.

We’re making progress on our shelf-ready arrangements and should have those up and running soon. In the mean time, with our numbers reduced and books still coming in, we needed to find a way to keep them moving along. As a result, we’ve significantly altered our approach to monograph cataloguing.

In the past, our decision on whether to accept copy cataloguing records was made based on where the record came from. Library of Congress records were accepted, others were passed on to Original Cataloguing for further review. We have abandoned that approach, and are now using the quality and completeness of the record as the basis for deciding which ones need further scrutiny.

Under our new procedures, we are accepting catalogue records that meet or exceed the BIBCO Core Record Standard for books. Since we import the bulk of our records from OCLC, we are looking at records with an Encoding Level (ELvl) of 4, I, or blank, indicating that they have Core or Full level cataloguing. This leaves a much smaller number of records that are automatically routed to cataloguing.

Making this change will allow our cataloguers to focus their attention on Research Collections and unique McMaster resources, scores, Canadian history and literature, e-resources, and other areas where their expertise and experience are needed.

The initial set of procedures developed for use by our acquisitions staff, who import records at the time of ordering, is outlined below. We are already modifying portions of this to allow more materials to pass with less review. It’s going to be a work in progress for a while, but will allow us to get resources out to our users more quickly than before.

• At the point of ordering, import a catalogue record from OCLC, matching the author, title, publisher, and date of the book to be ordered.
  • If there is more than one record for the item in OCLC, prefer the record with ELvl code I, 4, or blank.
• If any of the following are true, create a workslip note, “Send to cataloguing on receipt.”
  • The catalogue record’s ELvl code is other than I, 4, or blank
  • The catalogue record contains a series statement in field 440 or 490.
  • The catalogue record lacks a complete (both ‡a and ‡b are present) call number in either field 050 or 090.
  • The item is Canadian history or literature (Brian Prince).
  • The item will be located in Research Collections or Russell Archives.
• If there is no record in OCLC, create a brief record and add the workslip note from above.
• If none of the above applies, and the record’s ELvl code is I, 4, or blank, cataloguing is considered complete.
  • Continue to delete 856s containing “access” URLs.
  • You may send to cataloguing records that you find questionable, but we will generally accept as correct records with the specified ELvl codes.