Winter, Vol. 15, no. 3 (2002)

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From the Editors

As the New Year dawns, and the decorations are packed away (we hope!) we look forward to a rewarding and exciting year in the field of library technical services. We can look back over the last century and see the drastic changes and progressions that have occurred in our area of professionalism. What awaits us at the other end of this new century? We idly go about our daily work, not realizing that we are at the beginning of a new and exciting time for the entire planet. This is the 2nd year of a new century that will explode in the information arena. Though we can only imagine, I wonder what our children's children will be gazing upon in their workspace in the year 2087 or 2099. I'm sure our forefathers, who labored diligently for a week's wages to feed their families, didn't think a lot about futuristic contraptions that might make this labor easier. However, they did occur during the 1800's and the 1900's, so we can logically assume that things will continue to evolve over the next 100 years.

How big will the Internet get? How big can the Internet get? Will it literally explode with information? Or will it split, like a cell, into 2, 3, or 4 Internets? Will futuristic librarians still suffer from carpal tunnel or neck cramps from peering into computer terminals? Oh, to be a fly on the wall of a new-age cubicle in some technical services area of a library in the year 2069!

Connie Machado Head of Cataloging Rowland Medical Library University of Mississippi Medical Center cmachado@rowland.umsmed.edu

Walter Morton Associate Director/Technical Services & Systems Rowland Medical Library University of Mississippi Medical Center wmorton@rowland.umsmed.edu

From the Chair

Happy New Year to all TSS members!

As we move into the second half of our membership year, plans for the annual meeting in Dallas are gathering momentum. Your chair-elect and program chair Sandy Arnesen has developed a most stimulating program, where we can both learn and participate. Look for her article in this issue of Technical Trends for the details. We hope many of you will be able to come. Our business meeting, in addition to brief reports by our committee chairs, will include a presentation from NLM. I will finalize the topic with Duane Arenales in January, so if you have any critical issues that you would like to hear about from NLM, please e-mail to me right away.

I have submitted a mid-year report of our activities to MLA headquarters—please see it elsewhere in this issue. Thanks to all our hardworking committee chairs and members for their efforts on behalf of technical services librarianship and our section.

On another note, Walter Morton, co-editor of this newsletter, has told me that he would like to relinquish that task at the end of this year. We thank him for years of hard work, and are happy that he will continue as our webmaster. Co-editor Connie Machado has agreed to continue, and would love to have the help of a web-savvy member to co-edit with her. Please e-mail to me if you are interested, giving me some information about your experience in editing and web activities. This would be a great opportunity for applying those skills.

Will integrated library systems develop to be the gateway to all our resources? At our library, we are wondering if our web site is a temporary gateway until the ILS measures up. If your library has integrated selected web resources through the OPAC, would you write up an article about it or let us know through the TSS electronic list (mlatsslist@lists.stanford.edu as of January). It would be an interesting issue for discussion.

Maggie

Maggie Wineburgh-Freed
Chair, Technical Services Section, 2001-2002
mwfreed@usc.edu

MLA Technical Services Section Program Planning

The upcoming MLA meeting will include exciting programming sponsored by the Technical Services Section. We are the major sponsors for two sessions. The first session is an invited panel of speakers, which will each talk about the digital archiving of electronic journals. The three panelists are: Vicky Reich, Director of the LOCKSS Project at Stanford University; Edwin Sequeria, National Center for Biotechnology Information and co-manager of PubMed Central; and Ian Bannerman, Director of Journal Sales and manager of the online journal service at Blackwell-Synergy. He also sits on the Advisory Board of the UK National Electronic Site License Initiative (NESLI). The panelists each offer a unique perspective on the archiving of electronic journals. This issue is on the minds of librarians everywhere as we grapple with budgetary problems and are sometimes forced to make a choice between online and print journals.

The second session for which TSS has major responsibility is the Special Topics Roundtable, aka "Hot Topics Roundtable." This year we are presenting the following topics for discussion: "E-Journals with library budget shortfalls" –topic introduced by Marianne Burke, Director Dana Medical Library, University of Vermont; "Disappearing Content: a continuing problem with electronic resources" – topic introduced by Catherine Reiter, Head of Resource Services, Denison Memorial Library, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; "Dump MARC for XML" – topic introduced by Dick Miller, Systems Librarian and Head of Technical Services, Lane Medical Library, Stanford University; and "SERHOLD: new issues in an electronic world" – topic introduced by Deena Acton, Serials Records, National Library of Medicine. We anticipate this session will generate much discussion. Each topic will be introduced briefly and then, the topic will be opened up for audience discussion. This format offers us the opportunity to find out how librarians are dealing with these important issues.

These sessions are tentatively scheduled for the following times, but are subject to change.  Please check your MLA program for meeting times.
(http://mlanet.org/am/am2002/program/index.html)

•    Digital Archives                Monday 5/20/02    10:30am-12:00pm
•    Hot Topics Roundtable     Tuesday 5/21/02    3:00pm-4:00pm

The TSS is also a contributing co-sponsor of an invited speaker session sponsored by the Collection Development Section. The speaker is Tom Sanville, Director of OhioLink. He will talk about the purchase of publisher packages as opposed to individual titles and the usage of all the titles. OhioLink has been following this trend and has collected some interesting data.

I look forward to seeing you at MLA in Dallas.

Sandy Arnesen
University of Colorado Health Science Center
Sandy.Arnesen@UCHSC.edu

Opportunities for Professional Development

The purpose of this column is to list opportunities which may be of interest to our members.  While the column is not intended to be a comprehensive listing, the compiler/editor welcomes information on continuing education opportunities for possible inclusion in future editions of the column.  Although some of the courses listed below may indicate the awarding of continuing education units, only those specifically indicated as being MLA-approved have received prior approval from the Medical Library Association.

Winter ' 02 Learning Opportunities

Please help me improve this column! There are so many meetings, conferences, and workshops available, and I do not always know which ones to feature here. So, please send me any suggestions for events to include, and please also send me general feedback about this column. Is it helpful? How can I make it more helpful? You can reach me at the address/phone number/e-mail address listed below. Thanks!

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Distance Education Opportunities

 Fundamentals of Acquisitions

Dates TBA

Designed for librarians and paraprofessionals new to acquisitions, this Web-based course from ALCTS covers the following five topics:

• Goals of Aquisitions Services
• Methods and Basic Functions of Acquisitions
• Vendors
• Ethics
• Budget/Finance and Accounting

Instructors are Trisha L. Davis and Carol P. Diedrichs of Ohio State University.

Cost: TBA
For more information: http://www.ala.org/alcts/now/foa.html

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Calendar of Events

January - February - March - April
Planning Ahead

January

Tools and Concepts for Next-Generation Catalogers

January 17, 2002; New Orleans, LA

This ALA Midwinter preconference, presented by Erik Jul of OCLC, "provides a practical understanding of cataloging Internet resources through examining key USMARC fields and AACR2 rules. An introduction to metadata, focusing on the Dublin Core and other alternative description methods, including TEI, EAD and GILS." The session features small-group discussion and a guided lab.

Cost: $125-150
For more information: http://www.oclc.org/institute/events/kam_01-17-2002.htm

ALA committee meetings, exhibits, and lots more, including preconferences on collaborating with faculty and digital reference service.

Cost: $53-240 (preconferences extra).
For more information: http://www.ala.org

SOLINET is offering a series of three workshops on cataloging with AACR2: Description (January 29), Access Points I (January 30), and Access Points II (January 31).

Cost: $125-165 per workshop
For more information: 

• Description: http://www.oclc.org/institute/events/kam_01-17-2002.htm 
• Access Points I: http://www.solinet.net/cet/registration/workshopdesc.cfm?wkspID=05AACR22 
• Access Points II: http://www.solinet.net/cet/registration/workshopdesc.cfm?wkspID=05AACR23 

This joint meeting of the Medical Library Group of Southern California and Arizona & the Northern California and Nevada Medical Library Group includes keynote speeches by Scott Garrison (UNC), Dick Miller (Stanford) and Kim Dority (e-global library), a variety of contributed papers and programs, and CE courses on Web searching, benchmarking, and open-source digital library software.

Cost: $195 plus additional $60-120 per course for CE
For more information: http://www.mlgsca.mlanet.org/jtmtg2002/

February

According to the workshop description, "This program will outline the range of solutions available for delivering database-driven content over the web... attendees will understand how a dynamic web site works, be able to identify applications and select appropriate solutions; understand basic concepts of relational database design as they relate to displaying data on the web; gain practical skills in how to implement several software solutions. "

Cost: $180-295
For more information: http://www.amigos.org/training/lita-database.html

For beginning catalogers and others who need to know the basics of MARC records, this workshop will cover:

• how MARC affects OPAC displays and indexing
• the importance of fixed field coding
• the need for correct indicators
• why we need so many fields and subfields
• how to read a USMARC record and talk MARC to catalogers

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnother.html#INTRO

"This special two-day workshop teaches catalogers the absolute, utter minimum requirements that will improve matching when MARC records are sent to the OCLC union database for batch loading." It covers data that must be present and correct, data used for successful matching, attaching library holdings, and fixing common problems.

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnother.html#BAREBONES

This workshop is designed to teach "Core Cataloging Skills that will enable you to develop your talent for juggling cataloging rules, coding standards and the requirements of your own system to make MARC records that really work." The emphasis is on books.

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnmain.html#BLITZ

According to the Web site, this workshop is "an intense and practical four-day workshop as Prof. Olson focuses your concentration on cataloging electronic resources, including: CD-ROMs; books with discs; DVDs; interactive multimedia; and Internet resources. Prof. Olson will cover descriptive cataloging, following the Anglo-American cataloging rules, second edition, 1998 revision, with recent JSC-approved (but not yet published) changes, and MARC 21 coding and tagging of these tricky materials."

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/

According to the program description, "This program is a combination of instruction on the theory of proxy servers, their use in library situations, and practical examples of implementations. The background of proxy servers as defined in the HTTP protocol specification will be outlined, followed by a discussion of the application of proxy servers for library uses… This program is intended for systems librarians and computer professionals with a background in providing web services. Some technical knowledge about the management of web servers is assumed. Knowledge of C and/or PERL is recommended for the implementation examples." The instructor is Peter Murray, Computer Services Librarian at the University of Connecticut Law Library.

Cost: $80-145
For more information: http://www.amigos.org/training/proxy.html

March

Online Northwest

This annual library automation conference features Mike Eisenberg (Dean of the Information School, University of Washington) as keynote speaker, plus concurrent sessions on information literacy, digitization, Web portals, interfaces to journal holdings data, PDAs in medicine and public health, usability testing, and more.

Cost: $90 before February 7; $110 afterwards.
For more information: http://www.ous.edu/onlinenw/index.shtml

For beginning catalogers and others who need to know the basics of MARC records, this one-day workshop will cover:

• how MARC affects OPAC displays and indexing
• the importance of fixed field coding
• the need for correct indicators
• why we need so many fields and subfields
• how to read a USMARC record and talk MARC to catalogers

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnother.html#INTRO

Developed by the ALCTS Serials Section, Committee to Study Serials Cataloging and the ALCTS Networked Resources and Metadata Committee, this institute emphasizes standards for and implementation of metadata for Web resources. Topics covered include "AACR2, Dublin Core, ISSN, MARC21, RDF, seriality, XML, W3C and the implementation of new rules, guidelines, and standards."

Cost: $325 for ALCTS members and/or California State Library Association members; $375 for ALA members; $425 for non-members; $175 for students.
For more information: http://www.ala.org/alcts/now/metadata2002.html

This workshop is designed to teach "Core Cataloging Skills that will enable you to develop your talent for juggling cataloging rules, coding standards and the requirements of your own system to make MARC records that really work." The emphasis is on books.

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnmain.html#BLITZ

This institute, sponsored by ALCTS, will cover the following topics:

• Library binding in the digital age
• The making of the modern book
• Leaf attachment
• Binding materials: traditional and new
• Collections conservation and commercial library binding
• Managing a quality-control program
• Automated binding records management
• Contracts and agreements for library binding

Cost: $375 for ALCTS members and/or SOLINET members; $425 for ALA members; $475 for non-members; $190 for students.
For more information: http://www.ala.org/alcts/now/librarybinding.html

This annual event features three keynotes and 90 programs on library technology topics. The conference also includes pre- and post-conference workshops on topics such as usability testing for library Web sites, portals and content management, managing public-access computers, professional competencies, web redesign, technology disaster recovery, Web site accessibility, intranet taxonomies and metadata, Web authoring, and grant writing for technology projects.

Cost: Conference, $345-355; pre- and post-conference workshops, $129-209 each.
For more information: http://www.infotoday.com/cil2002/default.htm

A basic workshop on cataloging videorecordings with AACR2 and MARC.

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnmain.html#VIDEO

This workshop will cover cataloging both musical and non-musical sound recordings.

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnmain.html#SOUND

In this workshop participants will "tackle the peculiarities of print serials, e.g., magazines, annuals. (e.g., Fodors and yearly reference items), etc."

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnmain.html#SERIALS

For beginning catalogers and others who need to know the basics of MARC records, this one-day workshop will cover:

• how MARC affects OPAC displays and indexing
• the importance of fixed field coding
• the need for correct indicators
• why we need so many fields and subfields
• how to read a USMARC record and talk MARC to catalogers

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnother.html#INTRO

This conference features concurrent sessions, keynote speakers, and discussion groups on topics of interest to librarians serving off-campus users.

Cost: $275 before April 1; $300 afterwards.
For more information: http://ocls.cmich.edu/conference.htm

This workshop covers the basic principles of authority control, retrospective and ongoing authority control, and the ins and outs of MARC authority records.

Cost: About $100-125 per day depending upon affiliation (and some are free for certain affiliates), so check the Web site for details.
For more information: http://www.marcofquality.com/trnother.html#AUTHORITIES

Planning Ahead

For more information: http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/2002annual/index.cfm

ALA Annual Conference

For more information: http://www.ala.org/events/annual2002/index.html

Transforming Serials: The Revolution Continues: 2002 NASIG Annual Conference

For more information: http://nasig.org/public/conferences.html

18th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning

For more information: http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/

2002 LITA National Forum

For more information: http://www.lita.org/forum02/index.html

Compiled and edited by:
Janet Crum
Oregon Health Sciences University Libraries,
Portland, OR.
Phone: (503) 494-0691
FAX: (503) 494-3227
E-mail: crumj@ohsu.edu
http://www.ohsu.edu/bicc-Library/staff/crumj/

NISO News Plus

Heating up this year, have been standards regarding the electronic publishing industry. Topics from digital rights management to text encoding and various kinds of metatdata have been of great concern. On Thursday December 6, 2001 NISO, BIC (Book Industry Communication), and DOI (The International DOI Foundation) presented a seminar on "The Developing Standards for Infrastructure for Electronic Publications." The Seminar was held at The Commonwealth Institute, Kensington High Street, London.

Currently in review and out-for-ballot in the month of December was the File Specifications for the Digital Talking Book Standard (Z39.86-200x).

November 5-7, 2001 was the E-Book 2001 (third annual) Conference sponsored by NISO and NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology). Topics covered were:

• Government Initiatives & New Technologies for E-books/E-publishing
• Rights Management for Digital Content: To Pay or Not to Pay
• E-Publishing: Business Publishing Solutions & Opportunities for the 21st Century
• Libraries and E-books: Implementation and Policy Challenges
• E-Learning; Advance to the Head of the Class
• Standards and Interoperability

The E-Book 2001 Conference Proceedings are available at: http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/ebook2001/ebook2001.pdf

NISO has redesigned their webpage and unveiled it October 26, 2001. You can now read about how a standard becomes a standard at:
http://www.niso.org/creating/index.html and http://www.niso.org/international/index.html.  A list of all the major national and international standards organizations can be obtained at: http://www.niso.org/world/index.html.

October 5, 2001 marked the establishment of the DCMES (the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set) as an approved standard. For detailed information go to: http://www.niso.org/news/releases/PRDubCr.html.

A NISO standards committee has been appointed to revise the 1995 ANSI/NISO Z39.7 Library Statistics Standard.

Coming up in February 2002 is the convening of a working group to revise the ISBN standard to accommodate an "increasing number capacity of the ISBN system and use of the ISBN in the electronic environment. This group will be chaired by Michael Healy of Whitaker Information Services.

For Additional Reading:

The Transition from Paper: Where Are We Going and How Will We Get There? Edited by R. Stephen Berry and Anne Simon Moffat. Published online, 2001. Cited 11 December 2001. Available at: http://www.amacad.org/publications/trans.htm.   See especially Chapter 6: "Management of the New Infrastructure for Electronic Publications" at: http://www.amacad.org/publications/trans6.htm.  Read about Stephen R. Heller’s description of publishing in the 21st century; a shift from the huge printing press to various computer systems.  For example, Heller wrote:

"One way in which new players in this field could show credibility in this area is to make arrangements with a few major, forward thinking, libraries to archive their e-journals. Libraries could be an ideal repository for electronic journals. "

As always, Nadine Ellero welcomes any communication regarding standards that are being developed, up for review, etc. Please contact:

Nadine P. Ellero
Head of Intellectual Access
University of Virginia Health System
The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
Nadine@virginia.edu

TECHNICAL SERVICES SECTION MLA MIDYEAR REPORT 2001-02

Goal 1. Professional development. In addition to listing CE opportunities available around the country, the CE committee added a section on Distance Education Opportunities which appeared in the Fall 2001 newsletter and was posted on the section’s web site.

Goal 2. Advocacy for technical service librarians. Program committee is working on two section-sponsored programs at the MLA annual meeting, and will co-sponsor up to five additional technical services-related programs with other MLA sections to increase our visibility among our colleagues.

Specifically, our section is the primary sponsor for a Technical Services Special Topics Roundtable session, and for a panel session with Vicky Reich (HighWire Press), Edwin Sequeira (NCBI), and Ian Bannerman (Blackwell Publishing), who will discuss Digital Archives. We are co-sponsoring sessions on Electronic Records Management, Knowledge Management, Diversity of Duties, and Dollars and Sense (2 sessions).

Goal 3. Organization. The section’s Membership committee is planning to build section membership through communication with various non-member and non-renewal populations, i.e., MLA student members and meeting attendees that are not currently section members. They will be working on that activity during the winter months. In addition, they plan to design a membership brochure and stickers to publicize the section.

Goal 6. Information technology. Our webmaster updated the section web site with names of current officers, committees and committee members, and the latest annual report. The newsletter editors posted the fall issue of our newsletter, Technical Trends, on the web. Over 179 individuals are currently subscribed to our e-mail list, and information about subscribing is maintained on the TSS web site.

Our information technology goals have also been furthered by the activities of the TSS Standards Committee, which has reviewed drafts of the following new standards: ISO/PDTR 21449, Content Delivery and Rights Management : Functional Requirements for Identifiers and Descriptors for Use in the Music, Film, Video, Sound Recording, and Publishing Industries. U.S. National Z39.50 Profile for Library Applications, and NISO Z39.86-200x, File Specifications for the Digital Talking Book.

MOTION

This report is informational and requires no action by the Board of Directors.

Maggie Wineburgh-Freed, Technical Services Section chair

Chair: Maggie Wineburgh-Freed
Chair-elect, and Program committee chair: Sandy Arnesen
Immediate past chair, and Bylaws committee chair: Marianne Burke
Secretary/treasurer: Elizabeth Schneider
Section Council representative: Pat Rodgers
Section Council representative-elect: Mary Holcomb
Membership committee chair: Virginia Lingle
Continuing education committee chair: Janet Crum
Standards committee chair: Leopoldo Montoya
Nominating committee chair: Frances Lynch
Ad-hoc research committee chair: Bob Pisciotta
Newsletter editors: Walter Morton and Connie Machado
Webmaster: Walter Morton
E-mail list manager: Mary Buttner

MeSH in CORC Survey by Dan Kniesner, Mary Holt, Betsy Friesen, Joan M. Gregory June 22, 2001

 Abstract

 MeSH (the National Library of Medicine medical subject thesaurus) has been used in the health science community for over 40 years and is used daily in cataloging, indexing and database searching.  The authors believe that the MeSH authority record file should be integrated in OCLC’s Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) environment to assist catalogers and other users in the same way that LC subject headings do.  The authors developed a web-based survey in order to gauge interest in and provide guidance for a proposal to the OCLC Members Council (formerly OCLC Users Council) to recommend that OCLC load MeSH into CORC.  The survey was announced on five major professional electronic mailing lists and conducted during January 2001.  109 responses were received.  Survey results indicated strong support for the proposal.

Introduction

MeSH is a structured subject thesaurus developed for analysis and retrieval of the MEDLARS system at the National Library of Medicine.  It was developed as a single subject authority list for both cataloging of books and indexing of articles and has been used by the health science community for over 40 years.  Following the practices of the National Library of Medicine, the MeSH vocabulary is widely used by medical libraries and academic libraries for health science.   Most health science librarians find MeSH  superior to other thesauri for health science subject analysis as the terms are specific and related to usage in the medical literature. (Lipscomb, 2000).

A desire for MeSH records in OCLC was expressed throughout the 1990s in the Medical Library Association's Technical Services Section and in a sister organization, the Health Sciences OCLC Users Group.  In 1990, a resolution was adopted by the Health Sciences OCLC Users Group (HSOCLCUG) at its annual meeting in Denver urging OCLC to load the MeSH authority file for use by online catalogers.  The idea was thought to be feasible at the time because NLM had begun distributing its MeSH records in MARC authority format the previous year.  Five years passed with continued interest and inquiries but little result.  An updated resolution was adopted by HSOCLCUG in 1995 at its annual meeting in Boulder, Colorado and sent to OCLC.  Five more years passed with no MeSH records in OCLC.

Providing access to quality electronic resources is paramount to the medical community.  The OCLC CORC (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog) pilot project, Jan. 1999-June 2000, offered a number of previously unavailable features and options appropriate to the task of electronic description.  Many in the library community, who had been struggling with metadata and other electronic resource issues,  enthusiastically joined the cooperative project.  The importance of authority control in CORC was voiced from the earliest days.  It is CORC's authority features that promise to make the OCLC global database more than a generic web search engine.  Attending health science librarians expressed interest in loading the MeSH authority file into CORC at the first CORC Participants meeting in summer 1999.  Discussion continued over the next year.  During the July 2000 Participants meeting in Chicago, there was a renewed call for the availability of MeSH subject headings in CORC similar to the current availability of LC subject headings.  At this meeting, health science librarians voiced support of phased-in MeSH authority control, where the first phase might be a browsable file of main headings only. 

The Health Sciences OCLC Users Group made a proposal to renew the Group's 1995 resolution to the OCLC Members Council (Users Council at that time) in October 2000.  Formal proposals from OCLC members or users for changes in OCLC must be submitted to the Members Council for thorough deliberation before the changes can be recommended in turn to OCLC.  The revised proposal requested that OCLC attempt a MeSH load into CORC, with the suggestion that an initial load include only the MeSH records for topical headings. (HSOCLCUG, Oct. 2000).  The authors felt that a limited MeSH load would be better than no load at all, and that it would be more likely to be approved by OCLC than a load of the entire MeSH file.  Three of the authors were involved in the renewal of the HSOCLCUG resolution and the fourth was the first health science librarian to be involved in the CORC project. 

Was there wide support for the limited load of MeSH in CORC being proposed?  The authors were concerned by certain suggestions that medical librarians might not wish to have MeSH in CORC without all the available features.  The authors decided to conduct a survey of CORC users and other librarians who likely had a present or future interest in CORC.  The overall goal of the authors was twofold: (1) to improve the MeSH subject authority tools currently available and (2) to encourage other health science librarians to become involved in describing health-related electronic resources as part of the cooperative effort.   The specific goals of the survey were to discover whether there was significant support or opposition to the idea of a MeSH load, to learn what specifically would be useful to users about a MeSH load, and to profile the survey respondents in terms of how much they had used CORC and how they had been providing access in their libraries to health science electronic resources. The survey was developed as a cooperative endeavor accomplished with email discussion and revision among the authors.

Methodology 

Eight survey questions arose out of discussions among the authors about what data should be collected.   These questions sought information on: experience with CORC, value of an initial load of MeSH topicals only, preference for waiting for full MeSH file, usefulness of MeSH for catalogers and for public service librarians, authority features of interest, methods used by health science libraries in providing access to electronic resources and any additional comments from survey participants.  In addition, participants were required to enter their email addresses for analysis of results by email domain as well as to insure that there was only one response from each email address. 

Question 1 (Use of CORC) was written to profile respondents and to allow more detailed examination of the other survey questions.  OCLC moved CORC from an experimental, developmental project, used by early CORC pioneering libraries, into a production cataloging environment, available to all OCLC libraries in July 2000, so this date is an important watershed date for CORC users.  Not only did the authors want to distinguish between respondents whose use of CORC was limited to the experimental pilot project before July 2000, but also to distinguish between post-July CORC users who used CORC a lot and those who used CORC less.  An arbitrary definition of more than 20 records contributed directly to CORC post-July was chosen to distinguish respondents who used CORC a lot. 

The authors were most interested in polling librarian opinion on whether the entire MeSH apparatus is needed or desired in CORC.  So a primary aim was to learn whether most librarians felt that a comparatively simple load of the basic MeSH headings would be adequate, sans subheadings, tree structures, and lists of allowable combinations.   Four questions were developed toward this purpose. 

Question 2 (Initial Load of MeSH Topicals) was written as a simple direct question of whether a load of only MeSH topical headings would be desirable.  Question 3 (Prefer OCLC wait to load entire MeSH file) was written mostly to elicit responses from survey participants who might want to make a statement about the need for providing everything in MeSH.   Question 4 (Would MeSH Help Catalogers) was written specifically for catalogers.  Question  6 (Would MeSH Help Public Service Librarians) was directed specifically to public service librarians.  Thus, half the survey sought opinions on the need or desirability of MeSH in CORC from different perspectives.  In addition to a yes or no choice, an unsure choice and a comment option was offered in order to encourage all respondents to answer all questions. 

The authors also wanted to find out what specific aspects about having MeSH available online would be most useful to librarians.  This data would be essential in guiding the development of MeSH in CORC.  One would anticipate that OCLC would implement MeSH in a manner similar to the LC subject headings in CORC.  If librarian requirements for MeSH were not substantially different from their requirements for LCSH, implementation of MeSH would be more feasible. 

MeSH authority records in MARC format are available from NLM as an ftp-able file.  One must take the entire file, however.  Individual records or groups of selected records are not available.  MeSH records are also available via a web-based MeSH browser at NLM, but these records are not in MARC format and are not downloadable.  Neither option provides any integration with online OCLC cataloging.  So, the second aim of the survey was to find out what aspects or features of OCLC-integrated MeSH availability were most important to respondents. 

Question 5 (Authority Features of Most Interest) was written to gather this data.  The eight features listed in this question were compiled based on the authors’ experience in using CORC and from general discussions during CORC Users Group meetings and on the CORC-L electronic list concerning the future evolution of CORC. 

The authors were interested in gathering data on what other methods libraries were using to provide access to or organization of health science electronic resources, considering that CORC is one method.  Question 7 (Methods Used to Provide Access to Health Science Electronic Resources) was developed to collect this data.  

Finally, the authors wanted to provide an opportunity for open-ended comment by participants.  Optional comments fields were added to each question.  Question 8 (General Comments) was written to elicit comments independent of the earlier, specific questions.  

The authors wished to have results available by the time the OCLC Members Council met February 11-13, 2001.   After the development of the questions, Joan Gregory and her colleagues at the University of Utah developed a web form that would allow easier tabulation and comparison of results.   The web form also made it possible for the responses to be anonymous and limited to one per email address while allowing for some comparison by email domain.  It was designed and mounted on the Eccles Health Sciences Library web server by Joan Gregory.  CGI programming of the survey was done by Sharon Dennis, also of the Eccles Health Sciences Library.  

The authors did not wish to limit participation to medical catalogers only, assuming that CORC would be a system that would be utilized by a cross-section of librarians and web developers.   Notification of the survey was sent to selected librarian discussion lists and included special interest lists concerned with the description of electronic resources: AUTOCAT, CORC-L, MEDCAT, MEDLIB-L, and OLAC.  The electronic discussion lists and publications of  HSOCLCUG and the Technical Services Section of the Medical Library Association were also used.   Respondents were self-selected, therefore making it difficult to determine if the differences between groups of respondents are statistically significant.  The messages were sent on Jan. 9, with a follow-up reminder between Jan. 25 and 29. The survey ended Jan. 31.  (HSOCLCUG, Jan. 2001)  

Initial results were reported on the HSOCLCUG website and documents were prepared for distribution to the OCLC Members Council.  The HSOCLCUG homepage served as the primary document publication for timely notification of interested members and survey participants.   Electronic versions of the documents were sent to OCLC Members Council and posted to the electronic discussion lists that were targeted for participants.  Further analysis of the results was mounted on the Eccles Health Sciences Library web server with links from the HSOCLCUG homepage.  (HSOCLCUG, April 2001)  

Results 

There were 109 survey respondents.  All responses were valid and countable.  Results are grouped into four areas of interest to the authors: profile of the survey respondents, desirability or need for MeSH in CORC, specific MeSH features desired, and comments. 

Profile of the survey respondents: 

Breakdown of 109 respondents based on e-mail domain. 

Question 1: Experience with OCLC CORC since July 2000.  (only one radio button could be selected) 

Question 7: Please check the methods currently being used in your library to provide access to health science electronic resources (check all that apply).  (More than one checkbox could be checked. Based on percentage of 269 responses.) 

Desirability or need for MeSH in CORC: 

Question 2: Would an initial load of only the MeSH topical headings in the CORC database be of interest? (only one radio button could be selected)

Question 3: Would you prefer that OCLC wait until they are able to load the entire MeSH file, even if it means delaying implementation? (only one radio button could be selected) 

Question 4: Do you believe that availability of an online MeSH authority file via OCLC would help you in cataloging? (only one radio button could be selected) 

Question 6: Do you believe that availability of an online MeSH authority file via OCLC would help public services librarians or non-medical catalogers describe health information? (only one radio button could be selected) 

Specific MeSH features desired: 

Question 5: Please check authority features that most interest you.  (More than one checkbox could be checked. Based on percentage of 514 responses)

Comments of survey respondents: 

Question 8: Other comments and concerns. 

Comments for this question and questions 1-7 are reported in a web-accessible results analysis document (Gregory, 27 April 2001). 

Comments on question 1 (Use of CORC) gave more detail on their use of CORC, such as ‘As a reference librarian, we use it to search’ and ‘We are going to start very soon.’  Comments on question 2 (Initial Load of MeSH Topicals) varied widely from ‘The topical headings are of most interest and would be of most use to me, so it would be helpful to have them loaded’ to ‘Better than nothing’ to ‘Whether the headings get added or not doesn’t matter to me at this point.’  Comments on question 3 (Prefer OCLC Wait) ranged from ‘I prefer to have at least topical headings than wait’ to ‘I would like to see OCLC load the entire MeSH file. However, getting the topical headings in immediately I think would be preferable to waiting.’  Comments on question 4 (Would MeSH Help Catalogers) were overwhelmingly affirmative, such as ‘Absolutely. I’ve been waiting for this since 1992’ and ‘MeSH is just the beginning for mapping vocabulary and developing more in depth cataloging.’  Comments on question 5 (Authority Features of Most Interest) did not add much to the answers.  Comments on question 6 (Would Help Public Services Librarians) varied widely from ‘As a public services librarian, I am looking for ways to enhance my own medical subject pages …. I think CORC would provide a mechanism for consistency in the cataloging/indexing of electronic resources’ to ‘Most public services librarians use keyword searching in OPACs. Why would they be interested in checking subject authorities in OCLC?’  Comments on question 7 (Methods Used to Provide Access to Health Science Electronic Resources) included ‘Currently we employ a number of methods. Staff and users must check a number of different lists and search interfaces’ and ‘We are cataloging electronic journals and monographs now. We have just started adding records for databases to our catalog’ and ‘Done by a reference librarian.’  Comments on question 8 (General Comments) included ‘I am happy to see this effort’ and ‘It would be a great breakthrough for OCLC to finally provide access to MeSH authority records. We strongly support this request.’ 

Discussion 

A substantial majority of respondents (67%) were from academic libraries (.edu).  More than half (56.4%) had used CORC after the pilot project.  Some who had not used CORC since July 2000 had used it during the preceding developmental phase, which was confirmed in their accompanying comments.  (In retrospect, it would have been valuable to have included questions about CORC experience/use prior to July 2000.  However, the comments for this question suggest that most participants had the experience and knowledge of CORC to respond credibly to the survey.   Similarly, it may have been useful to gather profiling data on the areas of work of the respondents (cataloging, reference, administration, etc.) and whether they worked in a health science setting or not, but such questions were not included.)  Most respondents were using several methods of providing access to health sciences electronic resources. 

Respondents' answers to questions 2 (Initial Load of MeSH Topicals) and 4 (Would MeSH Help Catalogers) indicate that a simple load of MeSH has widespread support (76.1%) and that a great majority (83.5%) would find MeSH in CORC helpful.  Finally, the top choices in question 5 (Features of Interest) indicate that respondents would be satisfied with features that CORC already has for LCSH (i.e., Search/Browse (86.2%) and exporting Single MeSH Authorities (67%)).  

Subdividing answers to questions 2, 3, and 4 into three groups by degree of use of CORC suggests little difference among the groups (see three tables below).  For instance, in Question 2, 76.1% of all respondents answered yes on #2 (Initial Load of MeSH Topicals), whereas 79.3% of the no use group answered yes, and 70.4% of the most active CORC users answered yes.  However, the small sample size (109) and the lack of randomness in sampling cannot support an estimate of the statistical significance of these differences.  See the three tables below.