Inventory Projects An opportunity for catalog enhancement Sarah Hess Cohen Florida State University Music OCLC Users Group March 1, 2016

Situation at FSU Two major issues: 1. Last physical inventory of the score and book collection had been done in Missing items were identified, but nothing was ever done to flag or withdraw the records, so the work was basically wasted. 2. No procedure for dealing with items lost by patrons since the implementation of Aleph in 2005.

Further impetus for cleaning up our act Upcoming ILS migration to III Sierra (Scheduled for summer 2017.) Merger of SUS shared catalog database (12 institutions, 12.5 million Bibliographic records) + Florida College System shared catalog database (28 institutions, 1.67 million records) We needed to get our house in order!

INVENTORY Drudgery Time-intensive Opening known (and unknown) cans of worms Unexpected issues Confronting the sins of past cataloging decisions

But on the other hand... If you do it right, it leaves much less work for the next inventory. Also makes day-to-day cataloging easier. Can be combined with physical weeding project for added benefit. A cleaner catalog is better for us -- and patrons. It’s... a public service!

2013: The Project Begins! Public services staff began by cleaning up thousands of overdue items on patron accounts: Creating reports Checking shelves Writing off items which had been overdue since 2010 or before (Status changed to WITHDRAWN.) Changing status of more recent overdues to LOST

Everyone gets in the act! This project has involved the entire library staff: Collection Development librarian prints out shelf lists and supervises the physical item checking. TRUSTED student workers assist with shelf checking. Processing staff member does repairs, fixes incorrect labels, applies piece count labels, etc.

What about the catalogers? Withdrawals: Deleting item record, holdings record, and bib record (if only holding in SUS database), as well as OCLC holdings. Cleaning up holdings records for multi-volume sets and multiple copy situations. Creating local notes in bibliographic records when necessary. Sometimes finding (or creating) new cataloging copy when it’s obvious the item in hand is not the same.

Why is this important? It hadn’t been done in over 20 years. We needed to confront the legacy of outdated cataloging practices. (Not to mention mistakes and bad decisions!)

Book Collection inventory: 2014 First issue: creating a shelflist -- not the easiest thing to do in Alpeh! 105 items not on shelf changed to Missing status. Others found in the wrong location. Over 700 items (nearly all duplicate copies) physically withdrawn from collection for various reasons: Condition Low Circulation Stats (Do we really need 2 copies? Or 3? Or 6?) Superseded by new editions (We’d leave one copy.)

Score inventory: items changed to Missing status. 1,045 duplicate copies/volumes withdrawn or discarded. But wait, there’s more! First-ever (?) close examination of items and comparison to catalog. This took the efforts of 1 librarian and 2 part-time graduate students. Numerous issues found...

Conflicts between catalog and label

Same edition, different Cutters

Volume and copy level clean-up

Much better!

Different printings, same edition?

Call number weirdness...

We found some stray lambs...

And some surplus copies...

... and some items that just needed to be put out of their misery.

Piece counts added to all multi-part items This practice did not begin until the mid-90s (due to lack of capability in NOTIS.) Items cataloged previous to then had piece counts added in a haphazard fashion. Descriptions added when needed (i.e. “Score + 2 parts”, “11 leaves”, “2 scores, 1 bound in”.) Piece counts are in a Circulation note in the Item Record, as well as a physical label in the score binder.

Added Bonus: Cleaning up Union records Due to the merge of 11 State University System catalogs in 2012, records are often a mess! Multiple contents notes Non-proprietary fields treated as proprietary Multiple instances of personal names, with differing levels of authority control Any time we have to touch a bibliographic record, we try to clean up these problems.

What’s next? CD inventory Currently about 2/3 through the 26,000+ collection. Many fewer problems, since oldest ones were only cataloged 25 years ago. Main problems are missing items, physical damage to cases, labels, etc. Also creating piece counts for multi-disc sets, which have the same issues as scores & parts.

DVD Inventory -- piece of cake! The DVD collection is a paltry 1,400 items, none of which were cataloged before late 1990s.

Further down the line: LP collection MAJOR can of worms! The collection dates back to pre-1950s. Many early discs are in poor condition. A large number of older discs were cataloged under AACR. We are currently awaiting remote storage space; will tackle this when it’s time to move them (and not a minute earlier.)

Questions? Sarah Hess Cohen Warren D. Allen Music Library Florida State University