Report and ppts from "Old Records, New Records, New Interfaces" (Catalog Form and Function Interest Group Forum at ALA Annual)

From: Laura Akerman <liblna_at_nyob>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:56:18 -0400
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Apologies for sending you to a wiki page that's not available for 
viewing without a login - I didn't realize (and am trying to get 
changed).  Meanwhile, here's the report:

*Old Records, New Records, New Interfaces*
ALCTS Catalog Form and Function Interest Group
Saturday, June 28, 10:30-12:00 a.m.
Marriott Anaheim Platinum Room 6

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first part of the meeting consisted of a Forum, "Old Records, New 
Records, New Interfaces"; presentations by librarians from three 
libraries who have recently been involved in implementing "next 
generation" catalog interfaces:

    * Charley Pennell, /Principal Cataloger for Metadata, NC State
      University Libraries/ (Endeca) Presentation
      <http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/endeca/presentations/200806-ala-pennell.ppt>
    * Mary Charles Lasater, /Authorities Librarian, Jean and Alexander
      Heard Library, Vanderbilt University/ (Primo) Presentation
      <http://www.presentations.ala.org/images/7/70/Old_records%2C_New_records%2C_New_interfacesLasater.ppt>

    * Cheryl Gowing, /Director, Information Management & Systems,
      University of Miami/ (Encore) Presentation
      <http://www.presentations.ala.org/images/6/60/Old_records_new_records_ALA_2008_-_encore.ppt>


The presentations gave a lot of interesting detail about the available 
features in each product and the ongoing implementation decisions and 
changes involved. Pennell talked about the evolution and changes to 
NCSU'S Endeca implementation, and its expansion to serve the TRLN 
consortium with "skins" for each institution. Lasater showed how 
implementing the new interface raised many questions about handling of 
topic and genre, controlled vs. uncontrolled vocabulary, how faceted 
browsing should work and what capabilities of the "back end" system can 
and can't be found in the new. Gowing discussed the capabilities of a 
recently implemented Encore system, including details of relevance 
ranking and tag clouds, "soft launch" and user feedback gathering. All 
talked about cataloging and data cleanup issues. Presentations were 
followed by a question and answer session.

At the end of the meeting, Charley Pennell was elected Chair and Richard 
Guajardo, Head, Integrated Library System, University of Houston 
Libraries, was elected Vice Chair/Chair Elect.

Past chair Laura Akerman volunteered to head the effort to develop a 
wiki site, and interested members stayed after the meeting to discuss 
development of a section of descriptions and functional evaluations for 
MARC record sets, with a goal of having something available before the 
end of the summer.

Laura

-- 
Laura Akerman, Technology and Metadata Librarian
Robert W. Woodruff Library, Room 128
Emory University
Atlanta, Ga. 30322
ph:  (404) 727-6888  / email:  liblna_at_emory.edu
Received on Thu Jul 17 2008 - 10:29:32 EDT