June 7, 2021, 2:00pm

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• Review action items from 2/1/21
  •  Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and June Rutkowski
    

    • • Dear Alma Executive Oversight Committee members,

        The consolidation of Harvard OCLC symbols from more than 30 down to 12 is being implemented as part of the OCLC Data Sync Project. As the project nears completion, the OCLC Coordination Working Group will adjust the way Harvard libraries are represented to the world in OCLC’s WorldCat and WorldCat Registry, which includes, among other things, the name of the library, its address, email and phone contacts, homepage, and MARC Organization Code. All except the MARC code are visible to the general public in WorldCat (see sample WorldCat Screenshots, attached).  The current WorldCat Registry information for the symbols to be retained after Data Sync (plus Botany, for reasons explained below) is compiled at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-ICAJOU-X5RmIM8ponRq_NQca2fZ4UbQ0NXJE1Cf2Rs/edit?usp=sharing.

        In many cases the symbol consolidation is straightforward. For example, the many small libraries that had been listed, oddly, as “HCL Technical Services” in WorldCat will now appear as “Harvard University, Harvard Library”.  The libraries that retained separate symbols –for example, Law, Fine Arts, Divinity, and Dumbarton Oaks-- did so because of business requirements: for accreditation, due to geographical distance, or to enable participation in subject-focused collaboratives. 

        Ernst Mayr Library of Comparative Zoology and the Botany Libraries are a slightly different case. Originally proposed to be merged into the Harvard Library symbol, the directors of both libraries explained that they needed to retain their symbols to support their contributions to the work of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (statement attached).  Rather than retaining both symbols, Harvard Library decided that in the OCLC context the Botany Libraries would share the Ernst Mayr symbol.

        Data sync for these units has not yet taken place and is scheduled for the end of the project in March 2021. When it goes through, the challenge will be to make the result comprehensible to those at Harvard and beyond who encounter resources held under that symbol. The names, addresses, homepages, contact information, and MARC symbols for the Botany (BOH) and Ernst Mayr (HMZ) symbols are different, and there is no actual joint entity to reference. How should we proceed?

        A second, much smaller issue is with the OCLC symbol (HUL) for Harvard Library itself, which now encompasses most of HCL, FAS, and many of the graduate school libraries.  What address and contact information should be provided for it?

        Thank you for considering these questions,

        Robin

      • 1/13 update.  Amy has cleared the addresses to be used with Laura Wood.   Because Botany is highly used for Special Collections (third highest), having them being the public address is Laura's preferences. Amy will close the loop with 1/13 update.  Amy has cleared the addresses to be used with Laura Wood.   Because Botany is highly used for Special Collections (third highest), having them being the public address is Laura's preferences. Amy will close the loop with Laura and send update to Robin's email.

      • 2/1 update. FAS had some follow up questions. Amy Van Epps will get back to Amy Boucher with their final address decision. Allison Powers will be given the green light to move forward with the reclamation.
     Michelle will schedule a meeting with Controller's (Tom B, Sarah B) office to discuss proposed strategy for leveraging Ebsco to help with serials check in
    • • .
• Review projects list

February 1, 2021 1:00 pm

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• Review of past action items
  •  Action items from 4/6/20
    
    •  Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and Karen
      Discussion Notes:
      While Amy was unable to join us for the December meeting, those in attendance discussed the background correspondence from Robin Wendler below.  The group agreed that given our past practice of not embracing brevity in our naming OCLC symbols, that we could simply concatenate the names associated with the two symbols being consolidated, and call it: "Ernst Mayr Library of Comparative Zoology & Botany Libraries" for maximum clarity.  We agreed that the address for MCZ would be most appropriate to use, since of the two libraries, MCZ will likely be more active with Resource Sharing.
• Status discussion regarding reimplementation of OCLC Bib Notification Service (BNS)
  Michelle inquired about the possible timeline for resuscitating BNS, knowing that LTS resources are scarce for projects.  Laura expressed that ReCAP and BD Shared Index projects are active projects that would take prescidence. The latter project does not have a hard timeline yet, so an estimate to completion is difficult to determine.

  The group discussed pre-work to the BNS project that might be done by others outside LTS. That could include analysis of the current OCLC service and developing a greater understanding of what would need to be added to protect our records more than previously. (To avoid such debacles as the "Winnie the Pooh" etc. incident)

  The OCLC service is now called WorldShare Record Manager and is a completely new architecture than the former BNS service, so it would be a whole new service implementation, even though some of the shared rationale and background work with the HL community that the prior BNS Working Group did would still have value.  Scott suggested that we should look at what peers are doing with OCLC and Alma, including what Penn is doing and what Minn is (Laura will inquire with Betsy at Minn before she retires at the end of the month).  We will revisit topic in new year when we review project list.

• Hathi Trust ETAS - renewals policy.  Is there anything we can do to renew items that were checked out at the time of shut down? We are not assessing fines so there is no financial impact but the overdue notices are stressful for users. Could alter the text of the notices to let people know that if their items are in ETAS they will not be able to renew them. Big push for the Sept. 10 due date is now done.”
  Discussion Notes:
  The group discussed how we can facilitate renewal of HathiTrust titles that have been prevented from renewal at this time. We decided to could turn off the "do not renew" flag for ETAS.
  

November 2, 2020 11:00 am

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