Meeting Minutes for 10/28/2020

 Announcements

• Marmot is participating in FOLIO Bugfest
• Currently loading test records for Delta migration
• New Sierra Idea Lab challenge 

 Completed action items

 Discussion Topics

•  Demonstration of BTCat from Baker & Taylor
  • Baker & Taylor sent Patrick, Eric Thronson, and Jean Johnson, 
  • Patrick demonstrates their new cataloging product BTCat.  It is very new in trial stage
  • Montrose is doing a trial of the product
  • It is based on BT’s internal cataloging system
  • Searching BT’s internal database plus Follett’s internal database
  • Also searches any Z39.50 database, including OCLC or SkyRiver if you have a login
  • Combines all results and ranks them on the fly based on your own criteria for record quality.
  • Merge record function to allow you to create a new record by pulling in the best parts from two different records.
  • There are many useful macros.
    • Automatically create 246 for numerals in a 245.
    • Automatically remove parts of records
    • Add ISBN-10 based on 13
  • Many others
  • Shelley asks if they can cooperate with other vendors to supply records for books purchased elsewhere like OCLC Cataloging Partners
    • They don’t have arrangements with other vendors
    • They will have the ability to allow you to upload a batch of ISBNs and get a file of records, but they aren’t likely to communicate to get that directly from other vendors
  • Lloyd asks if they are combining the BT and Follett databases, or are they going to still be separate. 
    • Yes, they will be combined.
  • Lloyd asks about how the community contribution system works.
    • That does not harvest member databases.
    • They ask specific libraries if they will contribute records
• Discussion continues after the B&T people leave the meeting
  • It seems the big problem with this would be that they are never going to get much cooperation from rival vendors
  • Montrose is interested because they primarily use B&T
  • Shelley says that one of their book vendors does already work with Destiny (which is also owned by Follett) so it may be possible that other vendors will work with them
  • Nina points out that this could create more duplication and she asks what problem would it solve.
    • It is cheaper that OCLC
    • But the one library gets to save money while the rest have to deal with the duplication problems
  • If a library used this they might still need to keep up an OCLC ILL subscription.  They would only save money if they dropped OCLC entirely.
  • Montrose asks if anyone in Marmot has dropped OCLC ILL and is depending only on Prospector for ILL.
  • Vail is doing this.  They only get ILL from Prospector.
  • Montrose says BT would charge them about $5,000 a year for BTCat while OCLC is $7,500.
  • Jamie says another source of records means more duplication.
  • Montrose says they already dedup each file of records they load, so this would be the same.
  • B&T does supply records with OCLC numbers.
  • But these may have the same problem we found with Ingram records where they copy the OCLC record when it is brand new, they improve it while the OCLC ends up with a different primary record.  So the OCLC for the BT record is on a bad record in OCLC.
  • Nina thinks it’s wrong for BT to put the OCLC number of what are really their own records.
  • Lloyd says that the new BTCat is not really different from what is happening now with BT customers.  It is just a new interface to get BT records.
  • Mary at Montrose points out that OCLC is participating in the B&T cataloging process.  Even though the final record is not the same B&T gets the original record from OCLC.
  • The faux OCLC records that the vendors provide are quality records, and they match the same materials. 
  • Libraries have the option of getting the records directly from OCLC instead, but it’s an extra charge.
  • You have to be an OCLC member to get the vendors to give you the faux OCLC records.
  • Amy at Montrose says that they have B&T check Sierra for a record to attach to first.  If there is no record in Sierra, they will create a record and submit it to OCLC before giving them the record.  They load new records with the [L] load profile from B&T since they are OCLC records.
  • B&T seems more integrated with OCLC than Ingram, but if Montrose were to go with BTCat then they would drop OCLC and that integration would cease.
  • B&T records are up to OCLC standards, but if they don’t have OCLC numbers then could create duplicates.
  • Montrose does check each file they load for duplicates.
  • This would be similar to if they joined SkyRiver.  The problems are the same.
  • We can continue to discuss BTCat next month.  Lloyd will attend their training.
• Lloyd brings up the discussions that have been happening at the FOLIO Consortia SIG
  • They have been talking about the possibility of an open source bib utility to replace OCLC
  • This week we found out that they have been having the same conversation at the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICLC)
  • Some members of the Big Heads group of directors of the largest technical services departments have also been having a similar discussion
  • There seems to be widespread dissatisfaction with OCLC and a lot of interest in the possibility that an open source replacement could come out of ReShare
  • We had a meeting with the FOLIO Consortia SIG and the ICLC
  • All this means that the bibliographic universe is becoming more and more fractured.

Ongoing Action Items

 Next Duplicates Sub-committee meeting: Nov, 11

Next UCC meeting: Nov, 18